A witness to Saturday’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man is disputing the government account of the incident.
A witness to Saturday’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in Minneapolis said in a court declaration that the man was killed after he attempted to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by federal agents.
The witness, whose name was redacted in court documents filed by ACLU of Minnesota, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pepper-sprayed three observers, including Alex Pretti, before an agent shoved a woman to the ground, and Pretti went to help her.
“The ICE agents just kept spraying”, the witness said, according to the declaration. “More agents came over and grabbed the man who was still trying to help the woman get up.”
The witness said that agents pushed Pretti to the ground and added that “it didn’t look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up.”
“They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him”, the witness said. “They shot him so many times.”
The witness, according to the declaration, recorded a video depicting the events leading up to the agent shooting Pretti and kept recording for several minutes afterwards, according to the declaration.
