What exactly did bystander videos show about the moments before and after the shooting of Alex Pretti?
Executive summary
Bystander videos recorded several angles of the confrontation that led to Alex Pretti’s death and consistently show him holding a cellphone and intervening amid a chaotic enforcement action rather than visibly brandishing a firearm; multiple news outlets say none of the half-dozen public videos show Pretti pointing a gun [1] [2] [3]. Those same clips show agents using pepper spray, a scuffle that pins Pretti to the ground, multiple agents clustered around him when shots ring out, and at least one frame in which an agent appears to remove a handgun from Pretti’s waistband just before another agent fires [4] [5] [6].
1. What the videos show in the seconds before the shooting
Multiple verified bystander clips capture Pretti standing in the street with a cellphone, waving cars around and filming the federal officers’ activity, and moving toward or placing himself between agents and a woman who had been pushed down and pepper-sprayed [2] [7] [4]. The footage shows agents spraying irritant toward Pretti’s face and then several officers engaging him physically; witnesses and frame-by-frame analysis place roughly half a dozen agents restraining or wrestling with Pretti in the moments immediately before gunfire [4] [8] [6].
2. What the videos show at the moment of the shooting
Across the triangle of bystander viewpoints, reporters and visual analysts reconstructed a near-simultaneous sequence in which an officer is seen withdrawing or holding a handgun near Pretti’s waistband and then, within about a second, another agent fires multiple rounds; some verified analyses report an agent removing a gun and moving away roughly one second before another agent fires [5] [6] [4]. News organizations counted a rapid burst of shots fired and captured audio of bystanders shouting — including shouts that someone said “gun” — just before gunfire, but no clip the outlets reviewed shows Pretti actively pointing a weapon at agents [5] [1].
3. What the videos show after the shooting and ensuing chaos
The aftermath footage shows Pretti collapsed or motionless on the asphalt as agents back away and bystanders shout in anger and disbelief; subsequent clips show confrontations between Border Patrol agents and nearby civilians, with reports of agents continuing to push into the crowd and tensions escalating even after Pretti was down [6] [9] [10]. Multiple outlets say police and local officials sought to compile these bystander clips alongside government footage, and that federal authorities have not yet publicly released Pretti’s own phone recording — a potentially crucial angle that investigators say will bear on when and how the gun, if visible, was displayed [1] [11].
4. How the videos align or conflict with official statements
Federal officials, including DHS leaders, initially stated Pretti “approached” agents with a handgun and that shots were defensive; the bystander videos reviewed by major outlets and independent analysts undercut key elements of that account because they consistently show Pretti with a cellphone and no public clip shows him brandishing a weapon [8] [1] [3]. Officials have countered that additional footage exists — including bodycam angles and government-held video — and DHS said it would review all available recordings, so proponents of the administration’s account emphasize that the public bystander footage is not the whole evidentiary record [11] [5].
5. Limits of the record and what remains unresolved
The bystander videos form a multi-angle, compelling record of what happened in public view, but they do not encompass every camera angle or the phone footage Pretti held; investigators and use-of-force experts note that the legal and factual determination will depend heavily on the timing and visibility of any weapon in footage not yet publicly released, and federal reviews remain underway [1] [11]. Independent visual reconstructions and mainstream outlets uniformly report that the publicly available clips contradict core claims that Pretti had aggressively brandished a firearm, yet those outlets and officials both acknowledge open questions that only full release of all recordings and an independent investigation can definitively resolve [2] [5].