The Immigration Agents Who Killed Alex Pretti Are Still At Work

The federal immigration agents who fatally shot ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday have not been placed on leave and are continuing to work, according to Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino.

“All agents that were involved in that scene are working, not in Minneapolis, but in other locations,” Bovino told reporters Sunday. “That’s for their safety. There’s this thing called doxing. And the safety of our employees is very important to us. So we’re going to keep those employees safe.”

The Department of Homeland Security claims that Pretti approached federal immigration officers with a gun, but video footage shows he was only holding a phone.

Multiple agents pepper-sprayed Pretti and a female protester, video of the incident shows. While Pretti attempted to help the female protester, the agents forced him to the ground, held him down and beat him. An agent pulled a gun from a holster at Pretti’s side as others restrained him, according to video analyses by media outlets. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Pretti was believed to have a permit to carry a firearm.

Another agent then appeared to shoot Pretti in the back at close range, while others continued to pin his arms by his head. Another agent then fired additional bullets into the motionless man. At least two agents appeared to fire at least 10 bullets.

“From what I see right now, this does not look like a justified shooting,” Charles Ramsey, the former police commissioner of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., told CNN. “The guy is prone on the sidewalk… and they’re still firing rounds into him.”

DHS did not respond to a list of questions, including on its current use-of-force policy, how it determines whether officers who shoot people are placed on leave, and whether Jonathan Ross, the agent who killed Renee Good earlier this month, is currently working.

It is “absolutely inappropriate” for the agents who shot Pretti to be back at work, Diane Goldstein, a former Redondo Beach Police Department lieutenant and the current executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. Administrative leave for officers who commit a shooting is necessary, she said — for the well-being of the community and for the officer, as there’s a risk of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder after such an incident.

Charles Exum, a Border Patrol agent who shot Marimar Martinez in Chicago last October, was back at work “within, I think, three days of the incident,” Martinez’s attorney previously told HuffPost. Text messages showed Exum bragging about shooting Martinez, who survived. “I’m up for another round of ‘fuck around and find out,’” he wrote. “I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” he later texted.

The most recent use-of-force policy on the DHS website is from 2023, during the Biden administration. It states that DHS law enforcement officials “may use deadly force only when necessary,” such as when someone “poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the [law enforcement officer] or to another person.”

At the time, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a California-based advocacy group, described the policy as “a step in the right direction,” but one that “falls short of meeting international human rights standards and does not do enough to protect human life.”

According to the coalition, 362 people have been killed in encounters with Customs and Border Patrol since 2010. Although DHS’s use-of-force policy calls for a “use of force review council or committee,” it provides little guidance on the makeup or functions of the council.

Stephen Miller, a homeland security adviser and the architect of the Trump administration’s far-right immigration agenda, has suggested that DHS agents have “immunity” to use violence during immigration enforcement operations.

“You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties,” he said on Fox News in October — a message DHS reposted earlier this month after Good was killed.