Pretti parents accuse federal government of withholding evidence in son's shooting

Parents accuse federal government of shielding officers

Michael and Susan Pretti spoke at a news conference on 27 October 2026, organized by the family's attorney, Steve Schleicher, and said the federal government is shielding the immigration officers involved in their son's death. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a veterans hospital, was shot by federal immigration agents on 24 January in Minneapolis, during a deportation drive the Trump administration had stepped up in Minnesota. The parents said that for nine months no one from the government had contacted them with any substantive information. They accused Attorney General Todd Blanche and Dan Rosen, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, of stonewalling them.

“At every turn, they have ignored us, misled us, and shielded Alex's killers.”

Evidence held back from state investigators

Federal prosecutors have disclosed in recent court filings that they stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities investigating the January killings of Pretti and of a second person shot dead by a federal officer. Drew Evans, superintendent of Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, called the withheld material critical to the investigation in a court filing earlier this month. According to that filing, the state has not received the firearms and cellphones of the two officers who shot Pretti, a recorded statement one of them gave after the shooting, or the cellphone of the agent who fatally shot the second person. Evans said he could find no reason for the withholding other than a disagreement over the state's right to investigate these incidents. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment about what is being withheld or why. Michael Pretti made the same demand directly at the news conference:

“Share the evidence now so prosecutors can follow the facts and hold these men accountable.”

An earlier agreement that broke down

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in July that the Trump administration had agreed to share evidence. That followed a lawsuit by Minnesota law enforcement authorities alleging that federal agencies were refusing to cooperate with their inquiries into three shootings in the Minneapolis area during the January surge. Moriarty's office began sorting terabytes of material that federal investigators had supplied on hard drives. In a recent court filing she said the state had received a significant portion of what it sought, but that some information had been withheld. She also said that Rosen told her in September that further material would be held back for an open-ended period.

What the government said and what video shows

Within moments of the death, Trump administration officials portrayed Pretti as an armed man intent on harming federal agents. Kristi Noem, then the Homeland Security secretary, called him a domestic terrorist who violently resisted agents. Court records show he had no criminal record, and bystander video from that morning showed him holding only a mobile phone, with no footage since emerging of him brandishing a weapon or attacking agents. A video circulating on social media, filmed through a shop window across the street, shows almost ten masked agents pushing Pretti to the ground as he tried to protect a protester, before gunfire is heard. The images contradict the account of the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, which maintain that he carried a pistol and two magazines and that the shots were fired in self-defense.

Unanswered questions

In a July letter to Blanche, Schleicher argued that withholding basic details from the parents breaches the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act. Schleicher also said federal officials have not yet disclosed the identity of the agents who fired at least 10 bullets into Pretti's back on the morning of 24 January. He noted that the Department of Homeland Security has not withdrawn its statement from just after the shooting, which claimed Pretti planned to inflict as much harm as possible on police. By 27 October, 275 days had passed since the shooting. Susan Pretti told the news conference that the government had gone on television and lied about her son:

“The federal government went on TV and lied about Alex. They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime.”