Two federal agents who killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis got benched from their jobs this week. The Customs and Border Protection officers are now sitting on administrative leave while investigators dig into what really went down Saturday morning.
A CBP spokesperson told reporters the move follows standard protocol.
“The two officers involved are on administrative leave,” the agency said. But this ain’t just paperwork: it’s the latest domino falling after ICE’s Minneapolis operation started cracking under pressure.
The 37-year-old ICU nurse died after agents fired their weapons during what officials called an enforcement action.
Video footage shows Pretti holding a phone, not brandishing a gun like federal officials first claimed. An agent removed Pretti’s legally owned firearm from his waist just before the shooting happened.
Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by NBC News reveal that both officers discharged their weapons within five seconds of someone yelling, “He’s got a gun!”
However, the preliminary report makes no mention of Pretti attacking anyone or threatening officers with a weapon. The shooting triggered a massive backlash that reached all the way to the White House. Stephen Miller initially called Pretti a “would-be assassin” and “domestic terrorist.”
Those comments got walked back fast when even Republicans started pushing back. Republican Senator Rand Paul joined the criticism, saying nobody believes Pretti was attacking officers.
“When people watch that video and the government tells them, ‘Well, he was assaulting the police officers,’ nobody with any objectivity believes that’s what’s happening,” Paul said on Fox News.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, flew to Minneapolis to take control of the situation. The president himself held phone calls with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Democrats he usually attacks on social media.
But the biggest casualty might be Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who became the face of Trump’s Minneapolis crackdown. Sources say Bovino got stripped of his “commander at large” title and shipped back to his old job at the California border.
Bovino had defended his agents aggressively after both the Pretti shooting and the earlier killing of Renee Good on January 7. He appeared on cable news, calling his officers the real victims, not the protesters getting shot.
The 55-year-old commander built his reputation on flashy social media videos that looked like action movie trailers. He’d stand unmasked while his agents wore black face coverings, creating an intimidating presence that critics compared to Nazi imagery.
Minnesota’s top federal judge isn’t playing games either.
Judge Patrick Schiltz summoned ICE acting director Todd Lyons to appear in court on Friday for allegedly ignoring court orders. “The court’s patience is at an end,” Schiltz warned about possible contempt charges.
The judge had ordered federal agents to preserve evidence from the crime scene. State investigators got blocked from accessing the area where Pretti died, forcing the court to step in with preservation orders.
Protests erupted across Minneapolis after the shooting, with demonstrators blowing whistles and banging pots outside hotels where federal agents stayed. The gatherings remained peaceful despite tear gas and physical restraints from federal officers.
Operation Metro Surge deployed roughly 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota, five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department’s entire force.
The massive presence was supposed to target violent criminals and corruption, but ended up killing two American citizens instead.
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