In the days before he died, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was talking with his parents about a broken garage door and how he’d tipped the repairman extra, trying to put a little kindness back into a tense Minneapolis. He told them he planned to attend protests over federal immigration actions. They begged him: be careful, don’t escalate, just witness. He promised he understood.
On January 24, during a federal immigration enforcement operation, Alex was shot multiple times by a U.S. Border Patrol officer. Homeland Security claimed he approached armed and “violently resisted.” But bystander videos appear to show a phone in his hand, not a gun; witnesses say he was directing traffic, helping a woman who’d been pushed down, raising his hands as agents released pepper spray. A pediatrician who tried to save him says officers delayed his efforts. For Michael and Susan Pretti, the fight now is not only for accountability, but for their son’s name: that Alex be remembered as he lived—steadfast, gentle, and committed to fairness, not as the threat an official statement made him out to be.