Feds Knew Who Alex Pretti Was—and Broke His Rib in Earlier Fight

Slain Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti had his rib broken by ICE agents just one week before he was shot to death. He was also potentially part of a massive surveillance database that agents are rumored to be collecting on protesters in Minneapolis.

An unnamed source told CNN that Pretti’s earlier altercation with federal agents occurred when he pulled over and got out of his car to observe ICE agents running after a family. He immediately began blowing his whistle and yelling. He was later taken down by five agents, with one leaning on his back and breaking his rib, before they released him back into the street.  

“That day, he thought he was going to die,” CNN’s source said. CNN reviewed Pretti’s medication records, which were consistent with the idea that he had broken his rib.

It’s not clear whether Border Patrol agents recognized Pretti before killing him this past weekend. But a DHS memo earlier this month told agents in Minneapolis to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form.” A source also told CNN that federal agents knew Pretti’s name, without clarifying if he was in this database.

“One thing I’m pushing for right now … we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding and assault, we’re going to make them famous,” border czar Tom Homan said two weeks ago. “We’re going to put their face on TV. We’re going to let their employers, in their neighborhoods, in their schools, know who these people are.”

From the “fucking bitch” comment after Renee Good’s shooting to this news about Pretti, it seems clear that federal immigration agents aren’t simply good guys who are operating under duress of the mob—they’re vindictive, trigger-happy, and they’re remembering the faces of anyone who stands up to them. 

Federal officers in Minnesota are either completely ignorant of the severity of their violence, or they simply don’t care.

Agents staying at a Springhill Suites in Maple Grove—a suburban city about 20 minutes away from Minneapolis—were filmed by journalist Laura Jedeed laughing at protesters from a third-floor window Monday evening. Then, one of the agents pulled down his shorts and pressed his bare ass against the glass, mooning the distressed crowd protesting below.

Within the last three weeks, agents with ICE and Customs and Border Protection have shot and killed two U.S. citizens: Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti and award-winning poet Renée Nicole Good.

Immigration agents have resorted to arresting practically anybody—including U.S. citizens and children—in order to satisfy Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s quota of 3,000 or more arrests per day.

In doing so, they’ve struck terror and fury into the souls of American communities, and the cold-blooded federal overreach has sparked nationwide protests and local economic blackouts.

Local politicians—including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—have demanded that ICE and CBP exit their cities and states, arguing that the federal agents have done more harm than good. In 2025, before Good’s death, the agency killed 32 people—its deadliest year in more than two decades.

In an attempt to defend their own city from the state-sponsored violence, some Minneapolis residents have opted to openly carry their firearms, brandishing their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Locals have formed neighborhood watches to follow ICE vehicles, banging pots and pans and screaming to alert others when agents enter their residential neighborhoods.

The public backlash has rattled conservative lawmakers, donors, and even Donald Trump, who appears to be peeling away from Miller and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in an attempt to salvage his immigration agenda.

The Justice Department is not pursuing a civil rights probe into Alex Pretti’s death at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, with the Department of Homeland Security instead investigating its own officers. 

MS NOW reports that Customs and Border Protection will be investigating whether the agents followed department policy, while Homeland Security Investigations, which normally investigates human trafficking and drug rings as part of ICE, will be investigating whether Pretti broke any laws before being killed.

Normally, the FBI would handle such an investigation, considering that it has the lab facilities and investigators experienced with shootings. In fact, Border Patrol agents requested the FBI’s help to gather evidence after the shooting, but in the end, “All evidence, excluding firearms and casings, were turned over to DHS,” according to an FBI memo.

The DOJ appears to be following the same playbook it used after an ICE agent killed Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. In that case too, the DOJ announced there would be no civil rights investigation. 

“This is absolutely the kind of investigation that should be led by the FBI as it has the authority, experience, capability, and credibility to conduct a thorough, objective, and unbiased investigation,” MS NOW contributor and former FBI Agent Chris O’Leary said. “Unfortunately the current Director of the FBI and leadership in DOJ are blocking this from happening, and are therefore part of the problem and not part of the solution.”

Questions have already been raised as to how evidence, such as Pretti’s phone and handgun, have been handled by the federal government, with the government even arguing in court that they have the right to destroy evidence. Now, the fact that DHS and Border Patrol will essentially be investigating themselves seems to indicate the agents who killed Pretti will soon be exonerated. 

State authorities say that the federal government has not shared evidence with them, and current and former investigators with the FBI and DOJ say that the government is already violating DOJ policy and previous practices, according to MS NOW. 

“The fact that this investigation has already been taken by the agency involved speaks to them not wanting any outside agency having access to the evidence nor the ability to take statements from the agents involved,” former FBI agent and MS NOW contributor Rob D’Amico said. “No matter how good an investigation was conducted, it gives the perception of a cover-up if … charges aren’t brought against the agents.”  

Federal agents in Maine are now threatening ICE watchers at their homes.

Liz Eisele McLellan, a volunteer ICE watcher monitoring the intensifying federal operations in Maine, told the Portland Press Herald that a federal agent came to her home to threaten her. “It was one of the scariest things that ever happened to me,” McLellan said.

McLellan said she spoke to one agent, while three cars blocked the street outside. “This is a warning,” one agent said, according to McLellan. “We know you live right here.”

McLellan said she called 911 and recounted what had happened to the dispatcher, who told her she should comply with orders from federal agents.

Last week, a masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent warned a woman filming their activities in Portland that her information would be entered into a “nice little database” that would label her a domestic terrorist.

This comes just weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of two, while she was observing federal immigration operations in Minneapolis. The Press Herald report came out the day before CBP agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA ICU nurse who was attending a Minneapolis protest in the wake of Good’s death.

Two people who work as volunteers in Minneapolis, driving supplies to immigrants hiding in their homes from federal agents and following ICE vehicles, told The Atlantic that agents had gone to their homes to threaten them too.

While legal threats against observers may sound absurd, a recent security threats assessment leaked from the Department of Homeland Security revealed the department’s intention to broaden the definition of domestic terrorism.

Federal officials claimed to have arrested more than 200 people as part of their operations in Maine, and that they are targeting the worst of the worst. But, as is the case in other cities targeted by President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operations, local officials and community members say that people without criminal records are being detained too.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says that the Trump administration is misrepresenting a phone call the two had following Carney’s remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos. It was clear—it was a broader set of issues—that Canada was the first country to understand the change in U.S. trade policy that he had initiated. And we’re responding to that,” Carney told reporters Tuesday.

The night before, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Fox News that Carney was “very aggressively walking back some of the unfortunate remarks he made at Davos” in a phone call he had with President Trump earlier in the day. Over the weekend, Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs against Canadian goods if Carney finalized a trade deal with China.

China and Canada did reach an agreement on canola oil exports from Canada and Chinese electric vehicles, but Carney ruled out a free trade agreement with Beijing on Monday, and flatly denied Bessent’s description of his conversation with Trump Tuesday morning. 

“We had a very good conversation on a wide range of subjects, ranging from the situation in Ukraine, in Venezuela, Arctic security. We discussed as well what Canada is doing, positively, and this is the context of our discussion, what Canada is doing positively to build new partnerships around the world,” Carney added. 

It’s pretty clear that Bessent is trying to save Trump’s dignity after Carney warned last week at  Davos that the global trade order is in the middle of a “rupture” thanks to Trump’s economic bullying. Trump did not take the speech well, calling Canada ungrateful for all of the “freebies” he claimed the U.S. has provided over the years, and now Bessent is trying to paint Carney as regretful. However, it’s Bessent who is actually causing economic damage with his words.