Was alex pretti still employeed at va
Executive summary
Multiple independent news outlets, the federal employees’ union representing VA staff, and Minnesota licensing records indicate Alex Pretti was employed as an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs medical center up to the time of his death; his Minnesota nursing license was listed as active through March 2026 [1] [2] [3] [4]. Some reports note a lack of formal law-enforcement confirmation of payroll records and point to social-media screenshots and early uncertainty, but the preponderance of sourced reporting identifies him as an active VA ICU nurse [5] [6].
1. Recorded employment: union confirmation and local reporting
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Professional Local 3669, which represents Minneapolis VA employees, publicly identified Pretti as one of their members and described him as a VA ICU nurse, a designation repeated across national outlets including NBC News, Al Jazeera and Military.com [4] [7] [3]. Local VA colleagues and mentors described him as having returned to work in the VA ICU after nursing school, and multiple pieces profiling his life and work cite VA co‑workers and supervisors who recall him as an ICU clinician [8] [2] [9].
2. Licensing and administrative records: a state-level corroboration
State licensing records cited by ABC News, Yahoo, Military.com and others show Pretti obtained his Minnesota nursing license in January 2021 and that the license remained active through March 2026, a public-record detail reporters used to corroborate his professional status at the time of the January 24, 2026 shooting [1] [10] [3]. Journalists have used the active license as documentary support that he remained a practicing nurse in Minnesota contemporaneous with the incident [1] [10].
3. VA and federal statements: mixed timing and messaging
The VA itself and senior administration officials reacted publicly in ways that implicitly and explicitly tied Pretti to the VA: VA Secretary Doug Collins posted that Pretti was a nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, and staff across VA facilities acknowledged him as “one of our own,” with employees saying internal systems showed him active days before the shooting [11]. That said, initial law‑enforcement releases and DHS descriptions focused on the circumstances of the shooting and did not provide independent payroll confirmations, producing a brief gap that fueled social‑media speculation [5] [6].
4. Social-media documents, early uncertainty, and how that mattered
Screenshots of alleged federal payroll records circulated on social media early in the coverage; some posts suggested VA employment going back years and changing roles from health science positions to nursing duties, but news outlets repeatedly noted authorities had not verified those screenshots at the time [6] [5]. Hindustan Times and other fact‑checking threads explicitly warned that law‑enforcement agencies had not independently confirmed employment via payroll before union statements and license records were cited [5].
5. Reconciling the evidence: why the reporting converges
Taken together—the union’s identification, multiple profiles and obituaries quoting VA colleagues and mentors, state nursing-license data showing an active registration through March 2026, and statements from VA officials—the reporting converges on the conclusion that Pretti was employed as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System at the time of his death [4] [3] [1] [11]. Alternative viewpoints remain confined to the early absence of a payroll release from law-enforcement sources and to political framing by some federal officials who sought to recast the incident; those do not, in the surveyed coverage, negate the employment-related documents and union confirmation cited above [5] [11].
6. Caveats and unresolved documentary threads
Reporting indicates a strong evidentiary basis for stating Pretti worked at the Minneapolis VA as an ICU nurse, but some documents circulating online (payroll screenshots) were reported as unverified by authorities and therefore remain supplemental rather than definitive in the public record; if sharper documentary proof (e.g., an HR payroll release) surfaces it should be weighed alongside the union, licensing, VA and family confirmations already reported [5] [6] [4].