(Minneapolis) Donald Trump faced growing calls Monday, including from his own camp, for an independent investigation into the homicide of a second American citizen, killed by federal immigration police in Minneapolis.
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“We’re looking at the situation, we’re going through everything and we’ll make a decision,” President Donald Trump said in a brief telephone interview Sunday evening with the Wall Street Journal.
“I don’t like shooting. I don’t like it,” he added, more cautious than several members of his team for two days. “But I also don’t like it when someone goes to a protest with a very powerful gun, fully loaded, and two magazines full of bullets on top of that.”
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American nurse employed in the intensive care unit at a veterans’ hospital, was shot and killed on Saturday during a demonstration against immigration police (ICE) operations.
PHOTO US DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Alex Pretti was shot and killed Saturday during a protest against immigration enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis.
And the available videos seem to deny the administration’s version, in an atmosphere already extremely tense since the death of Renee Good, an American woman shot and killed on January 7 in the same city by an ICE agent.
Read “Protester shot dead in Minneapolis: the video dissected”
According to the Washington Posttwo hearings are scheduled for Monday in a Minnesota court. A lawsuit seeks to stop federal authorities from destroying evidence of the incident. In the second, the state attorney general calls for an end to the deployment of federal immigration agents in the state.
On this last point, Donald Trump implied that federal forces would leave Minneapolis “at some point”. But he gave no date and praised their “phenomenal work”.
The statements by senior American officials were strongly criticized by Democrats, but also by Republican senators. And former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama called on Americans to defend their values.
Read the statement from Barack and Michelle Obama
“It is up to all of us who believe in the promise of American democracy to stand up, to speak out,” said Bill Clinton, believing that the Trump administration had “lied” about these two deaths.
“Start”
Barack Obama, for his part, called for a “start” while American values are “under attack”.
Donald Trump blamed these two deaths on Democratic elected officials in the city and state, making them responsible “for this chaos” on his Truth Social platform.
Minneapolis has been rocked for several weeks by a protest movement against the presence of ICE.
PHOTO ADAM GRAY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Federal agents gather during a protest in response to federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, January 25, 2026.
In the center of this city of just over 400,000 inhabitants, nearly a thousand people gathered on Sunday in tribute to Alex Pretti and against the actions of federal law enforcement despite the freezing cold, according to an AFP photographer.
“I’m sad and angry,” said Lucy, a Minneapolis resident interviewed by AFP. “But I’m not afraid to stand there and I’m not afraid to continue the fight and stand up for what’s right.”
“Disgusting lies”
As it did after the death of Renee Good, the Trump administration placed the blame on the victim, with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem accusing him in particular of “terrorism”.
An analysis by AFP of several videos of the event, however, seems to contradict this version. The images show Alex Pretti, phone in hand on a snowy street, filming armed men wearing “Police” vests.
PHOTO ROBERTO SCHMIDT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
A crowd of protesters against immigration enforcement (ICE) march through the streets of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 25, 2026.
He intervened when an agent threw a demonstrator to the ground on the sidewalk and received a jet of tear gas in the face. An agent then tackles him to the ground, and several of his colleagues intervene to handcuff him.
Seconds later, as an officer dressed in gray appears to remove a gun from the waist of Alex Pretti, who is kneeling and leaning forward with several police officers above him, a shot is fired.
The agents suddenly move aside and then shoot his inanimate body several times from a distance. At least ten gunshots are heard.
In a statement, Alex Pretti’s parents accused the Trump administration of spreading “sickening lies” about their son, “a person with a big heart.”
Executives from 60 Minnesota-based companies signed an open letter “calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for local, regional and federal authorities to work together to find concrete solutions.”
