The family of Alex Pretti blasted President Donald Trump and demanded justice for their “murdered” loved one in their first television interview since the ICU nurse was shot and killed seven months ago by federal immigration agents.
Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed in Minneapolis on January 24 while filming a protest against Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge,” which had also resulted in the death of U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good at the hands of federal agents about two weeks earlier.
Eyewitness video shows two agents shot Pretti in the back about 10 times within five seconds after wrestling him to the ground. The agents have never been officially identified, and the Department of Justice has refused to share details of the investigation with the family.
“We’ve seen what happened. The videos are pretty clear. But we want justice. We want accountability for the people that did this to Alex,” his father Michael Pretti told Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Tuesday.
After the shooting, high-ranking administration officials—including Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and former Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino—immediately tried to smear Pretti as an “assassin” and “domestic terrorist” who wanted to “massacre” law enforcement.
In a Truth Social post, Trump called Pretti an “agitator” and a possible “insurrectionist.”
Asked how it felt to hear those attacks, Alex’s sister Micayla—who called Alex her “hero” for standing up for what he believed in—replied, “I don’t think you would like my answer.”
His mother Susan Pretti said the family deserved an apology, while Michael called the statements “disgusting.”
Trump’s post in particular was “so un-presidential,” he added.
“It’s ridiculous that, you know, the leader of the free world speaks that way about an American citizen,” he said.
Reached for comment by ABC, the White House declined to say if Miller and Trump still stood by the comments. The Daily Beast has also reached out.
A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said the shooting remains active, while the FBI declined to comment.
Then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met with the family on July 13, but the meeting raised more questions than it answered, the family’s attorney Steve Schleicher said.
“They at least have the right to know who shot Alex Pretti,” he told ABC. “They have the right to be consulted with meaningfully, they have the right to meet with the prosecutors, they have the right to have the process not drag on too long. They have the right to be informed, and that’s just not being done here.”
The DOJ said in a statement that as a matter of “standard protocol,” the department doesn’t communicate with victims’ families during investigations, and that any communication comes later, such as during an indictment.
Schleicher responded that there was “nothing standard about the government ignoring the Pretti family, obstructing an investigation, and harboring and protecting the individuals who murdered their son.”
The federal government has tried to block Minnesota state officials from investigating the shooting, forcing the local district attorney’s office to file an unprecedented lawsuit demanding access to evidence and case files.
Video taken from several different angles revealed that Alex Pretti had been recording confrontations between protesters and immigration agents when a federal officer shoved a woman into him. When he tried to help the woman up, the agents pepper-sprayed him, wrestled him to the ground, and began hitting him.
An agent found a gun on Pretti, which he had a legal permit to carry, and removed it before he was shot.
His parents told ABC they learned their son had been killed when they were watching TV news coverage of the footage and recognized his jacket and sunglasses.
“What did he do to deserve to be murdered? To be left cold, on the ground, dead, my child? What did he do?” Susan Pretti said. “They murdered our child. People need to be held responsible when they murder people in this country. Period.”
