“I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping,” one Minneapolis resident who recorded the incident attested in an affidavit.
Witnesses to a fatal shooting in Minneapolis on Saturday disputed Department of Homeland Security’s claims the victim brandished a gun at federal immigration agents before being killed.
The accounts come from a pair of sworn affidavits filed to federal court late Saturday as part of a lawsuit asking an appeals court to reinstate an order barring immigration forces from retaliating against protestors in Minneapolis, where two people have been killed by immigration forces in the past three weeks.
One Minneapolis resident described seeing the deceased, who was later identified as 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, directing traffic before agents forced him and two others to the sidewalk and pepper sprayed them.
Pretti tried to help a female observer off the ground when he was pushed down, swarmed by multiple agents and repeatedly shot at.
Federal agents stand near police tape as demonstrators gather near the site of where state and local authorities say a man was shot by federal agents earlier in the morning in Minneapolis on Saturday. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said federal agents deployed in Minneapolis as part of a sweeping immigration crackdown had carried out “another horrific shooting,” less than three weeks after the fatal shooting of Renee Good.
