Nine a.m., Saturday morning in the freezing cold of Minneapolis, 37-year-old Alex Pretti was directing traffic at the scene of a protest against ICE’s anti-immigrant operations. One hand holds a camera with which he’s filming the whole scene. He sees a gang of Border Patrol thugs curbside attacking a woman, hurling her to the ground. Pretti rushes over to help her up and immediately becomes the target himself. Seven agents pounce on Alex, wrestle him to the ground and pepper spray him. Some are punching him repeatedly, others holding him down. One apparently sees a revolver at Alex’s back—licensed, legally owned, and not being held or “brandished” by Alex. The ICE pig grabs the gun and walks away. Almost immediately, another agent starts shooting at Alex—bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang… each shot deliberate, each one underlining the murderous intent of these fascist thugs, guaranteeing Alex’s death.
Civilians near the scene started screaming, wailing with horror at what they had just seen go down. But the murderers got up and walked away like nothing happened.
Kristi Noem: Walz And Frey Are Trying 'To Lie About What Actually Unfolded' In Alex Pretti Killing
Almost immediately, those at the top of the Trump fascist regime came out with blatant lies about this murder, and vicious slander against Alex Pretti. Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, called Alex a “domestic terrorist." Noem claimed Pretti was “brandishing” a gun and “attacked” federal agents. Trump advisor and fascist ghoul Stephen Miller said Pretti was “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
But as we can all see from the video of Alex's murder: lies, lies, lies!
This is an exact replay of the open lies and vicious slander after an ICE thug murdered 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, just three weeks ago.
Who Was Alex Pretti?
Alex’s parents issued this statement:
We are heartbroken but also very angry.
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. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman.
The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.
Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.
Alex regularly took part in the protests in defense of immigrants, and had been part of the protests after the murder of George Floyd as well. He was deeply disturbed by the way immigrants and Black people are treated in the U.S. He was also devoted to his patients at the VA, as comes out in this video.
In other words, Alex was someone who was always trying to do the right thing, right down to the moment ICE stole his life.
Fascist Terror...
Ice agents broke into home of Chongly Thao, with guns drawn, and forced him outside in his underwear in freezing weather.
As shocking as this murder was, it did not come out of nowhere. Back in December the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—the federal agency that is overseeing the Trump regime’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against immigrants—set its sights on Minneapolis/St. Paul (the “Twin Cities”), and specifically the areas with a large Somali population (over 95 percent of whom are U.S. citizens or have other legal status). Using the bullshit pretext of cracking down on an ongoing scandal in which a small number of Somalis have been alleged to have grifted millions from social service agencies, and fueled by repeated sick racist insults against Somali people from Trump, they launched "Operation Metro Surge," which they bragged was their biggest operation ever.
Thousands of paramilitary thugs—Border Patrol and ICE agents carrying heavy weapons, firing tear gas and flash-bang grenades—descended on Minneapolis. They wore masks and operated out of unmarked cars, pouncing on people who were just buying gas, stopped at a streetlight, picking up or dropping off their kids. Their targets were not “dangerous criminals,” they were non-white immigrants and non-white people in general—even Native Americans, who obviously are not immigrants. People were confronted with the demand “SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!” and if they fumbled in finding them or didn’t have them on hand, could be beaten or taken into detention.
Even children are targets. On January 21, five-year-old Liam Ramos was abducted from his home and shipped off to a “detention” camp in Texas. The superintendent of his school spoke out, saying that Liam was the fourth student they’d lost to ICE. And she reported that “ICE agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lots and taking our kids.”
The fascists are shredding people's basic constitutional rights. Associated Press reported on a secret memo instructing ICE agents that they could raid the homes of immigrants without a proper judicial warrant. On January 20 they did just that—breaking into the home of a 56-year-old Hmong man (a naturalized U.S. citizen) and forcibly dragging him, nearly naked, out into the freezing Minnesota night and then taking him away. Incidents like this are becoming common—again, normalized, and spreading more terror.
...and Courageous Resistance
Five-year-old Liam Ramos was kidnapped by ICE and taken to a detention camp in Dilley, Texas. On January 24, hundreds of prisoners at Dilley, including many children, protested, shouting “Let us out” and “Libertad.”
Bovino complains about being stalked 8-10 hours
March in Minneapolis, January 23, 2026.
All of this—the brutalization and murder of protesters, the abduction of children, the humiliation of elders, and on and on—all of this was known to Alex Pretti when he rushed to the aid of a woman being attacked by ICE. This inspiring heroism has caused many people to think about their own role. One 70-ish woman at a protest against Alex’s murder told a journalist, “When we were kids we learned about what was done to people in Germany under Hitler, and we would ask ourselves ‘what would I have done.’ Now we are finding out.”
These vicious attacks have not crushed the resistance, but further inflamed and broadened it. With each wave of attacks, more and more people have stepped forward to resist. Tens of thousands of people are in networks to help feed and protect immigrants under siege, and blow the whistle if these sadistic ICE thugs descend on a neighborhood. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who regularly dresses up in Nazi-style costumes, publicly whined that “being stalked for eight to 10 hours at a time is not a very favorable climate.”
Last week, courageous protesters intervened at a Baptist church, one of whose pastors is an ICE officer. Nekima Levy-Armstrong—herself an ordained minister—listened to the Sunday sermon and then challenged the church: "It is an abomination for someone to put the title of reverend—which means reverence, reverence for God—before his name and act as a field director for ICE.” Levy-Armstrong and two others involved in this protest have been arrested on federal felony charges under the false claim that they prevented people from worshipping. (The fascists also attempted to arrest journalist Don Lemon for covering the protest but were prevented by a magistrate judge who refused to issue charges.)
On January 23—the day before Pretti was murdered—a powerful state-wide “general strike”/protest drew tens of thousands into the streets in sub-zero temperatures. Hundreds of businesses closed for the day. Unknown numbers took off from school or work. Clergy were heavily involved, and over 100 religious figures participated in a civil disobedience action at the Detention Center. The president of a union representing 6,000 hospitality workers said that it was “the largest labor action in the state’s history.” She added that “We cannot simply sit by and allow this to continue. We must use every tool that we have to fight back.”
The Fascist Regime Is Moving to Crush Any Opposition and Resistance
In his New Year's Message last year, Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism said:
Trump 2025 is not just another administration coming into office. This is fascism: the undisguised dictatorship of this system of capitalism-imperialism in the world’s most powerful capitalist-imperialist country—openly and aggressively oppressive and repressive—a fascism fueled by anti-scientific and Christian fundamentalist lunacy, moving to forcibly impose its racist, immigrant-persecuting, woman- and LGBT-hating MAGA madness, determined to unleash unbridled capitalist plunder and naked imperialist expansionism, prepared to violently crush any opposition or resistance.
Minneapolis is ground zero for a fascist regime targeting immigrants, all people of color, and attempting to murderously crush dissent and protest—including from the regime's ruling class opponents in the Democratic Party.
On Sunday Trump blitzed social media with posts that blamed the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of ICE agents on Democratic leadership in cities and states refusing to comply with his ongoing immigration crackdown: “Democrat run Sanctuary Cities and States are REFUSING to cooperate with ICE, and they are actually encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations to arrest the Worst of the Worst People!” and "Tragically, two American Citizens have lost their lives as a result of this Democrat ensued chaos."
Pam Bondi, the head of the federal Department of Justice, sent Governor Tim Walz a letter attacking him for “refusing to enforce the law” and being responsible for “the heartbreaking consequences.” But when Bondi says "heartbreaking consequences," she's not talking about the murder of people standing up for justice, she's talking about the completely fictional “national tragedy” of “violence against ICE officers,” as well as the terrorizing of “frightened Christians.”
Bondi’s letter makes a series of demands on Walz, including that he “allow… the Department of Justice to access [Minnesota] voting rolls,” so as to “guarantee free and fair elections.” This exposes the larger fascist program: crushing dissent and protest, and moving to steal the next election.
Marches took in LA, New York, Denver, Portland, Milwaukee, and Washington DC and dozens of other cities, January 24, 2026.
The murder of Alex Pretti was met with mass resistance across the country, but this needs to spread even further, with millions confronting what we are actually facing with this fascism, and what it will take to defeat it, taking up the most central essential demand that the Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW! And while that resistance spreads, people need to look seriously into where this fascism came from, and what kind of better world we need to be fighting for.
