The immediate smear campaign against Border Patrol shooting victim Alex Pretty

Within minutes of Alex Peretti being shot and killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Trump administration, backed by right-wing influencers, launched a smear campaign against the victim, calling him a “terrorist” and “crazy.”

Pretty, 37, was killed during a standoff with several federal immigration agents. Preeti was a US citizen and a registered nurse working for the Department of Veterans Affairs, a colleague told The Guardian. Video from a bystander shows Preeti was trying to help a woman who was pepper-sprayed by an immigration agent when officers tackled him.

Pretty’s killing comes 17 days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Nicole Judd, a mother of three. Judd was also 37 years old at the time of her death.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference on Saturday that information about what led to Pretty’s fatal encounter was limited, but in a separate news conference, Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander overseeing federal operations in Minneapolis, claimed to have a full assessment of what happened.

Bovino alleged that Pretty approached officers with a 9 mm handgun, resisted being disarmed, and was shot in what he described as an apparent act of self-defense. He claimed the man had two loaded magazines and lacked identification, and alleged that Pretty intended a “law enforcement massacre,” while the Border Patrol agent who killed Petrie, he said, had received extensive training.

DHS repeated Bovino’s claims in a post on

Key parts of these claims contradict publicly available evidence.

Multiple videos shared on social media in the moments following the shooting show no indication that Pretty’s gun was visible when officers approached him. Analysis by The New York Times and Bellingcat found that Peretti was clearly holding a phone, not a gun, when federal officers approached him and forced him to the ground.

On Truth Social, President Donald Trump blamed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. “The Mayor and Governor are inciting insurrection with their arrogant, dangerous, arrogant rhetoric,” Trump wrote in a post that included a photo of a gun that the Department of Homeland Security claimed Pretty was carrying at the time of his killing.

Vice President J.D. Vance backed Trump’s criticism of local leadership, sharing a screenshot of the president’s “Social Truth” post and writing on

Also in his post on

At a press conference, Walz referred to the federal narrative as “nonsense.”

“The Minnesota justice system will have the final say” in Pretty’s killing, Walz said, adding, “The federal government cannot be trusted in this investigation.”