Is the video showing Alex Pretti kicking the tail light of an ICE vehicle and spitting at ice real?

1. What the footage shows and who verified it

Two main clips circulated publicly capture the same January 13 incident: the News Movement clip and a separate bystander angle; both show a man matching Pretti’s clothing and appearance yelling at federal SUVs, spitting toward one vehicle as agents are nearby, being grabbed and pushed to the ground, and twice kicking the passenger-side taillight so that the red plastic fractures and dangles or falls off as the vehicle pulls away — descriptions echoed in reporting by The New York Times, The Guardian, PBS/AP and Fortune ^{[1] [2] [3] [5]}.

2. Is the video real or AI-manipulated?

Reporting across outlets treats the footage as genuine bystander video rather than AI fabrication: Webworm specifically concluded “Not AI. Very Real,” and major outlets published stills and video frames from the recordings as reporting evidence ^{[4] [1]}. Multiple newsrooms and local papers published different camera angles and eyewitness accounts corroborating the same sequence of events, which strengthens the conclusion that the clips are authentic citizen-shot footage rather than deepfakes ^{[3] [5]}.

3. How media and political actors have used the clip

Conservative commentators and some outlets highlighted the footage to portray Pretti as the aggressor — suggesting the January 13 scuffle as context for the later deadly encounter — while civil-rights advocates and Pretti’s attorney argue the earlier confrontation does not justify the January 24 use of lethal force ^{[6] [7] [2]}. This divergence reflects clear interpretive agendas: some actors emphasize provocation to rationalize subsequent enforcement actions, others emphasize the footage to document contested policing tactics and to argue against lethal escalation ^{[6] [2]}.

4. What remains unclear in the public record

The videos do not establish what precisely preceded the shots fired on January 24, whether the same officers or units were involved both times, whether any arrestable offense from January 13 was ever charged, or whether agents saw a weapon on Pretti during the January 13 scuffle; multiple outlets note those gaps and report Homeland Security Investigations is reviewing the January 13 footage ^{[5] [3] [8]}. Journalistic accounts also note that witness perspectives vary and that frame-by-frame questions — for example, exactly what was spat upon or seen by officers — are not fully resolved by the publicly released clips ^{[2] [1]}.

5. Why the distinction matters now

The authenticity of the January 13 videos is material because they have been deployed by competing narratives: some use them to suggest Pretti posed repeated threats to agents, while others use them to document forceful police responses during protests and to argue that a previous scuffle does not retroactively justify a deadly shooting 11 days later ^{[2] [1]}. Credible verification of the footage does not resolve legal or moral questions about the later use of force; several reporting outlets and Pretti’s family representatives explicitly warn against conflating the two incidents as dispositive evidence for justifying the killing ^{[1] [7]}.

6. Bottom line answer

Yes — multiple independent news organizations and corroborating bystander clips indicate the video showing Alex Pretti spitting toward and kicking the tail light of a federal vehicle on January 13 is real and not an AI fabrication; however, the footage does not by itself resolve disputed questions about what happened before or after, whether officers perceived a threat, or whether those events legally or ethically justified the subsequent fatal encounter ^{[1] [3] [4]}.