CROWDS continue to gather in Minneapolis to protest against federal immigration enforcement (ICE), after the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has renewed his call for President Trump to pull federal agents from his state, saying: ‘This is an inflection point, America’.
State and federal officials have provided conflicting accounts of the moments prior to Pretti’s death on Saturday.
Alex Pretti, a US citizen and nurse, has been described as a ‘kind-hearted soul’ by his parents; and they are calling for the ‘truth’ about their son.
A day after his killing, protesters again took to the streets of Minneapolis, while local and federal officials remain sharply divided over the incident.
State Governor Tim Walz has repeated demands for the Trump administration to remove federal agents from Minnesota.
The president has signalled he might be willing to withdraw ICE agents ‘at some point’ in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
In a post on Truth Social Trump also told Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to cooperate with federal agents and turn over all ‘criminal illegal aliens’ currently incarcerated in state prisons and jails, for deportation.
The backlash against the administration’s crackdown is growing, including from some within Trump’s own party, with Republican Senator Bill Cassidy calling Pretti’s shooting ‘incredibly disturbing’.
Former US President Bill Clinton has described events in Minneapolis as ‘horrible scenes’ that ‘I never thought would take place in America.’
In a post on X, he highlighted ‘people including children that have been seized from their homes’ as well as ‘peaceful protesters’ that have been ‘arrested, beaten, tear gassed, and most searingly, in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed.
‘All of this is unacceptable and should have been avoided’ he said.
Clinton called the moment one of a few ‘over the course of a lifetime’ where ‘the decisions we make and actions we take will shape our history for years to come.’
He called on Americans to ‘stand up, speak out and show that our nation still belongs to We, the People.’
Meanwhile, a US federal judge has ordered the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to preserve evidence related to Pretti’s fatal shooting.
Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order request by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and Hennepin County Attorney, preventing DHS from ‘destroying or altering evidence’.
The lawsuit was filed by Minnesota state authorities after they said DHS had barred them from accessing the scene of the shooting.
In an earlier press conference, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said this is the first time the state has filed such a lawsuit and called it an ‘extraordinary’ step that should ‘alarm everyone who believes in equal justice under the law’.
Dr Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA), spoke to the media earlier and paid tribute to Pretti, saying the organisation is ‘deeply saddened’ by his death.
‘Alex was taking care of our veterans, the people who served this country, he loved being nurse’ she said.
While Kennedy says she didn’t know Pretti personally, friends and family have described him as a ‘wonderful nurse’ who was ‘following the code of ethics’.
‘In the moments up to his killing, he was taking care of a person who had fallen. Unfortunately, that’s when people decided to kill him.’
