Alex Pretti the latest victim in Minneapolis stand-off against ICE

Like thousands of fellow Minnesotans, he was doing what he could to combat a large-scale ICE enforcement operation in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul

Sun, 25 Jan, 2026 - 19:30

Sean Murray

On the street corners of Minneapolis on Saturday night, people were gathering in groups of five or 10.

Bracing the freezing cold, they stood in silent vigil holding candles to remember another one of their own who had been shot dead by Donald Trump’s federal agents.

Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse. His colleagues described him as a “good, kind person who lived to help”.

Like thousands of fellow Minnesotans, he was doing what he could to combat a large-scale ICE enforcement operation in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul.

It's the kind of response you’d hope your own community would show in the face of what many are likening to Nazi Germany — the comparison feels less hyperbolic each day.

Some people are delivering food and supplies to families afraid to leave their homes.

Others are leading community patrols and informing others when ICE is in the area.

Photographer John Autey receives medical attention in Minneapolis. Picture: Abbie Parr/AP

Pretti was one of many 'observers' documenting ICE actions in real time, which routinely feature indiscriminate targeting, raids of family homes, and people being pulled from their cars.

He was observing ICE in south Minneapolis on Saturday morning when he was shot dead by federal agents.

When I arrived in the state of Minnesota for the Irish Examiner last week, locals from various backgrounds were united on the key points.

They said Trump’s government is smearing the people of this city, that this is more than a simple immigration crackdown, the longer ICE stays here the capacity for harm heightens each day, and, simply, ICE needs to get out of Minneapolis.

All of those points were forcefully re-emphasised on Saturday. Videos of the killing have circulated widely online. They are horrific.

Pretti had a licence to carry a gun, but two sworn witness testimonies of the incident have said he was not brandishing a weapon at any time when he approached federal agents.

He approached them after a woman was knocked to the ground, appearing to try to help her up.

After he was hit with what looked like pepper spray or another chemical agent by an agent, he was outnumbered in a melee on the ground before he was shot multiple times.

Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff who many see as the architect of this terror being unleased on Minneapolis, described the incident as an “assassin trying to murder federal agents”.

Greg Bovino, the head of the US border patrol, said it “looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement”.

Federal immigration officers deploy pepper spray at protesters in Minneapolis. Picture: Abbie Parr/AP

To believe this — what Pretti’s family has described as “sickening lies” — is to deny the reality of your own eyes.

Compounding the fear and violence the Trump administration is inflicting upon a city that doesn’t vote for him and doesn’t want his goons around are the brazen and shameless falsehoods being uttered to justify the indefensible.

It happened when Renee Good was killed earlier this month. It has happened again with Alex Pretti.

In between, the image of five-year-old Liam Ramos, who was taken by ICE and sent hundreds of miles away to a detention centre, encapsulates the pointless cruelty of it all.

As state governor Tim Walz put it: “You ask for peace, we give it — and we get shot in the face on the streets.”

Like when George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in 2020 despite pleading he couldn’t breathe, Minneapolis has become the epicentre of a crisis that has been inflicted upon it.

Locals have no say in the matter. And they can’t take much more of this.

Watching from afar when I return home, I wonder how many more Renee Goods, Alex Prettis, and Liam Ramos’s there will be by the time our Taoiseach is all smiles with a bowl of shamrock in Washington just a few weeks from now.