Which social‑media accounts first posted the bystander videos of the Alex Pretti shooting and what timestamps/URLs do they show?
Executive summary
The earliest publicly reported bystander videos of the January incident involving Alex Pretti were published by the News Movement — a digital outlet that posted about two minutes of footage from Jan. 13 — and by at least one YouTube upload described in contemporaneous reporting as posted the same day (the Guardian and Fox News reported the News Movement clip and a same‑day YouTube upload) [1] [2]. Major outlets that reviewed social‑media clips — The New York Times, PBS, Reuters and local KSTP — relied on videos shared with them or circulating on platforms, but none of those reports publishes the original uploader account names, full URLs or frame‑by‑frame timestamps for the initial posts [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. Earliest public postings identified by news organizations
Reporting identifies the News Movement as one of the first outlets to publish a roughly two‑minute bystander clip of the Jan. 13 encounter, describing officers grabbing and bringing Pretti to the ground [1], and multiple outlets reference a separate video that “was posted on YouTube the day it happened,” conveying the atmosphere of protests and horns and whistles [1]. Fox News also credits The News Movement with publishing the clip and describes that video as showing Pretti spitting at agents and damaging a federal SUV before being tackled [2]. These citations are the closest published accounts naming where key bystander footage first appeared, per the reporting provided [1] [2].
2. What the first‑reported clips actually show (per the reporting)
The News Movement clip and other bystander uploads show Pretti confronting agents, yelling, physically interacting with an unmarked federal vehicle, being tackled by officers and — in other footage of the later fatal encounter — walking toward agents while holding a phone and then being shot in a rapid volley described as about 10 shots in five seconds by The New York Times [1] [3]. The Times’ video analysis maps the deadly exchange to roughly 31 seconds from first physical engagement to the last shot [7], and PBS notes that none of the half‑dozen bystander videos publicly circulating at the time showed Pretti brandishing his gun [4].
3. What is not available in the public record cited by news reports
None of the news stories supplied here reproduces the original social‑media account handles, direct URLs, or precise upload timestamps for the earliest bystander uploads; outlets instead describe clips shared with them or circulating on platforms [3] [1] [6]. Reuters’ verification work confirms that authentic bystander footage exists and flags edited/AI‑altered images circulating online, but Reuters’ fact check does not publish the primary uploader’s URL for the original verified video in the excerpts provided [5]. Therefore, it is not possible from the supplied reporting to produce definitive first‑poster account names, exact timestamp markers within uploads, or canonical URLs.
4. Why exact provenance matters and how reporting treated it
The provenance and timing of bystander uploads became central to competing narratives: federal officials quickly posted a photo and characterized the scene in ways that several outlets say were contradicted by bystander footage, which shaped public interpretation and political responses [4] [3]. Fact‑checking outlets flagged manipulated stills and emphasized the need to rely on verified footage rather than amplified social posts [5], while local TV and national newspapers examined multiple camera angles shared across social media and to reporters to reconstruct the sequence [6] [7].
5. Bottom line and reporting gap
Based on the reporting provided, the News Movement is named as a first public publisher of a bystander clip dated Jan. 13 and at least one YouTube upload appears to have been posted the same day, but the specific social‑media account handles, direct URLs and precise on‑video timestamps are not published in these sources [1] [2] [3] [5]. Independent verification or direct access to platform records (uploader pages, post IDs, timestamps) would be required to answer with the granularity requested; the contemporary news accounts identify where footage circulated and summarize what it shows but do not supply the original links or minute‑second timestamps in the material provided [1] [3] [6].