Nearly 3 Days After Killing of Alex Pretti, Feds Have Still Not Released Name of Shooters

It has been more than 55 hours since an immigration officer's fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday, and still the US government has refused to provide the public with answers about the identity of the agent, or agents, who shot him.

Just as in the case of Renee Good, who was shot by an agent earlier this month, the Trump administration has circled the wagons around the narrative that Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was a "terrorist" planning to “massacre law enforcement” a claim they have provided no evidence for aside from the fact that he was carrying a handgun, which local police have said he owned legally.

Video of Pretti's killing, recorded from multiple angles, directly contradicts the claims of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who alleged that Pretti was "brandishing a weapon" and that agents fired "defensive shots" after Pretti "violently resisted" arrest.

The Department of Homeland Security has not released any identifying information about the people who shot Pretti. Video evidence appears to show two agents firing at least ten shots at Pretti as he lay on the ground. According to an analysis of the shooting by ABC News, "one of the agents is seen in multiple verified videos emerging from the scrum with a handgun that appears to match the weapon federal officials say Pretti was carrying."

Pretti had been shoved to the ground after attempting to film officers with a cellphone. Video shows him being shoved and later pepper-sprayed by officers, even after holding up his hands in an apparent attempt to signal that he was not a threat.

In what was described as a stunning break from the usual protocol for a law enforcement-involved shooting, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino said during a press conference on Sunday that all of the agents involved are "still working," though they had been moved out of Minneapolis. Bovino himself is reportedly expected to leave Minneapolis soon, along with other top agents.

David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, described the fact that the agents were still on duty one day after a shooting as "unreal."

"Bovino spirited the murderer out of Minnesota's jurisdiction, yet they are still 'working,'" he said. "I've never heard of that in any real police department. Never heard of that in the federal government either."

He added that "cops shot at people in seven different jurisdictions this year," and that, "in every case, the jurisdiction put the officers on admin leave as part of standard protocol."

During the same press conference, told reporters that the agents had been moved out of Minneapolis "for their safety." He then explained: "There's this thing called doxxing."

Legally speaking, the term "doxxing" refers to the public disclosure of private information like addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive information with the intent to harm the subject.

However in an effort to justify keeping the identities of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal officers a secret, including through the wearing of masks to hide their identities, the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress have adopted a much broader definition of the term that considers any attempt to identify an agent, even one involved in a shooting, as doxxing.

Last week, Noem harangued a CBS News anchor for even speaking the name of Jonathan Ross, the man who reporters identified as the shooter of Renee Good, live on the air, saying "we shouldn't have people continue to dox law enforcement."

She has previously pledged to prosecute those who reveal the identities of federal agents to the "fullest extent of the law," though so far no charges have been filed.

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), publishing the name of a law enforcement officer is generally considered First Amendment-protected speech under Supreme Court rulings that protect the publishing of truthful information.

S.V. Date, a White House correspondent at HuffPost, said that the federal government's refusal to identify the agent who shot Pretti essentially "means we have an unaccountable secret police force that answers only to Trump."

"This person has still not been identified," he said, referring to the agent who shot Pretti while wearing a mask to obscure his identity. "In a real police force, that piece of information is released in the very first incident report."

Members of Congress have called for a transparent investigation into the shooting, including some Republicans who are otherwise supportive of ICE.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is not running for reelection in this year's cycle, called for a "thorough and impartial investigation" and said "any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins is doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump's legacy."

Of course, the Trump administration itself has already shut down an investigation into the shooting of Good, stating repeatedly that it would not pursue a probe into wrongdoing by Ross, while freezing out state-level investigators from information.

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said that the Trump administration has ignored a court order that would allow state investigators to access evidence in Pretti's killing.

"Our state investigators had to get a warrant to have access to the evidence of the shooting of Alex Pretti," Smith said. "And even then, the federal agents refused to give them access to the evidence. So this looks very much like another cover-up."

Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized what may have happened with the gun that appeared to be Pretti's removed from the scrum by one of the federal agents. The article has been updated to better describe those events.