The Woman Alex Pretti Was Killed Trying to Defend Is an EMT. Federal Agents Stopped Her From Giving First Aid.

MINNEAPOLIS ­— The struggle that killed Alex Pretti began with a shove. It ended with gunshots.

In the final moments before he was shot and killed by federal authorities in Minneapolis, Pretti attempted to intervene in a confrontation where several­ federal agents were shoving two women. In videos from the scene, Pretti crosses the street and places himself between the officers and the women before being pepper-sprayed, separated from the group, beaten, and shot multiple times.

One of the women involved in the confrontation, who was the closest civilian to Pretti when he was killed, said that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting she identified herself as an emergency medical technician and moved to perform CPR. Federal agents restrained her, said the woman, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution by the government.

The woman, a registered EMT whose credentials were confirmed by The Intercept, said in an exclusive interview that it was apparent Pretti had suffered serious injuries and needed medical help.

“I could tell the second that I laid eyes on him that he was horrifically injured,” the EMT recalled. “I immediately said, ‘I’m an EMT! He has a brain injury! He has a serious brain injury! I need to help him right now.’”

In videos of the shooting, the EMT repeatedly exclaims that Pretti is “decorticate posturing” — a medical term for the curling and movements of the limbs after suffering severe brain trauma. Then, Pretti’s body went completely limp. Videos show the EMT frantically pleading with one of the officers as other agents begin to surround Pretti’s body.

“I was literally begging the agent who was holding me back to let me do CPR,” she recalled. “Because I knew that if he wasn’t pulseless at that point already, he was going to become pulseless very, very soon.”

Immediately following the shooting, the EMT, who was carrying trauma supplies at the scene, attempted to reach Pretti before being intercepted and held back by a masked officer. The medic’s identity and place at the scene were corroborated by an attorney with the Minnesota branch of the National Lawyers Guild. The EMT’s account of events is supported by publicly available video evidence and court documents.

Government agencies have an obligation to give basic health care to people that they have arrested or detained, according to to Xavier de Janon, the director of mass defense at the National Lawyers Guild.

“The responsibility of the government is to make sure that the person in their custody is cared for and alive,” de Janon said. “If government agencies fail to keep someone alive and there is proof that it’s their fault, they could be liable for their actions.”

Neither the Border Patrol nor its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, the two agencies reportedly responsible for killing Pretti, responded to requests for comment.

The EMT said that while Pretti’s injuries were so severe it was unlikely he could be saved, critical minutes passed between the shooting and the time when another bystander first rendered aid — a period when the EMT was trying to get access to Pretti.

“They were hellbent on not allowing anybody to help him until he was dead,” she said. “I was right there, and they — all of them — made the decision to deny me access to give him the best possible chance of survival.”

Before the Shooting

For more than two months, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have been besieged by agents from CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agents arrived as part of a sweeping nationwide assault on liberal cities carried out in the form of a massive immigration crackdown.

In Minneapolis, federal authorities have shot at least three people and injured scores more as their operations unfolded. Weeks earlier, federal agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old artist, while she was unarmed and inside of her vehicle.

It was against this backdrop of state violence that the EMT went in her capacity as a medic to the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, where Pretti would later be killed. She was responding to a call for help sent out over one of the many rapid response channels that Minneapolis residents use to track and warn residents about federal immigration agents.

“There’s medics dispersed in pretty much all of the rapid response networks,” she said. “People try to be available to dispatch across the city because the rate of them harming people — it’s just so high at this point.”

On the day of Pretti’s death, immigration agents were gathered outside of a donut shop in the Whittier neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino claimed in a statement that officers arrived on the scene in pursuit of a “violent criminal illegal alien.” A subsequent review by Minnesota officials found that the man border patrol agents claimed to be pursuing had no violent criminal convictions on record in the state.

Observer footage filmed on the day of the shooting captured the EMT and another woman standing in the street before an agent approaches them and begins shoving them across the road.  

“He was really kind of sending me flying backwards,” the EMT recalled. “I was having to kind of run and stumble backwards to not fall.”

As the women are pushed to the other side of the roadway, Pretti can be seen farther down the street, attempting to wave a car through the scene. Suddenly, he appears to notice the agents closing in on the civilians and changes course to intercept the officers.

In a statement following the shooting, DHS officials claimed that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The EMT said that was not true.

“He very clearly came over to assist me and the other woman as we were being hurt,” she recalled. “My first recognition that he was present was feeling his arm around my waist and me looking at him and feeling very grateful that he prevented me from falling onto the sidewalk.”

Video footage captured by another bystander shows that just as Pretti managed to stabilize the EMT, agents shoved the other woman to the ground. As Pretti and the EMT attempt to help her stand up, multiple agents surround the group and begin to spray them with cans of chemical irritant. Some of the agents continue pursuing the women, while others separate Pretti from the group and begin beating him.

“I was saying to the agents, “We’re leaving! We’re leaving. We’re leaving!’ — just trying desperately to like get them to stop,” the EMT said.

She realized later, watching the video, that the same agent who grabbed her was one of the officers who shot Pretti.

Bull From Bovino

In a press conference on the day of the shooting, Greg Bovino claimed that the agents had fired “defensive shots” after “fearing for their lives.”

Videos taken on the scene, however, show that, in the moments just prior to the shooting, the agent who fired the first shot at Pretti was preoccupied with attempting to pepper spray the other woman nearby. He only turns and fires multiple shots into Pretti’s body after another agent exclaimed that the slain nurse had a gun.  

In the wake of the killing, President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan claimed that Customs and Border Protection officers had attempted to render aid immediately. That did not jibe with the account of a pediatrician who witnessed the killing from a nearby apartment complex and arrived on the scene minutes later. An affidavit from the pediatrician filed in federal court closely matches the EMT’s account.

The doctor claimed that, when she arrived, agents initially prevented her from treating Pretti, had not administered CPR, and were not sure whether he had a pulse. She testified that the agents standing around Pretti’s body “appeared to be counting his bullet wounds,” rather than administering lifesaving care. After some time, the physician was allowed to approach Pretti.

It is unclear why agents neglected to perform CPR on Pretti following the shooting. Immediately commencing CPR on cardiac arrest is standard medical practice, and neglecting or delaying the process can significantly increase a patient’s chance of death. The EMT only wishes, she said, that she could have attempted to treat Pretti.

“The trauma of that is significant,” she said. “He didn’t get the final act of kindness of someone trying to render him aid.”

Pretti was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital shortly after being transported there. Following the shooting, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem characterized him as a “domestic terrorist.”

The EMT, however, thinks Pretti’s actions that day may have prevented other civilians from being attacked by federal agents in the same manner.

“I think he easily could have saved me and the other woman’s life,” she said. “All he did was try and help two people who were being hurt by ICE agents.”