MN 1/24/26: Armed Suspect Reportedly Shot and Killed During Struggle With CBP

[FlippyDoo]

Am I the only that's amazed how, all of a sudden, the left is perfectly okay with a citizen carrying a firearm?

[Ralph Wiggum]

Am I the only that's amazed how, all of a sudden, the left is perfectly okay with a citizen carrying a firearm?

That's (D)ifferent.

[Ptarmigan]

ICE says violent mob helped criminal escape and left ICE agent permanently maimed
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ice-says-violent-mob-helped-criminal-escape-left-ice-agent-permanently-maimed

Federal officials say violent unrest in Minneapolis directly derailed an immigration arrest, leaving a suspect with a serious criminal history at large while a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was permanently maimed after a protester bit off part of his finger.

U.S. Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino said during a press conference on Sunday that Border Patrol and ICE agents were forced to abandon a targeted operation after crowds interfered, assaulted officers and turned the scene chaotic.

As a result, he said, the suspect escaped custody – a failure he blamed solely on the decisions made by politicians, activists and those who confronted law enforcement officials.

The leftist agitators are just as bad. They are evil. 

[SVPete]

This article corrects or puts in doubt some pro-ICE claims, including ones I've posted, that are not supported by known videos:

2A Groups Respond After Fatal Shooting of Minneapolis Protester and Concealed Carry Holder

https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/01/25/2a-groups-respond-after-fatal-shooting-of-minneapolis-protester-and-concealed-carry-holder-n1231331

37-year-old Alex Pretti, who worked as an ICU nurse at a Veteran's Administration hospital in the Twin Cities, was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents during a chaotic scene in which it appears a gun was discovered in a holster as Pretti was on the ground surrounded by agents. Video of the chaos appears to show an agent in a grey pullover take the gun from Pretti's holster, while shouts of "gun, gun" are heard. Seconds later an agent opens fire at close range, with another agent quickly discharging his own weapon.

Officials including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino quickly announced that Pretti was targeting law enforcement, with Bovino declaring that the suspect "had two loaded magazines and no accessible ID.," adding that it "looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Noem also asserted that the incident "looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement,” though video shows that Pretti never touched his firearm before he was killed.
...
Those remarks were criticized by several Second Amendment organizations, including Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation, MN Gun Owners Caucus, and the National Rifle Association, with most groups calling for an investigation into Pretti's death. Several of the groups also criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for inciting residents to, as the NRA put it, "dangerously interject oneself into legitimate law-enforcement activities have ended in violence, tragically resulting in injuries and fatalities."

Reactions on the right have ranged from "FAFO" to describing the shooting as "lawful but awful" to a belief that the shooting was unjustified. There's also been widespread speculation that Pretti's gun (a Sig 320) may have unintentionally or negligently discharged after it was removed by the Border Patrol agent, which led other officers to believe that they were being shot at.

My emphasis. I'm currently in the "lawful but awful" camp, and willing to listen and adjust to new information. I simply don't celebrate deaths, not Pretti's, not Good's. At the same time, Good's was self-defense, and at the least, Pretti's actions led to his death - interfering with officers, being aggressive while carrying, resisting arrest, causing the violent chaos in which he was shot (an allusion to the accidental discharge of his weapon leading officers to respond in what they perceived was self-defense speculation.

[SVPete]

Stephen Hunter: Pretti’s pistol

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/01/stephen-hunter-prettis-pistol.php

While Alex Pretti may or may not have been the secular saint he is depicted to have been, he went into action not equipped to save lives but to do battle. Was he going into combat against the Waffen-SS or perhaps joining up with Chris Kyle? Whatever, he was fully massacre-equipped.
...
Instead let’s look at something unnoticed aboard the Sig P320 AXG “Combat,” as the factory called it. What’s that odd cube atop the slide? It’s a battery-driven red dot optical sight, and although its presence doesn’t mandate massacre—I have several on my guns and only massacre paper—it is at least highly provocative.

If the man had carried a Sig P365, the current hot lick in self-defense, it would be hard to argue that mayhem was his goal. That one is too small, too hard to shoot accurately, and its size means it recoils excessively. ...

He had, instead, the maximum professional killing machine, its potency amplified by the optical device. In that 2-ounce, 2”x2” cube atop the slide is a laser which projects a small but brilliant red dot onto the lens. ...

The tone of the article is intentionally tendentious, but it highlight facts that taken together (since the facts were together) suggest Alex Pretti had prepared for some sort of aggressive action:

* Full-sized pistol less easily carried than a compact pistol;

* Fully loaded double-stack magazine in the gun plus an additional fully loaded double-stack magazine;

* Red-dot site that is not needed for close-quarters self-defense, but is useful for shooting multiple targets at somewhat longer distance.

To be fair, I am not a fire arms expert, so anyone with actual knowledge and experience can set me straight or elucidate the points made in the article.

[SVPete]

Finding Out What Happens When You Bring A Gun To An ICE Fight

https://hotair.com/generalissimo/2026/01/26/finding-out-what-happens-when-you-bring-a-gun-to-an-ice-fight-n3811209

Saturday in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, a VA nurse radicalized and mobilized by the far left, decided this was the day he would take part in ruining an ICE operation to remove more criminal illegal aliens from the state, and ultimately, the country. This is the video of the last moments of his life, where he was filming Border Patrol agents establishing a perimeter for an operation. As part of that perimeter, agents were forceful in pushing back a woman who was protesting and impeding them, knocking her to the ground. That's when Pretti chose to inject himself into the fray, first by directing traffic into the ongoing ICE perimeter they were trying to establish, making the situation intentionally more dangerous, and then grabbing a federal agent in the process of arresting the female protester.
...
Pretti was impeding a federal operation, assaulted a federal agent, resisted arrest, and had a gun and multiple magazines of ammunition on him while resisting arrest. In the scrum that took him to the ground, one agent yelled, "Gun!" after seeing Pretti's holstered sidearm. An agent behind Pretti saw his empty holster a split second later. It's entirely possible he did not see another agent disarm Pretti while he was on the ground. But in measurements of milliseconds, when other agents are alerted that the suspect not yet in custody and actively resisting has a gun, and no gun is visible in the holster, agents can reasonably conclude that the gun is now in play.

The Supreme Court's landmark 1989 case on the use of excessive force, Graham V. Connor, specifically held that

* Courts must judge an officer’s use of force from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,

* Without considering the officer’s underlying intent or motivation,

* And with recognition that officers often make split‑second decisions in tense, rapidly evolving situations.

* This ruling replaced earlier approaches that looked at whether officers acted “maliciously” or with improper intent. The Court said intent doesn’t matter — only whether the force was objectively reasonable under the circumstances.

Bolding as in the article. Green emphasis is by me. Currently it looks like Graham V. Connor should preclude prosecution (or decide a trial verdict).

[Airwolf]

1. A Q for those who carry, when out in public, do you ordinarily carry loaded spare magazines? It's not illegal, but it seems a sign of Alex Pretti's intention that he did. Maybe I'm reading too much into his choice out of lack of knowledge?

2. I have not knowingly gone out of my house/apartment without, at least, my driver's license since I was 16 or 17. Am I weird, or was this another indicator of Alex Pretti's intent to mix it up with officers enforcing immigration law?

Speaking of lies-by-omission, has any video been released yet that captures things said by the CBP officers? I do not think they were silent or soft-spoken from when "protesters" got into their faces through the shots being fired. In particular, maybe I watch too much of the wrong TV (I'm sarcastic, I don't watch crime-drama TV, other than "Worst Cooks ..." and "Crime Scene Kitchen"), but I would expect the first officer to see Alex Pretti's gun to have called out a warning to the other officers.

 I was working armed security for awhile and I always had spare magazines for my pistol with me when I could. I say that because at first, I couldn't find any spare mages locally for my used S&W 469 9mm pistol. I had plenty for my S&W 1911A1 though. The one night when I needed spare magazines turned out when some guy shot his daughters ex-boyfriend three times in the back at work outside of the building I was working at. Turns out that even after we get him into custody and searched him, he had three spare magazines for his gun and I only had the one in my 9mm. If he had decided to shoot it out things would have been different. So yeah, carry spare mags with you.