A witness to Saturday’s taking pictures in Minneapolis described watching a person – later recognized as Alex Pretti – be shot by a federal agent after attempting to assist a girl who had been pepper sprayed, saying he didn’t resist or attain for a gun, in keeping with a brand new submitting in a lawsuit in opposition to the Trump administration introduced by protesters in December.
“I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong,” the unnamed witness mentioned in the Saturday submitting. “The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.”
The Department of Homeland Security said earlier that Border Patrol officers tried to disarm an armed man who had approached them, and an agent fired defensive pictures when the person “violently resisted.” Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino claimed the person was attempting to “massacre law enforcement.”
The witness mentioned Pretti was observing and serving to to direct site visitors round a convoy of federal autos earlier than he and the witness moved nearer to doc the immigration exercise with their telephones. When an agent requested them to again up, the witness mentioned they moved onto the sidewalk, however Pretti stayed in the road and filmed.
Pretti moved nearer to 2 different observers in the road as they had been threatened with pepper spray and one was pushed to the bottom, the witness mentioned. An agent sprayed all three of them in the face, the witness mentioned. Pretti put his fingers above his head and was sprayed once more and pushed by the agent.
Pretti then tried to assist the lady who was pushed to the bottom earlier than being grabbed by a number of brokers and pulled to the bottom, the witness mentioned.
”I didn’t see him contact any of them–he wasn’t even turned towards them. It didn’t appear to be he was attempting to withstand, simply attempting to assist the lady up. I didn’t see him with a gun,” they wrote. “Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times.”
NCS has reached out to attorneys for the witnesses and DHS for touch upon the brand new filings.