Two staff members have been placed on leave amid continued outrage over the shooting death of intensive care nurse Alex Pretty during an immigration investigation.
Two U.S. federal officers involved in the shooting death of intensive care nurse Alex Preti during an immigration raid in Minneapolis have been placed on administrative leave as the fallout from the recent killing of Americans continues to spark outrage.
The two officers have been on leave since Saturday, following “standard procedure” that U.S. officials announced Wednesday, during an altercation in which Preeti was pushed to the ground by masked immigration agents and shot multiple times, which was quickly fatal and was captured on video.
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“The two officers involved have been on administrative leave since Saturday and are on administrative leave,” Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapallo read a statement Wednesday from a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson.
According to reports from Minneapolis, Rapallo said it is unclear whether the Department of Homeland Security “has taken any additional action against the other officers involved in that fatal shooting,” referring to the officers “seen on multiple videos assisting in restraining Alex Preti shortly before the fatal shooting.”
U.S. media outlets, citing a preliminary investigation sent to U.S. lawmakers, initially reported that U.S. Border Patrol agents fired at Preti on the ground, followed by CBP officers.
Preti’s killing has been widely condemned across the political spectrum, even as officials in President Donald Trump’s administration initially tried to justify the killing and portray the victim as responsible.
Preti’s shooting comes after Renee Good, a Minneapolis mother of three, was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on January 7.
To stem the political and public backlash over violence by federal agents in Minnesota, President Trump has replaced the leadership of immigration officials in Minneapolis.
He replaced Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol official whose heavy-handed tactics in Minnesota have drawn widespread criticism, with policy-focused Border and Immigration Commissioner Tom Homan.
But President Trump’s signals regarding the ongoing immigration raid in Minneapolis are mixed.
After saying Tuesday that he wanted to “de-escalate” the growing crisis in the state, President Trump warned Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday that he was “playing with fire” after the mayor reiterated that he would not cooperate with federal agents enforcing immigration laws.
President Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “Can someone please explain to him in his inner sanctum that this statement is a very serious violation of the law and he is playing with fire!”
“The job of the police is to keep people safe, not to enforce (federal) immigration laws,” Frey wrote on social media to the president.
Amid Trump’s mixed messages, tensions remain high on the streets of Minneapolis, and observers say immigration raids are not slowing down, but appear to be becoming more targeted.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, a senior Trump administration official, traveled to Minneapolis on Wednesday to announce the arrest of 16 Minnesota “rioters” on charges of assaulting federal law enforcement.
President Trump is sending thousands of federal agents to the city of Minneapolis and surrounding Minnesota as part of an aggressive deportation policy.
“As a result of ICE’s takeover of our cities, local residents are afraid to go out,” said U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
“Not only is the federal occupation hurting businesses, right-wing fraudsters are here to terrorize our communities because of the president’s reprehensible statements. This is indefensible,” he said, warning that “fear is being weaponized” and “constitutional rights are being crushed.”
Preti’s parents helped the Minnesota attorney general convict the police officer who knelt on the neck of African-American man George Floyd, retaining the former federal prosecutor whose 2020 killing by white police officer Derek Chauvin ignited global Black Lives Matter protests.
A family spokesperson said Steve Schleicher is representing Michael and Susan Pretti pro bono.
Renee Good’s family hired Romanucci & Blandin, the Chicago-based firm that previously represented George Floyd’s family.
