Trump administration, MAGA allies spread misinformation on Pretti killing 

US President Donald Trump’s administration and his (Make America Great Again) MAGA allies have disseminated a flurry of misinformation about the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in the US city of Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Sunday claimed that Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, had “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun”, and that agents had “attempted to disarm the suspect, but the armed suspect violently resisted”.

Video footage shot by bystanders shows Pretti filming a group of US Border Patrol agents on Saturday before stepping in to defend a woman who was shoved to the ground by one agent.

In footage shared by US-based Drop Site news, Pretti can be seen trying to help the woman before at least five agents tackle him to the ground and shoot him multiple times after a scuffle on the icy road.

Analysis of footage by US media and Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, shows that Pretti’s gun had already been confiscated by an agent before he was shot dead.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara later told reporters that Pretti was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit, and that his only criminal history was a few traffic tickets.

Despite the video evidence, Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino told a news conference that Pretti’s gun showed that he “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement”.

Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security, claimed without evidence that Pretti was an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents”, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said he had “violently” resisted arrest.

Popular right-wing influencers amplified the Trump administration’s claims on X.

The MAGA-allied account “Libs of TikTok” labelled Pretti a “lunatic” and an “assassin”.

Right-wing influencer Alexander Muse told his 681,000 followers that Pretti was “expecting a firefight at a distance” with federal agents despite there being no evidence that he ever took out or brandished his gun.

Some right-wing influencers went even further than echoing the Trump administration’s narrative, piling blatant misinformation on top of officials’ baseless accusations.

Trump ally Nick Sorter, who has 1.4 million followers on X, falsely claimed that Pretti, a US citizen, was an “illegal alien” who was “armed with a gun and attempted to PULL IT on agents as he was being apprehended”.

Conservative podcaster Jesse Kelly smeared Pretti as a “soldier for the communist revolution” who had “died fighting in a war” in an X post that included a photo of Pretti on a hike.

MAGA-affiliated accounts also shared digitally altered images purporting to be pictures of Pretti dressed in female clothing.

In a statement, Pretti’s parents said their son was a “kindhearted soul” and that the administration’s “sickening lies” about him were “reprehensible and disgusting”.

Claims that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” and scrutiny of his political beliefs mirror similar accusations levelled at Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman who was also fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Trump administration officials also described Good as a “terrorist” and claimed that she was trying to run over an immigration officer with her vehicle despite video evidence casting doubt on those claims.

Officials have also spread misleading information seemingly aimed at discrediting protests against Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown more generally.

The White House last week shared an image of an arrested activist, Nekima Levy Armstrong, that had been altered with artificial intelligence to make her look emotionally distressed.

Some Republicans have pushed back on the narrative pushed around Pretti’s death, including Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, who said on X that “carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right”.

The National Rifle Association, a pro-gun lobby group, also rejected a suggestion by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor  that approaching a law enforcement officer with a gun could be grounds for being shot.

Minnesota law enforcement officials have also contested statements by Trump administration officials, including a claim by Vice President JD Vance that local authorities refused to assist their federal counterparts in the investigation into Pretti’s killing.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said on Sunday that it was state authorities who were being obstructed, stating in a statement on X that its officers had been denied access to the crime scene by the DHS.