Video contradicts Trump’s claim man killed in Minneapolis was a ‘gunman’

Video recorded by witnesses to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday shows that the 37-year-old registered nurse was holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot, directly contradicting the claims of senior Trump administration officials that he threatened to “massacre” officers.

In the aftermath of the killing, which was recorded by multiple witnesses, the Department of Homeland Security released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as “the gunman’s gun” in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”, though she later declined to say whether or not Pretti pulled the gun out.

Greg Bovino, a senior border patrol commander who was reprimanded by a federal judge last year for lying, also told reporters that Pretti had approached border patrol agents with the same gun.

“The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a border patrol agent fired defensive shots,” Bovino said. “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

That account is directly contradicted by video evidence of the incident reviewed by the Guardian.

While Pretti was legally licensed to have a gun, it is unclear whether he had one on his person at the time of the incident, and the videos do not show him ever having one in his hand.

Video provided to the Guardian by a Minneapolis resident who drove past the scene at 8.58am local time, as a group of observers recorded video on their phones of federal officers on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis, showed Pretti standing on the street holding up his phone as one officer reached out and shoved him back. Pretti retreated, but appeared to continue recording the officer as he did so.

The exact time of the shooting has not yet been established, but it was just minutes later, because Minneapolis police were alerted to the shooting at 9.03 am, according to the city police chief, Brian O’Hara.

Video recorded by another witness, who was standing behind Pretti, obtained by Drop Site News, showed that Pretti continued recording the immigration enforcement operation on his phone, as other observers blew their whistles and honked their horns, and appeared to direct traffic so that cars could pass the scene.

The same clip showed that Pretti then stepped in to defend another observer who was shoved to the ground by a federal officer. That officer sprayed Pretti with a chemical agent, repeatedly, before tackling him to the street along with two other agents.

In a scene recorded by at least two other witnesses – one further up the street, whose footage was obtained by the Associated Press, and another inside Glam Doll Donuts across the street, whose video was posted on Facebook – seven agents quickly surrounded Pretti. As they held him down, and hit him, one officer in jeans and a grey jacket reached down toward Pretti’s lower back and then stepped away with what appeared to be a gun.

Less than a second later, another agent drew a gun and appeared to fire a shot at Pretti from close range. As the agents stepped back, another officer pointed a gun at Pretti, and a volley of 10 more shots rang out.

As the independent journalist Eoin Higgins pointed out, the video of the shooting recorded from the donut shop across the street suggests that the agents might have opened fire on Pretti moments after he had been disarmed of the gun he was legally permitted to carry but had not brandished at any point in the encounter.

Even as the publicly available video evidence showed clearly that federal agents had killed an observer who was merely recording their activities on his phone, Noem, the homeland security secretary, stuck to the administration’s story at the briefing, originally scheduled to discuss the winter storm, on Saturday evening.

After referring to Pretti as an “armed suspect”, Noem added the observably false claim that he was “brandishing” the weapon when he approached federal agents.

“This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage,” Noem said, “and to kill law enforcement.”

In a statement to local news Kare 11, Pretti’s parents said they were “heartbroken but also very angry”.

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs,” they said. “He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper-sprayed.

“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”