In a powerful interview that aired Tuesday on ABC’s Good Morning America, the family of Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs who was shot and killed more than seven months ago by Customs and Border Protection agents, spoke at length with George Stephanopoulos about the US government’s ongoing cover-up of their son’s murder.
Pretti was the second US citizen murdered in Minneapolis during “Operation Metro Surge,” one of several immigration kidnapping operations targeting large cities as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation. On January 7, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross.
Neither Ross nor the Customs and Border Protection thugs who shot Pretti in the back have been charged with a crime more than seven months after their murderous actions were caught on camera.
Michael Pretti, Alex’s father, began the interview by stating, “We really want to get the facts out of what happened to Alex that day... We’ve seen what happened, the videos are pretty clear, but we want justice, we want accountability from the people that did this to Alex.
“He was a good man, he cared deeply about his community. Minneapolis was his community. He wanted people to be treated fairly, no matter what walk of life, what their background was.”
Michael noted that on January 24, “the day he was murdered, he was not at a protest, he was an observer. And that’s why he had his phone.”
Micayla Pretti, Alex’s sister, referred to her brother as her “hero” and someone who “always stood up for what he believed in.”
Micayla said she first heard about her brother’s murder from her husband, who received a phone call from an unknown number. She later learned that the caller was a reporter. The reporter asked if she knew Alex and said he might have been involved in an incident with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Micayla said that after the call, she reached out to her brother, but his phone went to voicemail. At that point, she began to worry and called her parents.
Susan Pretti, Alex’s mother, said that after speaking to Micayla she reached out to the Hennepin County Medical Center. “And they wouldn’t give me an answer. And I begged.”
Susan surmised that the hospital staff knew her son had been killed. “I could tell by her voice that she knew because by this time it was all over the news.”
“We watched it on TV,” Michael added. “That’s our son, that’s Alex. And they killed him. No one called us.”
“We still haven’t heard from anyone,” Susan said.
“That’s how we found out,” Michael said. “Watching it on TV. Watching our son be shot 10 times on TV.”
“In the back,” Susan added.
“In the back,” Michael confirmed, adding, “Trying to help someone, and being beaten with tear gas canisters, sprayed with tear gas.”
“With a camera in one hand and his left hand empty in the air,” Susan added.
“I was not shocked that he helped somebody. My shock is that he was murdered and no one has given us the complete truth or anyone has been held accountable,” Susan said. Her voice quivering, she added, “And it’s been seven months.”
“There was more effort in vilifying him than pursuing justice, investigating this,” Michael said.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos correctly observed that following Pretti’s killing, a series of Trump administration officials made public statements blaming Pretti for being shot and killed by the immigration police.
Former US Border Patrol commander and neo-fascist Greg Bovino claimed without evidence following the shooting that it appeared Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Pretti “committed an act of domestic terrorism,” while White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller characterized Pretti as “an assassin.” Pretti never fired or even pulled out the pistol he was legally carrying. Miller’s message was reposted on social media by Vice President JD Vance.
“Disgusting is what that was,” Michael said in response to the Trump officials’ smears of their murdered son.
“We still hear those words about our child,” Susan said. “A kid who is out observing something that should not be happening in this world today in the United States. Why? What did he do to deserve to be murdered? To be left cold on the ground, dead? My child. What did he do?”
“It’s so un-presidential, it’s ridiculous that the ‘leader of the free world’ speaks that way about an American citizen,” Michael said.
After reviewing the slanders issued by the fascists in Washington following Pretti’s murder, Stephanopoulos asked whether any Trump administration officials had reached out in the months since to retract their statements, apologize or otherwise speak to the family about Alex.
The family confirmed that no officials had.
“What does that tell you?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“They don’t care,” the family replied.
“They do what they want,” Michael added.
“How are you supposed to trust a government after that?” Micayla said.
Questioned by ABC whether Miller and Trump stood by their statements, the White House did not respond.
Steven Schleicher, the Pretti family’s attorney, cast doubt on the federal government’s purported civil rights investigation into Pretti’s killing. “They say they have been doing an investigation. We don’t know where it stands, we don’t know what information they have gathered.”
The Department of Justice responded that it was merely following “standard” procedure.
In a written statement, Schleicher replied:
There is nothing standard about the government ignoring the Pretti family, obstructing an investigation, and harboring and protecting the individuals who murdered their son. It defies common sense and common decency and is unjust. This is nothing more than a continuation of the same hollow and cruel treatment the Pretti family has received from the Department of Justice for more than seven months.
Michael recounted the outpouring of support the family has received not only from fellow Minnesotans, but internationally.
“The response that we’ve had from people around world, the positive response, it’s not going to bring Alex back, of course not, but it does help. We’ve received over 2,000 cards and letters. We have read every single word of those cards and we’ve kept them all.”
Asked what “justice” would look like, Susan replied, “There are two shooters. They need to be held accountable. Why do they just get to go about their everyday business?”
Micayla called for the shooters’ names to be released. The US government has not acknowledged reporting from ProPublica that identified the shooters as Customs and Border Protection agents Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez.
“They murdered our child,” Susan said, adding, “People need to be held responsible when they murder people in this country. Period. Alex should not, nor Renee, nor anyone else should have been murdered, and the case, just what, disappears? No.”
The Pretti family’s demand that their son’s killers be identified and prosecuted must be supported by workers, youth and defenders of democratic rights all over the world. But seven months of lies, obstruction and official silence demonstrate that justice will not come through appeals to the Department of Justice or any other agency of the capitalist state. The same government supposedly investigating Pretti’s murder has concealed evidence, protected the shooters, and slandered the victim as a terrorist and assassin.
The killing was not an aberration. Customs and Border Protection agents were deployed to Minneapolis as part of a military-style occupation directed against immigrants and the entire working class. Like the police, the immigration Gestapo exists to enforce the interests of the capitalist ruling class through intimidation and violence. The vast apparatus built up by Republican and Democratic administrations alike has now been placed at the disposal of Trump’s erection of a presidential dictatorship.
The fight for justice for Alex Pretti and Renee Good requires the independent political mobilization of the working class. It cannot be entrusted to the Democratic Party, whose officials helped build the deportation and police state apparatus, or to the federal agencies carrying out the cover-up. Workers must demand the identification, arrest and prosecution of Pretti’s killers, the withdrawal of federal agents from American cities and the dismantling of the immigration Gestapo.