Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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All the videos there are free for anyone to watch. You don't have to be a subscriber. Download The New York Times app to start watching. From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. Outrage and protests in Minneapolis after federal agents shoot and kill a man today. Border Patrol agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Saturday.
The second fatal clash between federal authorities and protesters in less than a month. How dare you? Eyewitness video shows once again reckless, violent and dangerous federal agents taking the life of a Minnesotan. If it can happen here, it can happen in your community too. The shooting prompted a fresh wave of fury and condemnation across the country.
How many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end? and it horrified residents in the city that has been revolting against a federal government crackdown on immigration. This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts.
No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines. That is not a peaceful protest and you do not get to touch law enforcement. Federal officials alleged that the protester was the aggressor and that the agents acted in self-defense. But videos of the shooting directly contradict that claim.
Today, we talk to our colleagues Devin Lum and Ernesto Londonio about how the shooting unfolded and what may come next. It's Monday, January 26th. Devin, welcome to The Daily. Thanks for having me. So, Devin, by now, I think a lot of people have seen this really graphic footage of a man named Alex Preddy getting shot by federal agents in Minnesota.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that Preddy was approaching these agents with a handgun, that he was intent on committing what they called, quote, a massacre. You are a member of our visual investigations team, which means that you have been spending a lot of time analyzing footage from this shooting, from the scene. So what do you make of the government's claims?
We've been analyzing footage from various different angles over the past day and a half, trying to better understand what took place before, during, and after the shooting. You know, there's contention over what happened between the federal government and the state government.
And we're doing our best to resolve that contention by walking through the visual evidence as clearly and as in-depth as we possibly can.
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Chapter 2: What happened during the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis?
And how do things escalate from there? The agent who was interacting with the two protesters standing in the street begins to push the protesters in the direction of Mr. Preti. And eventually they make their way towards where he's standing. So before I get into the details, I just want to say that these next moments happen very quickly.
From the time that things started to escalate until the final shot is fired, just over 40 seconds elapse. Wow. Once they get there, the agent pushes one of the protesters to the ground and Alex Preddy steps in between the agent and the woman who has just been pushed to the ground. The agent begins firing pepper spray at him.
In that moment, we can see that he's still holding his cell phone and his other hand is still free. Mm-hmm. Then Alex Pretty turns around to apparently try to help the woman who's been pushed to the ground up to her feet. And the agent continues firing pepper spray at both of them. Several agents appear behind Alex. Mr. Preddy and begin pulling him in order to get him down to the ground.
Once he's down on the ground, several other agents are holding him down. They're grabbing at his legs. They're pushing him in his back and they appear to be striking him repetitively. Another agent walks towards the scrum and and reaches toward Alex Preddy with open hands.
It's unclear at that moment why he's grabbing at him, but a few seconds later, we hear someone saying he's got a gun over and over again. They say it repetitively. Meaning that they might not have realized that he had a gun until that moment when he's on the ground. Exactly.
And again, looking back at the footage, from any point of the interaction up until now, there is no visual giveaway that would indicate that agents knew that he was armed. So what happens next? How does the scene unfold from there once he's restrained and on the ground? The agent who reached into the scrum with open hands grabs a firearm from Alex Preddy's waist.
Then about one second after Preddy's gun has been removed, another agent fires the first shot. So he can see the other agent taking the gun out of the holster. We're not exactly sure what he's seeing at this point because it's a very split second. But in the video, it appears he has a clear vantage point of the disarming as it's happening.
So at this point, just to be clear, one agent has removed the gun, has backed away from Alex Preddy, and that's when we hear the first shot that was fired? Yes. The gun that was apparently removed from Alex Preddy's hip is away from the pile before the first shot is fired.
And after that first shot is fired, Preddy appears to get up onto his knees, and his hands, which were bunched up near his head, move down towards his sides. The agent fires three more times and Pretty begins to fall to the ground. He reaches down with his left hand while falling, apparently to brace himself, and there does not appear to be weapons in either of his hands.
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Chapter 3: How did federal agents justify their actions during the incident?
He's being subdued. And even if there's a gun on his hip, at one point, he can't reach it. So the response to shoot him, to pull out a firearm and shoot him rather than taking a beat to understand whether another agent, one of your colleagues, has disarmed the person you're about to shoot, it just doesn't comport with what the Department of Homeland Security is saying.
You know, we talked to our colleague Charles Homan on the show about a week ago. He described at that point what felt almost like a lull in the sense that it had been a few days since a federal agent had shot Renee Good. Obviously, people had taken to the streets, were outraged. But it felt also like ICE was operating a little bit less visibly.
And I think it was kind of an open question at that time whether things would escalate or would de-escalate. And it feels really notable that here we are just a few days later reacting to another fatal shooting. Yes.
This is the second shooting in less than a month that's been carried out by federal agents in Minneapolis, where the footage that we've analyzed has conflicted with statements that have been made by the Department of Homeland Security about what took place. Tensions are already high online, around the country, and on the ground in Minneapolis. And this is sure to inflame them further.
Devin Lum, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back. I'm Dan Barry, and I'm a longtime reporter with The New York Times. I've been here for 30 years, and I've seen a lot of things change. I was here before there was a website. But one thing hasn't changed at all, and that's the mission of The New York Times, to follow the facts wherever they lead.
And if that means publishing something a government or a leader or a celebrity doesn't want aired, that's not our concern. I've never been told to go against the facts to accommodate anyone. And if I had, I would have, quite frankly, left the building. This is the way it was when I was covering the aftermath of 9-11, and this is the way it is now as I cover the United States of today.
If you believe in the importance of fact-driven reporting, you can support it by becoming a New York Times subscriber. And if you already subscribe, this veteran reporter thanks you. I wonder, Ernesto, could you just tell us what it's been like on the ground in the hours since Alex Preddy was shot? I think this is a city where people are shell-shocked.
Ever since this immigration crackdown began late last month, there's been sort of a sense that things are escalating in a way that feels unsustainable. And Saturday morning, a second individual was killed by federal agents. In both cases, these were American citizens. who had decided to take to the streets to monitor and to challenge the work of immigration agents.
And in both cases, they were gunned down. And I think people both in local government, but just residents have been trying desperately to find an off ramp from a situation they think is really dangerous. Can you talk about what we know about Alex Peretti as of now? Yes, we know that he was a nurse at the VA locally.
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Chapter 4: What evidence contradicts the federal government's narrative?
We know that he carried a weapon and that he was allowed to be a gun owner and that he was armed when this occurred. We know he had no criminal record and, you know, he was a federal employee. So... I don't think we've seen any evidence to suggest that he was a violent person, but we're only, you know, about 24 hours into this. So I think there's a lot we will learn in the hours and days ahead.
What do we know about what Border Patrol was doing at the scene at that moment? Do we know anything about who they were trying to apprehend, for instance? So what we heard is that the Border Patrol agents were trying to find a specific guy, an immigrant from Ecuador, that they portrayed as somebody with a very significant criminal history, somebody who was violent.
And what the Trump administration is saying is any effort of people impeding the work of these agents is unconscionable because they're just here to impose order and to keep people and neighborhoods safe. However, just hours after the shooting, You had the Minnesota Department of Corrections, which runs the prison system, come out and say, hey, we looked into this matter.
We looked into court records. We can't find evidence that this individual has anything beyond some misdemeanor traffic citations. So, you know, essentially the state is pouring cold water on the genesis of the operation that led to this killing.
If the shooting had been done by local authorities, you could imagine and predict sort of what would happen next just in terms of an investigation into the use of force. The shooting obviously happened by a Border Patrol agent. So I wonder, how would it normally work in the aftermath of this kind of a thing? What would you normally expect? And what do we know about what is happening now?
So the way this has been handled in the past, for instance, when there was a U.S. marshal who used deadly force here a few years ago, is...
The federal government, the Department of Justice, and its Office of Civil Rights partners quickly with the state agency that has the most expertise in use of force cases, and they collect and review evidence jointly, trying to make sense of whether the officer was
when he or she used deadly force, had a credible fear that that was the only means to remain safe in the face of a dire threat to the agent or to others around them. These videos that have emerged to date, while really providing us considerable amount of insight into what happened in that moment, are only part of the story.
And usually when this kind of investigation is conducted, you try to get more video of what was happening, you know, minutes before this. You try to get witness accounts of what was being said, you know, as part of this exchange.
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