Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old man killed by federal immigration brokers Saturday, labored as a nurse treating sick veterans, in accordance to family, friends and colleagues – a mirrored image of his deep need to assist others, they said.
Pretti labored as an Intensive Care Unit nurse on the Minneapolis VA Medical Center for round 5 years, in accordance to a co-worker who requested to converse anonymously.
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world,” his mother and father, Michael and Susan Pretti, said in a press release. “Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.”
Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, Chief of Infectious Diseases Section on the Minneapolis VA, wrote on Bluesky that he was “a good, kind person who lived to help.” Drekonja said Pretti supported critically sick veterans on the hospital. The co-worker said Pretti researched how to stop veterans from dying from colon most cancers.
Pretti was fatally shot whereas immigration brokers wrestled him on the bottom in Minneapolis; the Department of Homeland Security said officers took a handgun from Pretti on the scene and fired in self-defense. NCS evaluation of video reveals a federal agent eliminated the gun simply earlier than the capturing. “The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted,” the company said in a press release.
Minneapolis police have said Pretti was a lawful gun proprietor with a allow, and courtroom data present he had no costs within the state, solely site visitors and parking infractions.
His mother and father, of their assertion, disputed DHS claims that he was a risk to brokers when he was killed. They said he was looking for to shield a lady close to the brokers on the time.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” the mother and father said, including that “he was a good man.”
Pretti started taking part in protests towards immigration enforcement in Minneapolis after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good earlier this month, family members told the Associated Press.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father.
Pretti graduated from highschool in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 2006, in accordance to NCS affiliate Spectrum News. Pretti put himself by means of nursing college by working on the VA hospital and joined its employees after graduating, Pretti’s co-worker said.
Pretti’s neighbor Jeannie Wiener said she was shocked to hear Pretti had been killed Saturday. She said she usually engaged in small discuss with Pretti when he was out strolling his canine, and estimated that he’d lived within the neighborhood for 5 years.
Wiener, who serves on the crime and security committee of the Lyndale Neighborhood Association, said she didn’t assume Pretti was a risk to anyone, describing him as “very pleasant, very cordial.”
Pretti’s father advised the AP that that they had mentioned how he ought to be cautious whereas protesting towards ICE.
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti advised the AP. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
NCS’s Curt Devine contributed to this report.