02.02.2026
14 min
368
After the shooting in Minneapolis, official explanations appeared almost immediately. At the same time, videos recorded by bystanders began circulating online, offering a way to look at what happened without interpretation or charged language.
Footage from multiple angles shows that during the escalation, the man was holding a phone and recording the scene. Before the shots were fired, he was physically restrained, and the weapon was taken from him moments before the shooting began. The videos indicate that the first shots were fired only after that had already happened.
This material does not pass judgment or draw conclusions for the reader. It simply lays out the sequence of events and shows how video evidence can change the understanding of a situation when official statements and observable facts begin to diverge.
On January 24, on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System. The shooting occurred just over two weeks after another fatal incident involving a federal agent in the same city, in which Rene Good was killed.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated that Pretti was allegedly killed during an “armed confrontation” with officers and that he intended to “cause maximum harm.” However, videos that appeared online before and during the incident present a very different picture and do not support those claims.
Early footage shared on social media shows an agent crossing the street to speak with Pretti. At that moment, Pretti is recording the encounter on his phone, which he holds in his right hand. According to official information, agents were carrying out an immigration arrest in the area.
During the interaction, the agent places a hand on Pretti’s torso and pushes him back from the roadway toward the sidewalk. Other videos show what happened next. Pretti steps between two women after an agent pushes both of them. Throughout this time, he continues to hold a phone in his hand, not a weapon.
Another video, posted on Reddit, shows what followed this initial contact, as well as the moments leading up to the shooting. It appears that Pretti again positioned himself between the two women after they were pushed by a DHS agent. He is seen holding a mobile phone sideways in his right hand.
The footage then shows an agent spraying Pretti with a substance from a canister and continuing to spray him as Pretti turns his back. At least five other federal agents approach and attempt to force Pretti to the ground, and one appears to strike him with the spray canister.
Twenty-five seconds after the initial spraying, a gunshot is heard, followed by nine more shots over the course of approximately six seconds. Additional footage from the scene shows Pretti lying motionless on the ground.
Additional videos from Reddit, Facebook, and other sources make it possible to more closely reconstruct the key moments of the shooting and piece together individual fragments into a single sequence of events.
A closer review of this footage suggests that the weapon was likely removed before the first shots were fired. The recordings show a federal agent in a gray jacket approaching the scene of the struggle, where several agents are already pinning Pretti to the ground. As he approaches, his hands appear to be empty.
The footage then shows the agent bending down, reaching into the group, and searching among the bodies. Approximately twelve seconds later, he steps away holding a handgun, which he removes from the scene.
Another video, also posted on Reddit, shows an agent removing a handgun from the holster on Pretti’s waistband before he is shot.
Some features of the handgun carried away by the federal agent resemble the weapon that the Department of Homeland Security said belonged to Pretti (and later shared on X): a 9mm Sig Sauer P320. Some online posts incorrectly claimed that the photo of the handgun was old, due to a misunderstanding of Google reverse image search results.
While some law enforcement agencies issue Sig Sauer P320 pistols to their agents, the weapon that DHS says belonged to Pretti appears to be customized and visually distinct from standard models.
These distinguishing features include a white pistol grip, a black frame, a brown slide, and a red dot optic mounted on top of the slide. Both the optic and the distinctive color scheme are visible on the handgun carried away by the federal agent.
Before the agent who removed the handgun left the scene, someone can be heard shouting “gun,” as heard in a video posted on X and in another video shared on Reddit.
That same Reddit video also shows that almost immediately after the agent in the gray jacket walks away with the handgun, a single gunshot is heard, followed by nine more.
When the footage is slowed down, it shows the federal agent in the gray jacket taking Pretti’s handgun, while the agent in a black cap—who appears to have a clear line of sight toward the weapon being removed—begins drawing his own firearm. As soon as the agent in the gray jacket steps away with the handgun and leaves, the agent in the black cap moves into the spot previously occupied by the gray-jacketed agent, keeps his finger on the trigger, and fires the first shot.
Based on the available footage, two agents appear to discharge their weapons: one wearing a black cap and another wearing a brown jacket, as seen in this video.
At the moment of the first shot, the agent in the gray jacket steps aside while holding the handgun removed from Pretti’s holster. From another angle, the slide of this firearm can be seen not moving backward, indicating that no shot was fired from it. Immediately after the first shot, several agents—including the agent in the gray jacket—look toward the man wearing a black cap and gray jacket. Despite online speculation, there is currently no evidence that Pretti’s handgun was fired.
By comparing and slowing down multiple videos, it is possible to see where the agent in the black cap and gray jacket, with his weapon drawn, was positioned at the moment of the first shot. Some commentators pointed to marks resembling snow that were visible even before any shots were fired.
In addition, the agent in the black cap, holding a handgun in his right hand, steps backward at the moment of the first shot, likely due to recoil. He then moves forward again and almost immediately fires three more shots into Pretti’s back at close range, as Pretti appears to be trying to get up.
In this video, several agents are piled on top of Pretti, and his hands are visible in front of him on the ground. His hands remain in front of him as the agent in the gray jacket removes the handgun and steps away.
After the initial shots, Pretti falls to the ground and the agents step back. A second agent—the one wearing a brown cap—then draws his handgun and fires at least one shot. This is the fifth shot that can be heard. The agent in the black cap is then seen and heard firing again. Shots five through ten were fired into Pretti’s motionless body.
From another angle, the agents can be seen again, with the agent in the black cap clearly firing at Pretti’s motionless body.
In a video recorded shortly after the shooting, two agents can be seen searching Pretti’s body, and one of them appears to ask, “Where’s the gun?”
In statements from DHS and CBP so far, officials have referred to only one agent as having fired shots, identifying him as an eight-year veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection who discharged what were described as “defensive shots.”
The day after the shooting, Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, speaking on CNN, was shown video footage in which a weapon appears to be removed before the shooting and was asked why Border Patrol agents shot an unarmed man. He responded: “You don’t know that he was unarmed. I don’t know that he was unarmed.” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, when asked on Meet the Press whether Pretti was unarmed, replied: “I don’t know, and no one else knows either, which is why we’re conducting an investigation.”
In the same CNN interview, Bovino also said that “the victims are the Border Patrol agents” and that “the suspect [Pretti] put himself in that situation.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara stated that Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry and had no criminal record.
