Over the past month, the Trump administration has deployed thousands of federal immigration agents to the Minneapolis area. On Saturday, Jan. 24, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs.Pretti was the third person shot by federal agents in the area in January.
The Department of Homeland Security initially said an agent fired “defensive shots” after Pretti approached officers with a weapon,but video of the incident appears to contradict that claim. DHS said this week that two officers involved were placed on leave.In a press conference on Thursday, border czar Tom Homan said the administration is working on making the operation “safer, more efficient, by the book.” He said that agents will focus on “targeted, strategic enforcement operations” with a ”prioritization on public safety threats.”
our photojournalists Cengiz Yar and peter DiCampo were on the ground in Minneapolis, covering what they saw in the days before and after Pretti’s death. Read their accounts below.
Cengiz Yar
I arrived in Minneapolis last week to report on the crackdown and how local residents were reacting.
I had packed my medical kit, full face respirator, helmet and a couple tourniquets, essentials for my reporting bag when I make trips to risky and possibly violent areas. I also brought layers upon layers of warm clothing, as temperatures were expected to drop to 20 below in the coming days. I knew the ICE raids and the community’s response had been intense across the region, but I wasn’t fully prepared for what I’d end up seeing playing out in the streets.
In my few days in Minnesota, I’ve been witness to countless scenes that remind me of moments I’ve seen during previous trips covering conflicts around the world. I watched heavily armored federal units roll through quiet neighborhoods. In a grocery store parking lot, angry residents screamed at agents, demanding they leave the city. Masked and armed government agents pointed weapons toward me and some protesters during an encounter in the middle of the afternoon.Curious guests in a hotel elevator wondered why I was carrying around a medical pack and gas mask.Local residents thanked me for being there to witness the situation. A drunk man at a hotel bar cursed at me, saying the media was at fault. The wars we’ve carried out as a nation abroad have come home.
On my first day out reporting, I came upon an incident that had been unfolding for over an hour. Late in the afternoon on Thursday, Jan. 22, three construction workers clung to a roof, bracing themselves against the slanted plywood of an unfinished two-story house on the far south side of Minneapolis. Federal agents had massed in the house and in cars on the street,conducting a raid on the construction site. The agents called for the workers to come down. Th
Onlookers rushed into the building and brought the men down to wrap them in blankets. “You’re OK now,” they reassured the men. “You did great.”
on Friday, I arrived in South Minneapolis as protesters gathered, shouting, filming and blowing whistles at armored agents in a pickup. After a few minutes, the agents threw tear gas into the small crowd of onlookers and sped away.Gas drifted through the snowy streets, passing cute two-story houses and short, leafless trees.My throat burning, I crouched to the ground, coughing up the irritants behind a snowbank.
I couldn’t have known that less than a day later, in a similar situation, Customs and Border Protection agents would kill a man by shooting him multiple times in the back as they pinned him to the ground. pretti died while filming agents and trying to help a woman as he was pepper sprayed. In the unfolding chaos in the hours after the shooting, I watched as agents unloaded tear gas on a couple hundred furious protesters who had assembled at the site of the shooting. Heavily armored law enforcement faced off against a crowd of unarmed protesters carrying signs and screaming for justice and retribution.
I am sorry, but the provided text only contains HTML code for an image and its associated attributes.There is no article body present in the given source material. Therefore, I cannot fulfill yoru request to return the final HTML article body.I am unable to fulfill that request. The provided text consists solely of image URLs and a figure caption. There is no article body present in the source material.I can only return what is given to me, and in this case, that is only image data and a caption.
I do not have the words to articulate how it feels to watch this unfold in Minneapolis, a city that I have grown to know and love after moving here a few years ago. The journalists who flocked here over the past few weeks are people I have run into while on assignment in hot spots all over the world. Now they were in my home city.
As crowds grew, agents fired tear gas to keep them back. Crowds would then briefly disperse, but some agents would grab and detain people regardless. The crowds reformed quickly, and the cycle of tear gas, detentions and regrouping continued.
“`html
I paused, realizing the final standoff happened right in front of Cheapo Records. I’ve bought records there on my birthday for years. The day’s events – the shooting, the protests, the tear gas – all unfolded on Eat Street, a stretch of Nicollet Avenue known for its diverse restaurants. Walking these streets won’t feel the same.
People walked to the site of Alex Pretti’s death.Yellow tape remained, now tied carelessly around trash cans. A small bloodstain marked the pavement.
Quietly, they began to build a memorial.
