By Euronews with AFP
Published on
•Updated
Federal immigration agents deployed in Minneapolis as part of a sweeping immigration crackdown shot and killed a 37-year-old man on Saturday, in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has called “another horrific shooting”.
The man has been identified as Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident and intensive care unit nurse.
The incident marks the second fatal shooting of a civilian in the city, coming three weeks after US citizen Renee Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
A video circulating online, which has been confirmed by authorities, showed several agents surrounding a person on the ground and hitting him multiple times. Several gunshots are heard before the man is seen lying motionless on the ground.
After the shooting, an angry crowd gathered and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home.
O’Hara urged residents to avoid the area, which turned into an “incredibly volatile scene” after the shooting.
Officers who declared the protest an unlawful assembly deployed clouds of tear gas as the crowd grew and used dumpsters to make blockades on the road in the busy south Minneapolis neighborhood known for its restaurants.
Federal and local authorities strike competing tones
“I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening,” Governor Walz said on X.
In a subsequent statement, Walz said that the state of Minnesota, not the federal government, will lead the investigation into the fatal shooting.
“Minnesotans and our local law enforcement have done everything we can to deescalate. The federal government must deescalate. I once again call on the President to remove the 3,000 agents from Minnesota who are sowing chaos and violence,” he added.
In a statement of its own, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that an individual had approached officers with a semi-automatic handgun. After a struggle to disarm the man during which he “violently resisted”, “fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots.”
For their part, Minneapolis police said the man was a “lawful gun owner with a permit to carry.”
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey urged US President Donald Trump to end the weeks-long federal immigration operation in the city, which has sparked several large and at times violent demonstrations. “This is a moment to act like a leader. Put Minneapolis, put America first in this moment — let’s achieve peace. Let’s end this operation,” Frey said.
Thousands of ICE agents have been deployed to the Democratic-led city, as Trump presses a sweeping campaign to deport undocumented migrants.
Minneapolis has been rocked by increasingly tense protests since federal agents shot and killed Good, a US citizen, on 7 January.
An autopsy concluded that the killing was a homicide, a classification that does not automatically mean a crime was committed.
The officer who fired the shots that killed Good, Jonathan Ross, has neither been suspended nor charged.
The detention of a five-year-old boy this week, as agents sought to arrest his father, rekindled public outrage.