What do body‑cam and bystander videos show about the moments before Alex Pretti was shot?
Executive summary
Bystander videos recorded multiple angles of the confrontation and, as widely reported, show Alex Pretti holding a cellphone rather than a gun immediately before federal agents pulled him to the ground and he was shot [1] [2] [3]. Department of Homeland Security officials confirm that multiple agents were wearing body‑worn cameras and that investigators are reviewing that footage, but the body‑cam videos have not yet been released publicly and investigators say they are still being examined [4] [1].
1. What the bystander videos show in the seconds before the shooting
Multiple verified bystander clips capture Pretti at close range documenting federal officers with a phone, then being confronted and grappled by several Border Patrol agents, with at least one officer appearing to remove a handgun from Pretti’s waistband as others struggle with him on the pavement; the bystander footage does not clearly show Pretti brandishing or firing a weapon before agents opened fire [2] [3] [5].
2. How those videos contradict initial government descriptions
The circulating phone recordings undercut early DHS public statements that said Pretti “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi‑automatic handgun” and “violently resisted” during a disarm attempt, because the bystander footage shows Pretti holding a phone, not a gun, at the moment agents first engage him [1] [2] [6].
3. What DHS and federal officials have acknowledged about body‑cam footage
DHS has confirmed that multiple Customs and Border Protection agents, including members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, were wearing body‑worn cameras and that Homeland Security investigators have preserved and are reviewing the body‑cam footage from several agents involved in the incident [4] [1] [7].
4. Where video evidence leaves unanswered questions
Although bystander clips form a near‑triangulation of angles and show much of the scuffle, journalists and experts caution that the recordings do not resolve key forensic questions—such as which weapon fired first, the precise sequence of shots, or what every agent’s body camera captured from their perspective—because body‑worn footage has yet to be released and some frames remain ambiguous even in stabilized, slowed analyses [5] [8] [1].
5. Conflicting narratives and political reactions shaped by the footage
The gap between bystander video and official accounts has prompted sharp public and political backlash, with local leaders and national figures pointing to the phone footage as evidence that the victim was documenting officers when the encounter escalated and critics accusing the administration of mischaracterizing events; at the same time, DHS and Border Patrol leadership defend the agents’ actions and describe the shooting as defensive pending full review [2] [6] [9].
6. Limitations of public reporting to date
Reporting makes clear that while multiple bystander videos have been verified and analyzed by outlets and local authorities, the body‑worn camera recordings that DHS says exist are under review but not publicly available, and investigators have not released a definitive chronology that reconciles all angles—so public understanding rests largely on bystander footage and agency statements rather than a full, transparent release of all body‑cam evidence [1] [4] [3].
7. Why the body‑cam release matters for accountability
Investigators and civil‑liberties advocates argue that release of the agents’ body‑worn cameras would help answer which officer fired, whether an officer removed a firearm from Pretti before shots were fired, and whether force used conformed to policy; DHS’s preservation of footage and the federal review mean those questions could be answerable, but they remain open until the body‑cam recordings—or a detailed official timeline—are published [1] [4] [5].