Was the second person killed by ICE in Minneapolis holding a gun when shot
Executive summary
The immediate federal account said Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti after he “approached with a handgun” and resisted attempts to be disarmed [1] [2]. Independent bystander video and multiple news outlets — and sworn witness statements filed in court — contradict that portrayal, showing Pretti holding a phone, not a firearm, at the moment he was tackled and shot [1] [3] [4].
1. The government account: DHS and Border Patrol said he was armed
Within hours of the shooting, Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol officials publicly stated that agents fired in self‑defense because Pretti approached agents with a 9mm semi‑automatic and “violently resisted” as they tried to disarm him, and DHS released a photo it said showed the firearm recovered from the scene [1] [5] [6].
2. What multiple videos and witnesses show at the moment of force
Bystander video widely circulated and verified by major outlets appears to show Pretti holding a phone with one hand and using the other to shield a woman while federal agents pushed and tackled him; those videos do not show him brandishing or holding a gun at the time he was struck and later shot, and two witnesses later filed sworn affidavits denying he ever held a gun during the encounter captured on tape [3] [1] [4].
3. Conflicting fragments: claims of a weapon recovered and possible disarming
Some reporting and a departmental review note an agent later “advised he had possession of Pretti’s firearm” and “subsequently cleared and secured Pretti’s firearm in his vehicle,” which the DHS used to support its self‑defense narrative [6] [7]. At least one analysis raised the possibility that a weapon might have been present earlier in the incident and could have been separated from Pretti before the widely viewed footage shows him holding only a phone — but the publicly available videos do not depict an unmistakable moment of Pretti brandishing a gun [3] [8].
4. Independent outlets and investigators have questioned the official timing and framing
News organizations including Reuters, The Guardian, PBS, The New York Times and others report that their reviews of video evidence contradict the initial DHS claim that Pretti approached agents brandishing a gun and that video shows him holding a phone while being tackled; these outlets and local officials have highlighted the discrepancy between the federal narrative and visible footage [2] [3] [9] [10]. Critics argue senior officials moved quickly to cast Pretti as a “gunman” before full evidence was reviewed [4].
5. Legal and investigative status: why absolute certainty is not yet public
DHS has said multiple angles of footage exist and are under review, and the case was routed into federal investigative channels, but at the time of reporting oversight questions remain about which agencies will investigate and how much footage will be released to the public; major outlets note that prosecutors and civil‑rights litigators are scrutinizing both the agency’s account and the video record [11] [1] [10] [2]. Given those ongoing reviews and the fact that public videos do not show Pretti brandishing a firearm at the moment he was tackled and shot, the factual record available to journalists supports the conclusion that he was not holding a gun in his hands at that moment — while also leaving open the narrower possibility that a weapon existed earlier in the encounter and was recovered by agents afterward [3] [6].
Final assessment: available public video evidence and witness affidavits contradict the immediate DHS claim that Alex Pretti was holding and brandishing a firearm when he was shot; DHS and Border Patrol maintain a firearm was involved and say agents recovered a weapon after the shooting, and official investigations reviewing multiple camera angles are ongoing, so a definitive, legally adjudicated sequence of events has not yet been publicly established [3] [6] [1].