Why there are discrepancies in the Jan 13 video of Alex Pretti kicking tail lights including changing number plates
Executive summary
The Jan. 13 clip widely shared as showing Alex Pretti kicking a federal SUV’s taillight is corroborated by multiple mainstream outlets that verified the footage and described the same core sequence — Pretti confronting agents, spitting, then striking a taillight that breaks as the vehicle pulls away [1] [2] [3]. Yet viewers and reporters have spotted “discrepancies” across copies of the footage — including differences in vehicle details such as license-plate appearance — and explanations for those differences fall into three categories: source-and-verification variation, editing/technical artifacts from copying and reposting, and deliberate manipulation or misinterpretation; available reporting supports the first two while noting concerns about the third without proving it [2] [4] [5].
1. Multiple recordings and editorial verification produce apparent contradictions
News outlets that examined the Jan. 13 incident worked from more than one video and from The News Movement’s release; CBS said it and the BBC verified the footage and confirmed it was filmed in Minneapolis, while other organizations published clip stills and contemporaneous phone recordings from bystanders, so “different” images in circulation can reflect different camera angles, crops or separate takes of the same event rather than deliberate falsification [2] [1]. Several outlets describe the same physical acts — shouting, spitting, and breaking the taillight — which argues that core facts are consistent even when peripheral visual details differ between copies [1] [3].
2. Social reposting, compression and cropping create small but noticeable changes
When a short, widely shared video is downloaded, re-uploaded, clipped, or recompressed by social platforms, small differences in pixels, frames and timestamps can make plates, lights or reflections look different; mainstream coverage notes the clip moved quickly across channels and was reposted by many outlets and users, a distribution pattern that commonly introduces visual artifacts and inconsistent frames that viewers sometimes mistake for intentional alteration [2] [6]. Fox 11’s reporting shows journalists seeking official confirmation of the Jan. 13 provenance from DHS — a request that typically follows when visual inconsistencies trigger questions about authenticity rather than proving manipulation [4].
3. Claims of AI or deliberate editing have been raised, but independent verification counters some of that doubt
Some social posts insisted the Jan. 13 clip was AI-manufactured; fact-checking coverage reported family confirmation and outlet verification that the person in the video is Pretti and that the footage was filmed on Jan. 13, undermining the strongest form of the “deepfake” claim even as they acknowledge the viral spread created confusion [5] [2]. Reporting does not, however, supply a forensic chain-of-custody for every published copy or explicitly trace any altered license-plate claim to a proven source; therefore, while independent verification supports the clip’s authenticity, the public record in these articles does not settle every pixel-level discrepancy [5] [2].
4. Operational context and documentation practices matter to how details are recorded and reported
Reporting about the broader federal approach to protests notes that agents were instructed to document demonstrators and collect identifying information, which means law‑enforcement recordings, dashboards or agency logs could exist and might resolve disputes over vehicle identity and plates — but journalists published to date have relied on bystander footage and outlet verification rather than releasing a complete agency media log, making agency records a possible but not yet public avenue to reconcile plate discrepancies [7] [4]. The Pretti family’s lawyer and advocates frame the Jan. 13 incident as an example of force used against him before his killing, a perspective that shapes coverage choices and the emphasis on different parts of the footage [8].
5. What the reporting cannot confirm — and what remains unresolved
The assembled articles confirm Pretti appearing to break a taillight and being pushed to the ground on Jan. 13 and show multiple outlets verified the clip, but none of the cited reporting provides a forensic explanation for every reported change to license-plate visuals or publishes original agency video/plate logs that would definitively show whether plates were swapped, edited, or simply misread in reposts; therefore the simplest explanations supported by the sources are multiple source clips plus reposting artifacts, while deliberate tampering remains an allegation not proven by the available reporting [1] [2] [4].