Pretti shooting raw footage

1. What the newly surfaced “raw” footage shows

The Jan. 13 recordings published and amplified this week show a man who appears to be Pretti shouting at agents, kicking the taillight of an unmarked federal vehicle, being tackled by a heavily armed officer and held on the ground while agents fired chemical irritants and pepper balls into the crowd; the sequence ends with agents releasing him and driving away ^{[5] [1] [3]}.

2. Verification and provenance: how reliable are the clips?

Major outlets report that multiple bystander videos of the Jan. 13 incident circulated and were later published by The News Movement and analyzed by outlets including the BBC and The New York Times, with the BBC confirming use of facial-recognition tools and other organizations treating the footage as authentic — though provenance details (who filmed each clip and when each was first posted) remain partly opaque in public reporting ^{[1] [2] [6]}.

3. What the footage does and does not prove about the Jan. 24 shooting

The existence of the earlier confrontation shows a prior interaction between Pretti and immigration agents near the neighborhood where he was later killed, but legal advocates and Pretti’s family lawyers say that the Jan. 13 encounter does not justify the lethal force used 11 days later; news coverage notes that the videos alone do not establish whether any of the officers in the Jan. 13 clash were involved in the Jan. 24 shooting or illuminate the precise moments that produced the fatal gunfire ^{[7] [1] [3]}.

4. How the footage has been used politically and in the media

The clips were seized upon quickly across the political spectrum: President Trump reshared video framing Pretti as a “peaceful protester” sarcastically on Truth Social and administration officials initially described Pretti as a gunman and “would-be assassin” after the Jan. 24 shooting, narratives that several outlets say were contradicted by verified body and bystander video of the killing showing Pretti holding a phone, not brandishing a weapon ^{[7] [8] [9]}. Conservative commentators and some legal analysts have emphasized the Jan. 13 footage to suggest prior hostile behavior by Pretti, while civil-rights advocates and family attorneys argue the earlier incident underscores excessive force by agents rather than culpability that would justify a later shooting ^{[10] [7]}.

5. Official response and ongoing investigations

Homeland Security Investigations said it is reviewing the Jan. 13 videos even as separate investigations proceed into the Jan. 24 killing; at least two agents involved in the fatal shooting have been placed on leave under agency protocol, though reporting does not confirm whether any Jan. 13 officers are tied to the Jan. 24 operation ^{[3] [1]}.

6. Misinformation, altered images and limits of public record

Verified reporting has already flagged manipulated imagery around the case — Reuters documented an altered still that falsely added a gun into a frame of the fatal shooting — illustrating how partial footage and single frames can be weaponized to push competing narratives; many accounts caution that edited or context-free clips circulating on social platforms do not substitute for a full, transparent release of body-worn camera and patrol vehicle footage that investigators say exists but has not been fully released to the public ^{[9] [8]}.

7. Bottom line for viewers: interpret raw footage with caution

The Jan. 13 “raw” videos materially expand the public record by showing an earlier use-of-force incident involving Pretti and federal agents, and major newsrooms treat the footage as authentic, but the clips do not, by themselves, establish culpability for either side in the later shooting; independent verification, chain-of-custody details, fuller camera streams and formal investigative findings are still required before conclusions about justification or criminality can be drawn from the videos alone ^{[1] [3] [9]}.