The Instant Smear Campaign Against Border Patrol Shooting Victim Alex Pretti

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Within minutes of Alex Pretti being shot and killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Trump administration, backed by right-wing influencers, launched a smear campaign against the victim, labeling him a “terrorist” and a “lunatic.”

Pretti, 37, was killed during a confrontation with multiple federal immigration agents. Pretti was an American citizen and a registered nurse who worked in the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a colleague who spoke to the Guardian. Video from a bystander shows Pretti was attempting to help a woman who had been pepper sprayed by an immigration agent when officers tackled him.

Pretti’s killing comes 17 days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three. Good was also 37 at the time of her death.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said during a press conference on Saturday that information about what had led up to Pretti’s fatal confrontation was limited, but at a separate press conference, Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander overseeing federal operations in Minneapolis, claimed to have a full assessment of what had taken place.

Bovino claimed Pretti had approached officers with a 9mm handgun, resisted disarmament, and was shot in what he described as a clear act of self-defense. He claimed the man had two loaded magazines and lacked identification, and alleged that Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement,” while the Border Patrol agent who killed Petri, he said, had extensive training.

The Department of Homeland Security reiterated Bovino’s claims in a post on X that has been viewed over 17 million times at the time of publication, and the narrative was carried unquestioningly by right-wing outlets, like the Post Millenial, which published a story headlined: “Armed agitator Alex Pretti appeared to want 'maximum damage' and to 'massacre' law enforcement when shot by BP in Minnesota.”

Key portions of these claims are contradicted by publicly available evidence.

Multiple videos shared on social media in the moments after the shooting show no indication that Pretti’s gun was visible when he was approached by the officers. Analyses by The New York Times and Bellingcat found that Pretti was clearly holding a phone, not a gun, when the federal officers approached him and forced him to the ground.

On Truth Social, President Donald Trump weighed in to blame Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. “The Mayor and the Governor are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric,” Trump wrote in a post that included an image of a gun DHS claimed Pretti was carrying at the time he was killed.

Vice President JD Vance backed up Trump’s criticism of local leadership, sharing a screenshot of the president’s Truth Social post and writing on X: “When I visited Minnesota, what the ICE agents wanted more than anything was to work with local law enforcement so that situations on the ground didn't get out of hand. The local leadership in Minnesota has so far refused to answer those requests.”

Also posting on X, defense secretary Pete Hegseth added to the criticism of Frey and Walz, as well as denigrating the victim: “Shame on the leadership of Minnesota — and the lunatics in the street. ICE > MN.”

Walz, in a press conference, referred to the federal narrative as “nonsense.”

“Minnesota’s justice system will have the last word” on Pretti’s killing, Walz said, adding, “the federal government cannot be trusted with this investigation.”

Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, went further in a pair of posts, labelling Pretti an “assassin” and a “terrorist.”

The Trump administration’s smear campaign against the victim was quickly repeated by supporters on social media. Nick Sortor, one of a group of right-wing influencers camped out in Minneapolis to cover ICE’s campaign there, falsely referred to Pretti as an “illegal alien” and added that he “was armed with a gun and attempted to PULL IT on agents as he was being apprehended.”

Pretti was a US citizen and born in Illinois, according to family members, who had no criminal record. Sortor’s claims are contradicted by video evidence.

Quoting a video of the shooting, Jack Posobiec, a right-wing influencer with close ties to the White House, wrote on X: “It is most certainly illegal to disrupt federal law enforcement operations and doing so while armed is not only unlawful, it is a good way to get shot,”

Minneapolis police chief O’Hara clarified in a press conference that he believed Pretti was “a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry.”

Despite the Trump administration’s talking points, not everyone on the right was on board. While right-wing podcaster Tim Pool labeled Pretti “a radicalized leftist” in a post on X without providing any evidence, he also disagreed with Bovino’s claim about killing multiple law enforcement officers: “There's no reason to think he was trying to massacre LEOs,” Pool wrote, referring to law enforcement officers.

Dave Smith, a comedian who endorsed Trump in 2024, went further, suggesting in an X post that immigration agents’ killing of a second US citizen in the space of just over two weeks could be a tipping point for Trump’s supporters.

“I’’m an immigration restrictionist. I believe that we have the right to remove any and all people who entered our country illegally,” Smith wrote. “Also, ICE is out of fucking control. A bunch of pussies, drunk on power going around intentionally escalating violent interactions and intimidating US citizens.”