A death that fuels tensions. Strongly criticized by the American left in recent weeks, the immigration police (ICE) find themselves at the heart of a new scandal. On Saturday, several of his agents killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis. The 37-year-old worked in intensive care at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, where he cared for American veterans. He was unknown to the police and his criminal record was clean.
Alex Jeffrey was armed with a semi-automatic pistol and, according to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)“violently resisted” before being shot by an officer “fearing for his life”. On X, the DHS released a photograph of the weapon and assured that “this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to cause maximum damage and massacre law enforcement officers”. Donald Trump agreed with this, accusing local elected officials of fueling “the insurrection” by one “pompous, dangerous and arrogant rhetoric”.
Videos of the scene also went viral on social media. In one of them, we can see agents in vests pinning a man to the ground, hitting him several times, then quickly retreating before opening fire several times on a body already lying on the road. A second sequence shows Alex Pretti moments earlier helping a woman who was sprayed with pepper spray.
According to an analysis by the investigative media Bellingcat, relayed by The Parisianone of the agents was seen, just before the first shot, walking away with a gun similar to the one displayed by DHS. Two different agents then opened fire several times. According to the media, the majority of the bullets were fired while Alex Pretti was already on the ground and motionless.
Three weeks earlier, on January 7, another drama linked to ICE caused a stir. Renée Good, a 37-year-old American woman, was killed by an immigration police officer while she was driving her car. The circumstances of this tragedy remain disputed and the testimonies contradictory.
