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By Aliss Higham
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Former President Bill Clinton has released a statement following the killing of an American citizen by immigration agents in Minneapolis over the weekend.
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Anger in Minnesota has reached new heights following the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was shot dead by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer on Saturday. As happened in the wake of the January 7 killing of Renée Nicole Good, another 37-year-old American citizen, the Trump administration has sought to frame the killing as an act of self-defense, alleging that Pretti attacked officers while carrying a firearm.
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti "arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement."
Video footage of the killing in Minneapolis shows multiple officers forcing Pretti onto the ground, after which an officer pulls a handgun from Pretti's waistband and moves away from the struggle. About a second later, the first gunshot rings out. Pretti, a licensed gun owner, does not appear to be holding a gun in the footage.
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Clinton's Statement in Full
On X, Clinton posted a statement on Sunday that said: "In recent weeks, we've watched horrible scenes play out in Minneapolis and other communities that I never thought would take place in America. People, including children, have been seized from their homes, workplaces, and the street by masked federal agents. Peaceful protesters and citizens exercising their constitutional right to observe and document law enforcement have been arrested, beaten, teargassed, and most searingly, in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed.
"All of this is unacceptable and should have been avoided. To make matters even worse, at every turn, the people in charge have lied to us, told us not to believe what we've seen with our own eyes, and pushed increasingly aggressive and antagonistic tactics, including impeding investigations by local authorities.
"Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. This is one of them. If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back.
"It is up to all of us who believe in the promise of American democracy to stand up, speak out, and show that our nation still belongs to We the People."
Politicians and well-known figures have issued statements condemning the killing and calling for restraint and calm, including former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.
In a joint statement posted on X on Sunday, they said: "For weeks now, people across the country have been rightly outraged by the spectacle of masked ICE recruits and other federal agents acting with impunity and engaging in tactics that seem designed to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city. These unprecedented tactics—which even the former top lawyer of the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration has characterized as embarrassing, lawless and cruel—have now resulted in the fatal shootings of two U.S citizens.
"And yet rather than trying to impose some semblance of discipline and accountability over the agents they've deployed, the President and current administration officials seem eager to escalate the situation, while offering public explanations for the shootings of Mr. Pretti and Renee Good that aren't informed by any serious investigation—and that appear to be directly contradicted by video evidence."
Trump Administration Response
President Donald Trump and other top administration officials have said Pretti was holding his firearm when he was intercepted by ICE agents.
FBI Director Kash Patel said while speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures: "You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple. You don't have that right to break the law and incite violence."
"I don't like any shooting. I don't like it," Trump said on Sunday. "But I don't like it when somebody goes into a protest and he's got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn't play good either."
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