My Take on the Pretti Shooting

I don’t work on Sundays and was done working Saturday morning by about 10am, so I missed a lot of the instant reactions to the shooting of Alex Pretti. As is often the case, they seemed to fall along partisan lines, with people on the left once again saying he was murdered by bloodthirsty federal agents and some on the right once again claiming Pretti was a domestic terrorist. Those are pretty much the same reactions we had to the Renee Good shooting.

I’ve caught up on some of the videos and, unfortunately, this doesn’t look like as close of a call to me as the shooting of Renee Good. Your mileage may vary but what I see is a guy getting into a scuffle with ICE/Border Patrol. He’s wrestled to his knees and agents are trying to get him flat on the ground to arrest him. He’s curling up and resisting but his forearms are on the pavement and his hands appear to be empty. 

We know he never grabbed his gun because another agent swoops in and grabbed Pretti’s gun of out his holster. You can see it happen here:

Federal agents in Minneapolis wrestled Alex Pretti to the ground and secured the handgun he was carrying moments before shooting him multiple times, according to a Washington Post analysis of video footage.

Read more: https://t.co/gs55sapKJH pic.twitter.com/0LwulTgqLy

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 25, 2026

Pretti had a permit for it so there was nothing illegal about carrying it in Minnesota. Was it wise to bring it to a protest? I’ve seen a lot of people making this point online. Granted, it’s probably not the best choice to stage civil disobedience against federal agents while armed. But wise or not he was allowed to carry. It wasn’t illegal and that’s the line that matters in a court room.

As usual with incidents like this, it’s hard to know what people were seeing or reacting to. A real investigation is going to be necessary to work that out. The agents were supposedly wearing body cameras so we should be able to see a lot more of how this transpired. But if you watch that clip above again and this time watch the agent behind Pretti. He draws his weapon almost at the same instant another agent pulls Pretti’s gun out of its holster. What is the agent reacting to? Pretti is down on the ground. He never reaches for the holster, at least I don’t see it. I don’t think he could have because his forearms are the only thing keeping his chest off the pavement.

What happens next is that Pretti seems to break free a bit and sit up. He’s trying to stand and that’s when the agent behind him fires the first shot.

I’ve repeatedly defended the agent who fired the first shot at Renee Good. I think in a court room that shot would be found to be justified based on what he was seeing (though the 2nd and 3rd shots may not be justifiable). In this case, I don’t see the threat to that agent or any of the others. It’s 4 to 1 and Pretti has been disarmed. Plus it looks to me like he was shot in the back. That’s going to be hard to explain I think.

There have been other controversial police shootings where officers shot a suspect in the back. Remember the incident with Jacob Blake in Kenosha? Blake was shot in the back seven times as he tried to get into a car to flee. He had a knife and the officer said as he opened the door it looked like he was turning to attack. But in that case the officers knew he was holding a knife in his hands. In Pretti’s case, there was no knife. He had a gun and that was gone before the first shot. So I’m not seeing the justification for this based on what we’ve seen so far.

The NY Post has a story claiming that investigators are looking into the possibility that Pretti’s gun went off after it was pulled from his holster.

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether an errant shot from Alex Pretti’s handgun — after it was taken off of him — caused Border Patrol agents to think they were being fired on, The Post has learned.

As a result of the accidental discharge, which happened while the gun was in a Border agent’s hand, other officers may have believed their lives were in danger — resulting in the split-second decision to open fire on Pretti, killing him, multiple sources familiar with the investigation said.

The explanation is a shift from initial claims by DHS officials, who at first said Pretti was brandishing the Sig Sauer P320 pistol, which he was legally allowed to carry.

Anything’s possible but I don’t hear or see the discharge in the video. And even if this is true why didn’t the agents turn toward the sound of the shot. The agent who shot Pretti is focused on him and the discharge would have taken place behind his back. I don’t get it but even if this is true it doesn’t make them look very competent.

Of course we still need a full investigation to try to understand everything that happened but the rest of the media isn’t waiting for that and neither are most of the people who’ve seen the video. There’s a reason the reaction to this is so much greater than the reaction the shooting of Renee Good and it’s not just because anti-ICE activists are well organized and have the media behind them. This situation just looks less defensible than the previous one and that matters.

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