A 37-year-old male nurse who died Saturday in Minneapolis after being shot by federal agents has been identified as Alex Jeffrey Pretti. He worked in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a veterans' hospital in this Minnesota city, according to family and acquaintances who spoke to local media. Pretti, born in Illinois, studied nursing at the University of Minnesota and earned his nursing degree in 2021. The Pretti family confirmed to media that the man had participated in protests in Minneapolis that followed the killing of another woman by immigration agents in the city less than three weeks ago. These large-scale raids on migrants were ordered by the government of U.S. President Donald Trump. The Minnesota Organization of Registered Nurses also confirmed Pretti's death, issuing a statement lamenting the tragedy and stating that the state's nursing community is mourning the event. Images published online show more than a dozen immigration agents struggling with the man before shooting him at point-blank range. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration services, assured that the man was carrying a semi-automatic weapon and two full magazines and that its agents acted in self-defense. Minnesota Governor, Democrat Mike Walz, has ordered the deployment of the state's National Guard to guarantee security in the city, where part of the citizenry has protested against the large-scale raids. Today's event is the second of its kind in just over two weeks in Minneapolis, where on January 7, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed a 37-year-old woman, Renee Good, in her car during an operation. The large-scale raids in Minneapolis—which has seen the arrival of a number of federal agents five times greater than the entire city police force—were ordered by the Trump government in early January, when a documentary by a conservative 'youtuber' once again put the spotlight on cases of federal funds embezzled by daycares managed by members of the Somali community.
