Eyewitness testimony of shooting of Alex Pretti

The following is the transcript of the reading of a written eyewitness sworn testimony regarding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement gangsters’ shooting of Veterans Administration nurse Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis. It was read Jan. 26 on a broadcast of Democracy Now! radio program. The witness first describes how Pretti had been helping to direct traffic in the minutes before he was fatally shot. 

I and the man who was observing and helping direct traffic were standing in the street. There was a phone in the man’s hand recording a video.

An agent approached and asked us to back up, so I moved slowly back onto the sidewalk.

The man [Pretti] stayed in the street, filming as the other observers … were being forced backward by another ICE agent threatening them with pepper spray. The man went closer to support them as they got threatened, just with his camera out. I didn’t see him reach for or hold a gun.

Then the ICE agent shoved one of the other observers to the ground. Then he started pepper spraying all three of them directly in the face and all over. The man with the phone put his hands above his head and the agent sprayed him again and pushed him.

Then the man [Pretti] tried to help up the woman the ICE agent had shoved to the ground. The ICE agents just kept spraying. More agents came over and grabbed the man who was still trying to help the woman get up. … 

The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn’t see him touch any of them — he wasn’t even turned toward them. It didn’t look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn’t see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times.

I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him, and they just shot him.