The Colorado parents of a man killed Saturday morning by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis said they told their son recently to be careful when protesting.
Family members say Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who cared deeply about people and was upset by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in his city. He had participated in protests following the killing of Renee Good, who was originally from Colorado, by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7.
His parents, who live in Colorado, urged him to be cautious.
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti, Alex’s father, told The Associated Press. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
The family first learned of the shooting when they were called by an AP reporter.
His parents said their last conversation with their son was a couple days before his death. They talked about repairs he had done to the garage door of his home. The worker was a Latino man, and Alex said with all that was happening in Minneapolis he gave the man a $100 tip.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” Michael Pretti said. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”
Pretti was a U.S. citizen, born in Illinois. Like Good, court records showed he had no criminal record and his family said he had never had any interactions with law enforcement beyond a handful of traffic tickets.
Alex Pretti was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed getting in adventures with Joule, his beloved Catahoula Leopard dog who also recently died. Pretti’s mother said her son cared immensely about the direction the county was headed, especially the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations.
“He hated that, you know, people were just trashing the land,” Susan Pretti said. “He was an outdoorsman. He took his dog everywhere he went. You know, he loved this country, but he hated what people were doing to it.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the man was shot after he “approached” Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun. Officials did not specify if Pretti brandished the gun, and it is not visible in bystander video of the shooting obtained by The Associated Press.
Family members said Pretti owned a handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota. They said they had never known him to carry it.
Family struggles for information
After being contacted by The Associated Press, the family watched the video and said the man who was killed appeared to be their son. They then tried reaching out to officials in Minnesota.
“I can’t get any information from anybody,” Michael Pretti said Saturday. “The police, they said, call Border Patrol. Border Patrol’s closed. The hospitals won’t answer any questions.”
Eventually, the family called the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, which confirmed they had a body matching the name and description of their son, the parents said.
Alex Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.
After graduation, he went to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, society and the environment, according to the family. He worked as a research scientist before returning to school to become a registered nurse.
Alex Pretti had protested before
Pretti’s ex-wife, Rachel N. Canoun, said she was not surprised he would have been involved in protesting Trump’s immigration crackdown. She said she had not spoken to him since they divorced more than two years ago and she moved to another state.
She said he was a Democratic voter and that he had participated in the wave of street protests following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, not far from the couple’s neighborhood. She said they often livestreamed what was going on to social media. She described him as someone who might shout at law enforcement officers at a protest, but she had never known him to be physically confrontational.
“These kinds of things, you know, he felt the injustice to it,” Canoun said. “So it doesn’t surprise me that he would be involved.”
Canoun said Pretti got a permit to carry a concealed firearm about three years ago and that he owned at least one semiautomatic handgun when they separated.
“He didn’t carry it around me, because it made me uncomfortable,” she said.
Pretti had ‘a great heart’
Pretti lived in a four-unit condominium building about 2 miles from where he was shot. Neighbors described him as quiet and warmhearted.
“He’s a wonderful person,” said Sue Gitar, who lived downstairs from Pretti and said he moved into the building about three years ago. “He has a great heart.”
If there was something suspicious going on in the neighborhood, or when they worried the building might have a gas leak, he would jump in to help.
Pretti lived alone and worked long hours as a nurse, but he was not a loner, his neighbors said, and would sometimes have friends over.
His neighbors knew he had guns — he’d occasionally take a rifle to shoot at a gun range — but were surprised at the idea that he might carry a pistol on the streets.
“I never thought of him as a person who carried a gun,” said Gitar.