UNBIASED Politics
January 26, 2026: Everything We Know and Don't Know About the Alex Pretti Shooting. PLUS Answering the Most Frequently Asked Questions.
26 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, January 26th. Let's talk about some news. Today's episode will be all about the most recent shooting in Minneapolis and Alex Preddy and what we know about the shooting generally. I did not anticipate today's episode to be solely about that, but
As I wrote everything out, I mean, it just became clear that there is so much to talk about. All of you have so many questions, and I want to make sure that I address as many of those questions as possible. So what I'm going to do first is just kind of tell you what we know and what we don't know, right?
We'll talk about the video angles, what the angles show, the statements by DHS, the president, witnesses on the scene, and then we will finish with a Q&A. Like I said, you guys have a ton of questions about this story, and there are various claims that are circulating online.
So my hope is that in doing this Q&A and answering some of your more specific questions, I'll be able to get you some clear answers. On Saturday morning at approximately 9.05 a.m., a Border Patrol agent fatally shot 37-year-old U.S.
Chapter 2: What happened in the Alex Pretti shooting incident?
citizen Alex Preddy. This happened during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, and the operation that was taking place when it happened was targeting an individual named Jose Huerta Chuma.
Huerta Chuma is an illegal immigrant originally from Ecuador who Border Patrol Commander Greg Bonvino said has a criminal record of domestic assault, intentional infliction of bodily harm, disorderly conduct, and was arrested over the weekend for driving without a license.
Now, as far as his past criminal record goes, you know, Minnesota Department of Corrections has said that state court records only show Huerta Chuma as having misdemeanor level traffic offenses from more than a decade ago. And that an individual with this name was previously held in federal immigration custody in a local Minnesota jail in 2018.
However, Minnesota DOC has no information explaining why Huerto Chuma was ultimately released because any decision to release him from federal custody would have been made by federal authorities.
So we don't really have any additional details about the target of the operation or his criminal record other than what Bonvino said about it because the DHS hasn't provided any additional details at this point. But as we know, this story isn't really about the target of the operation, right? This story is about Alex Pretty.
So since the shooting, we've obtained multiple bystander videos that show a few different angles. And taken together, what these videos show is the following. A few minutes before the shooting happened, Pretty can be seen standing in the street filming federal agents with his phone. He was specifically filming an agent that had approached a vehicle in the road.
It's unclear what the agent was trying to do with the vehicle, but the agent was standing next to the back door of the vehicle, which was open at the time.
At the same time, two people can be seen standing closer to the agent that is at the vehicle, blowing whistles at the agent. And we know that these whistles are used by protesters during ICE activity. We don't know what exactly happens next, but as Pretty is standing in the street filming, he yells at the agent and says, quote, do not push them into the traffic. End quote.
I want to be clear that Pretty was not holding a gun. OK, he was very clearly holding his phone in one hand and his other hand was empty. He did have a gun in his waistband, but he was not holding a gun at any point during his interaction with the agents. From another angle, you can see a Border Patrol agent approach Pretty and start pushing him backwards towards the sidewalk.
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Chapter 3: What evidence is available regarding the shooting?
And the way that the gunfire pattern sounds is that there's one shot, a very brief pause after that initial shot, and then there's three shots fired back to back. So it is possible that the first shot came from Preddy's gun or some other gun in the vicinity, and that is what caused the agent to shoot.
But Preddy did not have his gun at this point, and we can't tell for sure from the videos that we have exactly what happened, exactly which gun was fired first. In at least one of the videos, you can hear 10 pops total. It's not clear how many of those 10 pops were actually shots fired or how many shots were fired at Pretty directly versus fired elsewhere.
There's just a lot that we still don't know. We know that a witness filed a sworn declaration stating that Pretty had sustained at least three gunshot wounds to his back. But again, we just don't have definitive answers at this point. In the aftermath of the shooting, DHS posted on X quote,
seen here the officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted more details on the armed struggle are forthcoming fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers an agent fired defensive shots medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene the suspect also had two magazines and no id this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage
and massacre law enforcement. About 200 rioters arrived at the scene and began to obstruct and assault law enforcement on the scene. Crowd control measures were deployed for the safety of the public and law enforcement. The situation is evolving and more information is forthcoming. End quote.
Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino similarly said agents had been carrying out a quote unquote targeted immigration enforcement operation when pretty approach agents with a nine millimeter semi-automatic handgun. But Bovino did not specify if Petty was was brandishing the gun, quote unquote, when he approached the agents.
But like DHS, Bovino said that agents attempted to disarm him and he, quote unquote, violently resisted. Since then, DHS has slightly changed its tune.
OK, so in a recent in a more recent interview with Fox News, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem kind of backed away from the statement that Pretty walked up to federal agents with a firearm and instead said that Pretty walked up to agents and obstructed their operation. In another interview since the shooting, Noem was asked whether Pretty, quote unquote, brandished his weapon.
And she didn't directly respond to that question, but she said that he, quote, showed up to impede a law enforcement operation, end quote. So it seems as if DHS is kind of stepping back from this walked up to federal agents with a firearm claim. Now, it is true that Pretty was armed. OK, and we'll talk more about his gun in a minute. But he he didn't walk up to agents with his gun out. Right.
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Chapter 4: How do bystander videos contribute to understanding the event?
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Now I want to walk through a few developments that have taken place since the shooting. Number one, late Saturday night, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing DHS, ICE, and U.S. Border Patrol from destroying or altering any evidence related to the shooting. That order was
was effective through today at noon, and there was another hearing scheduled for today to determine whether that temporary restraining order will be extended. So just be on the lookout for that update.
The lawsuit that's at the center of this temporary restraining order basically alleges that the DHS has blocked the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from accessing the crime scene even after the BCA obtained a search warrant signed by a judge. So that's what the case is all about.
The judge will have to decide if that restraining order gets extended and further prohibits any of the federal agencies from destroying any evidence. Number two, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry announced during a press conference over the weekend that the city would file for a restraining order today to halt ICE's entire operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
So that's also something that we are on the lookout for. Number three, Governor Walz has since deployed the National Guard in response to a request from one of the sheriff's offices in Minneapolis. This is something that is well within his authority to do. Remember that state governors have control over their state National Guard. The president only has control over.
over the National Guard in very limited situations. Governors have the ultimate control. And Walls had actually previously placed the Minnesota National Guard on standby following the shooting of Rene Good as well as the Venezuela National, but the Guard was officially deployed following the shooting when the Sheriff's Office request came in over the weekend.
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