Armed man approached ICE agents, ends up getting shot
Federal agents were in the process of going after Jose Huerta-Chuma when a man approached them. Alex Pretti, 37, approached them armed with a gun and a couple of magazines. Agents tried to disarm him, but Pretti violently resisted, causing one agent to fear for the lives of his comrades and himself to fire defensive shots. Medics arrived to provide medical aid but pronounced Pretti dead. After the shooting, about 200 agitators closed in and engaged in obstruction and assault.
From Fox News:
During Saturday’s news conference, Frey condemned the shooting and gave an impassioned plea for the federal enforcement operation to end.
“I just saw a video of more than six masked agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death. How many more residents? How many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end? How many more lives need to be lost before this administration realizes that a political and partisan narrative is not as important as American values? How many times must local and national leaders must plead with you, Donald Trump, to end this operation and recognize that this is not creating safety in our city,” Frey said.
He called on the administration and those involved in the operation to “reflect” before calling out Trump.
“President Trump, this is a moment to act like a leader. Put Minneapolis put America first in this moment. Let’s achieve peace. Let’s end this operation. And I’m telling you, our city will come back. Safety will be restored. We’re asking for you to take action now to remove these federal agents,” Frey said.
Walz also condemned the shooting, noting he spoke twice with the White House Saturday morning.
“Minnesota has had it. This is sickening,” Walz wrote on X. “The president must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
He later said that he told the White House that Minnesota must lead the investigation into the shooting and implored them to “let state investigators secure justice. As we process the scene, stay peaceful and give them space.”
“The State has the personnel to keep people safe — federal agents must not obstruct our ability to do so,” Walz wrote on X.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, both Democrats representing Minnesota, also spoke out following the shooting. Smith called the incident “catastrophic” and called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “leave now so MPD can secure the scene and do their jobs.”
The Border Patrol Union responded to the incident, saying that agents are “trained extremely well to protect themselves.”
“We have pleaded with and warned the media and the politicians that their irresponsible, hate-filled and false rhetoric is going to get people unnecessarily hurt, or worse, killed when they portray our agents and officers as the aggressors. They have encouraged these reckless confrontations and attacks on our agents and officers who are performing their lawful duties and enforcing the laws that Congress has put on the books,” the union wrote in a statement on X.
Additional Reading:
Wolf, R., Mauro, P., & Melugin, B. (2026, January 24). Alex Pretti identified as Minneapolis man fatally shot by federal immigration agent. Fox News. Link.
Category: Crime, ICE, Illegal Immigrants, Society
The left will spin this so damn hard. My fb page already got slammed last night by dem politicians dancing on that guy’s grave to push their agenda. I’m so sick of their BS. I honestly wish they would leave the country if they can’t stand the laws of the land they helped create. Freaking damn hypocrites.
I’ve got a number of liberal friends who are calling this straight up murder. It’s like they WANT a fight.
Uh, no, guys. No you don’t. And the ones who are protesting and claiming to be vets? I’m guessing they have about as much combat time as Walz.
You, sir, are correct!
So is he an illegal or an ICU nurse? It depends who is telling the truth and there isn’t much truth coming out of Minnesota.
Time to pull ICE out and just wall off the city. No one comes in or out without an ID check.
I suggest you research what is being reported a bit more and edit your post. You’re confusing the shooting victim with the target of the ICE investigation.
I’m a little comfused on the shootings. online NewsMax has the VA employee/Nurse with a gun that turns up and then the ilegal turns up with a handgun and 2 mags. va employee had a permit for a hand gun. va employee was holding a cell phone and ice says he had a gun, so now I’m really confused.
That confusion might be deliberately created. For now, I am confident and comfortable with the “suspect’s” deceased status and grateful that no ICE or other law enforcement personnel were injured.
In order to do as you suggest, I have to have the ability to precisely predict the future and know exactly what the source article will look like on the day that the post I generated drops.
Additionally, I suggest that you thoroughly read the post that you’re commenting on. Had you looked at the quoted portion of the article, which quoted the article as it was posted at the time, it had the commander of the Border Patrol identifying him as an illegal alien.
This had absolutely nothing to do with my ability to research, and everything to do with the fact that since I scheduled this yesterday afternoon for posting today, the information changed and the source article was updated.
There was absolutely no confusion on my part as I summarized what the article said as of the time (yesterday afternoon). The context of the above post, and the article that it references as I generated it yesterday, does not tie the guy that got shot with someone they were after. He was described as approaching ICE.
Grow up. All I did was suggest you research the matter more and update your post.
Grow up? Reread your suggestion and do as you preach. Hint: Demonstrate tact next time. Rebuking you for jumping the gun does not constitute being immature.
Thanks for updating your post.
So the “ICU male nurse” is in fact now a deceased and illegal alien?
The dead guy is Alex Pretti. Huerta-Chuma is the suspect that ICE was attempting to take into custody.
File this under FAFO.
I think Jose Huerta-Chuma was the target of the operation that the former ICU nurse interfered with.
After some additional reading, that sounds like the most accurate information, so far.
I need more coffee and a scorecard for this.
“Minnesota has had it. This is sickening,” Walz wrote on X. “The president must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
Hack Stone keeps seeing those on the left claiming that ICE agents are untrained. Personnel assigned as Immigration Customs Enforcement agents undergo 12 weeks of training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). Most of them have prior experience in local, state and federal law enforcement, which means that have additional training in law enforcement, in addition to any training as prior military. That does not sound untrained to Hack.
Yeah, but your facts contradict with the propaganda that the left uses to stir their useful idiots up into a frenzy.
Yes, that’s “hurtful and harmful” for ’em:
But, but, but…
As I told my terminally-TDS spouse, ICE agents are definitely trained. Most of us have served in the military and know what happens when a training program is required to change in order to facilitate increased numbers of trainees or operate under unusual conditions: the course might “shorten”, but it does not necessarily lower standards.
Case in point, the Sabalauski Air Assault School circa late-2003. It was brought forward to Iraq and condensed from 10 days to five. While many of us criticized that course for removing the physical standards (obstacle course and ruck marches) that eliminate many AASLT students, the course kept all of its classroom and hands-on curriculum, and was supposedly harder academically, with much longer classroom hours. At the end of the day, the knowledge is why the school exists, and those who graduated AASLT in Iraq learned as much about AASLT, sling load, and rappelling operations as those of us who went through at Campbell.
If a course–military training, LE academy, or otherwise–is required to cut down from 15 weeks to 10, you can bet that the number of course hours will not see much change. A 15-week course might see students doing seven hours of classroom instruction five days a week, while a 10-week course might increase to 11 hours of instruction, with an additional five hours each Saturday. Either way, it’s 600 course hours.
“Untrained” ICE agents is just a buzzword designed to enrage the ignorant. I doubt there are any federal LE agents/officers who are sworn in off the streets, handed a badge and gun, and told to “go get ’em”. As you stated, the majority of ICE agents are prior military/LE who have much more training and experience than some rookie FBI agent straight out of college and the FBI Academy.
Got my “Bullwinkle” at Campbell (A/2/503) in 1981. Do they still have the tree-landing platform? That was the one thing that scared the bejeebers out of me — jump school was no problem, but that tree-landing platform was just awful.
For those who do not know, the net was a chain-link fence stretched out about 20’x20′ (?) but seemed 5’x5′, and it was outstretched at the top of a 100′ tree that had its limbs shorn. It looks somewhat similar to the experimental one tried in RVN.
Forgot to attach the experimental tree-landing platform tried in Vietnam. The one at Campbell, the helicopter hovered about 15′ above the top of the net and you jumped down into the net.
All distances might be shorter … due to fear factor and/or age.
Personnel assigned as ICE officers in the last year likely have not had 12 weeks of training. You might wonder how much training they have had?
Awesome question but nobody really knows the answer. Possible answers are 21 weeks, 13 weeks, 12 weeks, 9.5 weeks, 8 weeks, 47 days, six weeks and five weeks. Confused? Don’t worry you still will be after reading the below fact check article:
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2026/ice-47-days-training-reduced-trump/
That is assuming the article has any degree of relationship to the facts.
“During Saturday’s news conference, Frey condemned the shooting and gave an impassioned plea for the federal enforcement operation to end.”
“The president must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
FUCK the both of them sideways with a hot steam pipe, why not COOPERATE with ICE to remove the illegals UNLESS the both of you butt-pals have something to hide, and apparently both do, I would SO LOVE to see the both of them take the perp walk.
And quit telling people to go out and protest the entirely legal ICE operations. They’re saying that ICE are untrained violent armed masked thugs when the fact of the matter is that none of that is true. The mobs they are egging on to get armed up and go out and protect their innocent immigrant neighbors and small children are the untrained violent armed masked thugs.
IMO there is no way you can reason with moonbat liberals, they ONLY think, believe and do what they’re told to by their herders and handlers, they are herd animals, one and all and we see what their hivethink is every time Major Moonbat comes here and screeches!
I can understand them not wanting to follow rule of law. It’s a binary choice though.
He went looking for trouble, he found it.
Even if he was licensed to carry, high on the list of “stupid shit you shouldn’t be doing” is running up while you’re armed and interfering with LEOs in performance of lawful duties when they’re already amped up and on edge.
These politicians are doing nothing but stirring the pot. But as a wise person once said, “He who stirs the pot eventually has to lick the spoon “
Yup. With rights, come responsibilities. And he absolutely violated that. He’s responsible for the outcome.
Peronal responsibility? A Leftist? That’s racist!
According to reports, he left his ID at home. Possession of which is a requirement under MN CCL rules to carry legally.
I suspect that the network he was working with told him to leave his ID behind. Now he has a toe tag and new name.
Don’t these fruitloops know their own side’s trying to get them killed for its own ends?
Very well stated Sparky. If you carry it is very unwise to do exactly what Mr. ICU nurse did. He should have steered clear of that place or at least have left that piece at home. I am surprised at how many of these people are out there. They remind me of the welcome home people I encountered at the California air port on my way home from a am in 69.
Gist of the Nam that is.
Auto correct is messing with me!
So, what the local politicians are saying is that the ICE Agents just came up to the guy and shot him. Right 👍
Corrupt Minnesota politicians providing protection to criminals while getting a little “donation” is nothing new.
https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/event/gangster-era-st-paul-1900-1936
Seems the nurse saw a woman on the periphery get tear gassed and pushed to the ground, he was both filming with phone in hand and reached for her, at which point the ICE/CBP perceived him as interfering and swarmed him (5-6 agents.) One of them discovered he had a gun and immediately took it from him (he has a legal concealed carry license). As the agent backed away, some say a shot was fired? but in any case agents felt threatened and fired over 5 rounds into the nurse, which killed him. He did not touch his own gun during the interaction, didn’t threaten anyone with anything other than his phone. GOA (Gun Owners of America) have condemned the shooting as a bad shoot. The NRA only condemned an LA ADA who said something like “if you have a gun around a cop, you just might get shot” (flies in the face of the ‘open/concealed carry as every citizen’s right’ mantra, eh?) and has yet to comment on the shooting itself.
He was well within his rights to carry, but it was still incredibly stupid on his part. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Especially if you’re venturing into an area that you know will be hosting the day’s riot.
Just playing Devil’s advocate: if you can’t carry on the off chance you may encounter a cop, it ain’t a right. Police need to learn to deal with it peacefully. In Texas, when they run your license at a traffic stop, a big red flag warns them that you have a license. You then have a polite conversation with Officer Friendly:;”I see you have a carry license. Do you have a gun with you today?” ” Yes, I do, it’s holstered on my right side” “OK, gonna need you to keep your hands on top of the wheel while we talk. You OK with that?” “Yes” “Okay, I clocked you at 75 in a 60 zone. Are you headed to the hospital to be treated?” etc. No screaming, no ‘get out of the f+++ing car’, nobody gets shot as long as everyone plays nice.
If you’d kindly reread the last part of my statement:
“Especially if you’re venturing into an area that you know will be hosting the day’s riot”.
He absolutely had the right to carry. With that right comes responsibility. Knowingly heading into a “protest” that you know will become a riot, while carrying a firearm, is an irresponsible act. I can sling my AR over my shoulder and walk down any street in Arizona. Legally. That does not mean it’s a good idea. We have no idea what his intentions were. Nor does ICE. If you involve yourself in a physical struggle with federal agents, it will end badly. If you do it armed, it will be worse. You cannot compare this to a traffic stop.
Here’s a pretty good summation about making decisions and the circumstances discussed here:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/the_hardest_lesson_why_being_there_matters.html
A violent protest and a traffic stop (of which I’ve literally conducted well over 20,000 on the highways of Texas) are not the same thing. If you feel the need to carry a firearm to a violent protest, you might decide you shouldn’t be there.
Beat me by a minute with the reply.
20,000 stops? You must DPS?
I used to be. I’ve been retired for a while now.
You can go ahead and stop the false equivalency nonsense.
He was attempting to stop law enforcement officers from making an arrest. That is no-go terrain whether you have a gun or not. It doesn’t make the shoot a good shoot or a bad shoot.
Commit a felony while armed in front of law enforcement officers and your odds of meeting Jesus in person sky rocket.
It may have been a good shoot but I can’t tell for sure because you can’t see the guy’s other hand early in the encounter. We also don’t know what he said to the officer and a million other things that triggered the encounter.
The officer appears to have wrestled the gun away from the guy’s LEFT hand, not the hand formerly holding the cell phone. The real question is did the gun go off while they were still struggling for it or did the officer finger fumble bang it while he was holding it himself? Because if the officer had an AD/ND then it is likely not a good shoot with the shooting officer also being responsible.
Finally, don’t forget that it was the infamous Sig 320. The older models of which were known for their ADs, due to a since corrected defect.
“Because if the officer had an AD/ND then it is likely not a good shoot with the shooting officer also being responsible.”
I disagree with the bold part. I’m not sure how liability would be allocated to the agent/officer who may have ND’d the decedent’s firearm, but I’d assume that under the objective reasonableness doctrine, the agent who pulled the trigger of his agency-issued weapon in response to the gunfire would be justified given the totality of circumstances.
As Mason said, awful but lawful.
Amen.
Here’s my take on it, having watched the videos from the various angles:
Pretti was getting into it with the Border Patrol agents. There was pushing and shoving, they pepper sprayed him. For whatever reason, the BP Agent decided to arrest him. The fight is on. Several more BP Agents join in. They take him to the ground, but you can see he’s actively resisting.
BP/ICE Agent in a grey coat comes up to enter the scrum. Looks like he see’s Pretti has a gun concealed. He grabs it and unhoslters it, and there’s an extremely high likelihood he yelled something to the effect of “Gun!” as cops do in such situation. Guy who had disarmed dead guy turns to get the gun away from the “bad guy” fighting his partners, and immediately negligently discharges the dead guy’s firearm into the ground.
Now the cops in the scrum have heard, “He’s got a gun” and then, a split second later heard a shot go off. All the cops in the scrum back off at that same time, as they are reacting to the same stimulus. None of them know, in that moment, which one of them (if any) have been shot. They react and shoot Pretti It looks like Pretti also came out of the scrum with something in his right hand (probably a phone or a camera), but when you’ve been primed with “Gun” and hear a gunshot, you’ll swear that you saw a gun in that black mass in his hand.
It’s “awful but lawful” as the saying goes.
It certainly would have helped everyone’s communication if there weren’t 30 people blowing rape whistles constantly, but that’s one of several lessons to be learned here.
Bottom line: Pretti decided to carry a loaded pistol with a round in the chamber and two extra mags to a confrontation with armed ICE officers to interfere and disrupt their operations. When confronted by them, he decides to fight them. A wrestling match ensues and in the scrum, his gun goes off. Beforehand, he deliberately decides to carry his phone, but no ID nor his CCW permit, so he has the option of refusing to identify himself. It looks to me like he was anticipating getting detained and/or arrested. Then he would certainly be a “hero” among his peers. But now he is a dead hero.
I should add that most of us here who are trigger pullers likely consider this “dead hero” less than one who is prudent. Query: Why did he feel the need to carry over 60 rounds of ammo to a “peaceful” protest? Planning for a gunfight?
The proper answer is; that It is none of your business.
Well, since the proggy leftards want the public to consider him a martyr who died righteously fighting the fascist Orange Man’s Gestapo, that question warrants an answer.
Last I checked, what some people want still doesn’t trump the constitution.
Well, enlighten us, what does the constitution have to do with it?
Say, speaking of legends in their own mind like that, where’s Lars– is he busy getting his ass shot-off or arrested in Minneapolis?
He’s all mouth, no action.
He is too busy hosting those Antifa circle jerks. Plus, he is a warm weather protest warrior.
Unfortunately, it now is our business. He absolutely had the right to carry a handgun and 3 mags. He failed to see the stupidity in doing so, and in physically engaging law enforcement. Now he gets to contemplate his mistakes for eternity. Nearly every calamity is a cascading series of fuckups. He made fuckup #1.
I agree, except I see about three fuckups. One, he decides to take a pistol to a supposedly peaceful protest where the plan is to obstruct ICE. Two, he inserts himself into officers restraining another “protester.” Three, he decides to fight the officers trying to detain him. If he had thrown his hands up and said, “I’m carrying,” or words to that effect, he wouldn’t have been shot. But he didn’t decide not to escalate.
That’s the big three, there may be more. It all adds up to DEAD.
I disagree. Nothing wrong with legally carrying a pistol to an otherwise peaceable assembly.
Commit a felony by obstructing a federal agent and hoping for the best isn’t much of plan though. Even if it is a bad shoot, you are still dead.
You must be the only man in America that views anything in Minneapolis as an “otherwise peaceful assembly”. But, you are correct in your statement, except for the geography.
“… an otherwise peaceable assembly.”
True, but that ain’t what he did.
Short answer: He went looking for trouble and found it.
You would think that they would have caught on by now.
I hope they search that weirdo’s hard drive
And his work computer.
They’ll most certainly rat fuck his phone, and will probably find a lot of stuff on there that substantiates predictions that are coming true each day.
With the typical hypocrisy of the liberals, they want ICE out of Minnesota because of the actions of a few, but not illegals out of the country also because of the actions of a few….
And the mostly peaceful rioters are erecting barriers and checking IDs of anyone attempting to enter their exclusion zones. Guessing that “Irony” is not in the Woke Left Dictionary.
Wait …., I thought borders didn’t work, or were raycis or something, and were to be eliminated.
The rules and definitions change daily it seems, so its hard to keep up with what hurts their feelings at any given moment. It’ll be something different before I hit the post button, or shortly after.
Illegals are a voting block for democrats. And apparently a large cash donor class from the Somalian community.
They only want to follow the laws they like.
That isn’t how it works.
Strange, is it not, that all of this concern over their “neighbors”(illegal aliens) came about after the discovery of fraud to the tune of about 10Billion $$$’s? Why, it’s almost as if Walz and Frey set this off intentionally, to keep the kickbacks going.
That’s what I mention to all those who suffer TDS. And all it took was a couple of citizens journalists to bring it to the light of day. No way of putting the magic smoke back in the wire, nor the genie back in the bottle.
I will never understand Suicide by Cop….
The video I’ve seen so far looks like a execution
I think ice may have screwed this one up..
‘someone was a bit trigger happy