President Donald Trump reacted to footage of slain protester Alex Pretti confronting ICE agents weeks before his death by calling<\/b>
\nPresident Donald Trump reacted to footage of slain protester Alex Pretti confronting ICE agents weeks before his death by calling Pretti an \u201cagitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.\u201d
The president took to Truth Social early Friday morning to point out Pretti, 37, showed a \u201ccrazed\u201d display of \u201cabuse and anger\u201d toward immigration officers, per Mediaite.
Pretti was killed on Jan. 24. In recent days, videos have surfaced which show Pretti hostilely interacting with ICE agents weeks earlier.
\u201cAgitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti\u2019s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cIt was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.\u201d
The footage was released by the News Movement Wednesday and was investigated by BBC News.
The video showed an altercation between a man \u2014 identified as Pretti \u2014 and federal immigration agents on Jan. 13.
In the video, the man shouts and spits at officers. He also kicks the rear of their vehicle as it pulls away.
At that point, agents exited the vehicle, tackled the man, and sprayed chemical irritants.
The man was released and the agents left.
Another video, published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, showed another angle of the same incident.
Trump\u2019s words follow his administration calling Pretti a domestic terrorist immediately following the killing. The administration alleged he planned to \u201cmassacre law enforcement.\u201d
Pretti was carrying a holstered firearm, but the video revealed it was never in his hand. It was also taken by an agent before he was shot.
A lawyer for Pretti\u2019s family addressed the earlier incident in a statement to the Associated Press.
\u201cA week before Alex was gunned down in the street \u2013 despite posing no threat to anyone \u2013 he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents,\u201d the statement read. \u201cNothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex\u2019s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.\u201d
\tIJR, Contributor Writer
She was a Story Editor for Indpendent Journal Review since November 2022 and has written for IJR since February 2024.
She has been in the newspaper business in various capacities since 1998.<\/p>\n