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Protests spread across the US despite freezing conditions after a second person was killed by federal agents in the city of Minneapolis, which has become a flashpoint in Donald Trump’s tough immigration crackdown.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was shot dead by federal immigration agents on Saturday after authorities claimed he approached them with a firearm and “violently resisted” their attempts to disarm him.
However, video footage of the incident showed Pretti holding a mobile phone but not brandishing a weapon. In clips from various angles, Pretti is seen attempting to help another protester who had been pepper sprayed before being wrestled to the ground by agents who then fired several shots from close range.
In one clip, a federal agent is seen apparently disarming Pretti before he is shot multiple times.
Local officials say Pretti was licensed to carry a firearm.
Protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown swept across the country on Saturday night after the killing, which followed the fatal shooting of Renée Nicole Good by immigration officers in Minneapolis earlier this month.
In New York, thousands of people took to the streets of Manhattan in spite of Winter Storm Fern, calling for the abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency at the front line of the raids. In Washington, footage showed hundreds of protesters gathering outside the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
Similar events took place in Los Angeles and San Francisco, while demonstrators clashed with authorities in Minneapolis at the scene of the shooting throughout Saturday afternoon. Authorities deployed tear gas, batons and flash-bang devices to push back crowds.
The national political fallout was almost immediate. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, indicated his party would block a government funding package if it included financing for DHS, raising the possibility of a government shutdown as soon as next week.
Saturday’s shooting comes after repeated clashes in Minneapolis between law enforcement and protesters in recent weeks as federal agents descend on the city to detain undocumented migrants.
Democrats say the clampdown, which is being repeated in several Democratic-run cities across the US, is an attempt to intimidate Trump’s perceived political enemies.
Minnesota law enforcement officials said on Saturday that they had been denied access to the scene of the shooting, underlining the tensions between the Trump administration and authorities in the state.
On Saturday night, the Minnesota attorney-general’s office filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the destruction of evidence related to Pretti’s killing.
“Today’s lawsuit aims to bar the federal government from destroying or tampering with any of the evidence they have collected. Justice will be done,” said attorney-general Keith Ellison.
Federal authorities insisted that the agents acted in self-defence.
“It was an act of domestic terrorism,” said DHS secretary Kristi Noem. “This goes to show the assaults that our ICE officers and our law enforcement are under every single day.”
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who has set tough daily quotas for the arrest of undocumented immigrants, called Pretti a “would-be assassin”.
Democratic officials in Minnesota angrily denied those claims, saying they were disproved by the video footage.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz described the DHS account of the shooting as “nonsense”.
“What I see with my eyes and what you’re going to see with your eyes makes that pretty hard to believe,” he said.
Pretti’s family released a statement saying they were “heartbroken but also very angry” and condemned the comments.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” the Pretti family said.
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs.”
Additional reporting by Peter Andringa
www.ft.com
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