Kids, listen to your parents
Never run with scissors
Posted on 01/24/2026 7:22:34 PM PST by Morgana
The parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, the 37-year-old shot by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, had urged him to “not do anything stupid” while protesting.
Pretti, an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, had no prior criminal record before he decided to confront the Border Patrol agents.
The incident occurred one day after a massive protest where tens of thousands marched through downtown Minneapolis to oppose ICE’s operations in the city.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Pretti approached Border Patrol officers while carrying a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and began forcefully resisting orders.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” Michael Pretti, Alex’s father, told the Associated Press. “He felt that doing the protesting was a way to express that, you know, his care for others.”
Pretti was a United States citizen and was born in Illinois.
His parents, who live in Wisconsin, had spoken to him two weeks ago about not engaging officers during the unrest.
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
Relatives told CBS News that “Pretti owned a handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota. They said they had never known him to carry it.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed that he had a permit to carry.
Pretti’s family learned about his death after seeing the video and thinking that it looked like him.
“I can’t get any information from anybody,” Michael Pretti told CBS. “The police, they said call Border Patrol, Border Patrol’s closed, the hospitals won’t answer any questions?”
Eventually, they confirmed it was him by calling the medical examiner.
The Department of Homeland Security’s statement about the shooting read in full:
“At 9:05 AM CT, as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, 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 2 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.
This situation is evolving, and more information is forthcoming.”
The mayhem is still unfolding in Minneapolis, as hundreds of protesters descended on the area of the shooting and continuously ignored dispersal orders.
Just for the record, I am happy that he died.
Carrying a Sig was the first mistake.
He packed a gun but no identification… stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong because he “cared.” Yeah, well, ICE arrests illegals because they care, too.
Some of the protesters have or had the misguided assumption that ICE could only arrest illegals and they were free to harass ICE agents. When the gal in the car got shot for try to run over and ICE officer, her partner was blabbering about being a US citizen.
I don’t think he is the same guy who bit off an officer’s finger.
But whoever did that will most likely be portrayed as a caring individual who rescued a puppy from a drain pipe just last week.
He already did something stupid when he went out to protest.
And that was just the start of his stupid decisions that cost him his life.
Pretty’s ex-wife says that Pretti live streamed the Floyd riots .
I wonder if those videos still exist.
Let me get my gun and go take on the Feds . Sounds like a bad plan . Instead of documenting the event he became a participant.
He was there the day of the Good incident, so he was well aware of the danger of interfering with ICE operations.
In the words of the warden from Cool Hand Luke
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach.
So you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it. . . well, he gets it.
I don’t like it any more than you men.
A 37 y/o man child. The dumbest thing this man child did that day was to show up. If he could have avoided that one stupid trick he would be alive today. That's the advice his failed parents should have offered. Don't do it!
Someone needs to interview the ex-wife: why did you divorce him? why would he deliberately never speak to you ever again? how long had he been an agitator? were his work contacts involved? why no children?
Alex must obviously have a track record of doing stupid things.
For the record, so am I. I'm also prepared to be happy that more leftist trash die in the coming weeks. They're too stupid to live.
Obama groomed a generation of agitators to transform America this is all scripted. Piece by piece. Drip by drip.
Why were his parents so worried that they thought they had to warn him “not to do anything stupid”? It makes me wonder if he has a history of doing stupid things.
I always tell my sons, “Don’t die!” when I drop them off somewhere. “I’ll do what I want!” says Tom.
Mommy and daddy would not have had to give such unsolicited advice if they believed little Jeffy was actually a smart man-child. Yet, they know their little boy had a propensity for stupid.
“He felt that doing the protesting was a way to express that, you know, his care for others.”
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Reminds of how David Horowitz said the left is driven by moral passion. Which in itself isn’t a problem per se, but the passion is unrestrained by normal moral limits since the left rejects normal moral limits. So you wind up with completely unrestrained passion that becomes dangerous, which Horowitz analogized to a river overflowing its banks. Thomas Sowell made a similar point with his distinction between cosmic justice and conventional justice and his contention that the left embraces the former while rejecting the latter.
Bingo.
Bongino periodically wore a don’t get dead tee-shirt for rumble podcasts. I imagine he will wear it again once he restarts his podcast.
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