How many recent ICE/CBP shootings involved recovered weapons that were disputed by witnesses or video?
Executive summary
Only one recent case in the supplied reporting is unambiguously documented as involving a claimed weapon that video and multiple news outlets say was not a gun — the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis — while broader reporting repeatedly notes that witnesses and footage have contradicted Border Patrol and ICE accounts in multiple shootings but does not provide a searchable tally of how many recovered weapons were specifically disputed [1] [2] [3].
1. The narrow, documentable example: Alex Pretti
In the most detailed instance cited, video reviewed by Reuters, the BBC, The New York Times and The Guardian showed Alex Pretti holding a cell phone, not a gun, in the moments before federal immigration agents shot him at least ten times; those outlets concluded the object was a phone and reported that agents continued firing after he was pinned and motionless — a direct, well-documented dispute of the agency narrative that implied a weapon threat [1].
2. Broader reporting shows pattern but not a count
Investigations and aggregations by outlets such as The Guardian, The Trace and The Marshall Project document a spate of ICE and CBP shootings under the recent enforcement surge and repeatedly emphasize that video and witness accounts have contradicted agency statements in “many” incidents, but those pieces stop short of enumerating how many cases involved an allegedly recovered weapon that witnesses or footage later contested [3] [4] [2].
3. Numbers reported for shootings do not equal numbers of disputed-recovery incidents
News compilations cite figures for total shootings — for example, The Guardian and The Trace reported roughly a dozen-to-two-dozen incidents (the Trace list and Guardian’s count of 16 shootings as of early January were cited) — but those tallies count shootings generally and do not specify whether each included a recovered weapon or whether that recovered weapon’s existence or identity was later contradicted by external evidence [3] [4].
4. Agency statements and advocates frame the disagreement differently
The Department of Homeland Security and CBP/ICE have defended uses of force as officer safety measures in multiple cases, while civil liberties groups and local officials have said video and eyewitness accounts contradict those explanations; the ACLU and others called for independent investigations after the Minneapolis killing and broader ICE operations drew public outrage, which underscores dispute but again does not convert to a precise numeric answer from the sources provided [5] [2].
5. Limits of the available reporting and what can be concluded
From the supplied sources, the only clearly documented instance where footage and multiple outlets concluded the supposed weapon was a non-weapon is Alex Pretti [1]; other reporting explicitly notes that “many” DHS accounts have been disputed by witnesses or video [2], but those pieces do not enumerate how many recovered weapons were later contested, so a definitive total cannot be produced from the material given [3] [4].
6. What this gap suggests for oversight and future reporting
The mismatch between comprehensive incident tallies and case-level forensic clarity highlights a reporting and oversight gap: newsrooms and watchdogs have cataloged shootings [3] [4] and civil-rights groups demand independent probes [5], but publicly available, standardized data on recovered items and whether evidence was contradicted by independent footage or witness testimony remains incomplete in the supplied coverage, making any precise count unreliable without further case-by-case documentation.