The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, the second U.S. citizen killed during an aggressive immigration enforcement push in Minnesota.
In a press conference Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department is “looking at everything that would shed light on that day.” Before Blanche’s announcement, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the FBI would now lead the investigation into Pretti’s death.
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DHS officials previously said that a unit within the department would lead the investigation. However, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first indicated the investigation was changing hands during a Fox News interview Thursday.
“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion,” she told Fox’s Sean Hannity.
Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Customs and Border Patrol is conducting its own internal investigation into the shooting, according to The Associated Press.
Federal agents shot and killed Pretti during a protest in Minneapolis last Saturday. On Jan. 7, another federal agent shot Renee Good to death, later claiming she had tried to kill officers with her SUV. The Justice Department has not announced an investigation into her killing. An FBI agent in the bureau’s Minneapolis field office resigned after she said she was pressured to drop a preliminary civil rights investigation of Good’s death.
DHS officials did not say why the Pretti investigation is now in the FBI’s hands. The agency said this week it had placed two officers involved in the shooting on administrative leave.
Conflicting narratives
Noem originally said Pretti brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers. She called him a “domestic terrorist” who intended to do “maximum damage” to federal agents.
Videos from bystanders to the shooting contradicted Noem’s claims.
Videos showed that Pretti was holding a phone, not a gun, and that he did not approach agents. Multiple videos also showed agents removing Pretti’s legally owned handgun, which was concealed along his waist, before they opened fire as he lay on the ground.
Noem has since backtracked on her original statement, telling Hannity the situation was “chaotic.”
“We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground,” she told him. Noem has also faced some calls to resign, even from Republicans.
After the backlash to the two shootings, President Donald Trump announced that “border czar” Tom Homan would take over operations from Noem and U.S. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino.
Bovino made similar remarks to Noem’s original statement about the shooting, saying Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement” because he was carrying two magazines of ammunition on him.
