The family of Alex Pretti spoke out Tuesday for the first time about his killing, stressing that the 37-year-old intensive care nurse was merely observing a surge of federal immigration officers — not participating in a protest — when agents shot him.
Pretti’s parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, and his sister, Micayla, broke their silence in an ABC News exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos that aired Tuesday on “Good Morning America,” seven months after Pretti was killed in Minneapolis.
“We really want to get the facts out of what happened to Alex that day,” Michael Pretti said. “We’ve seen what happened. The videos are pretty clear. But we want justice. We want accountability for the people that did this to Alex.”
“He wasn’t really protesting,” the father continued. “And that’s one thing we want to be clear: The day he was murdered, he was not at a protest. He was an observer. That’s why he had his phone.”
Video of the fatal encounter, which occurred amid the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown, showed Pretti recording federal officers before agents restrained and shot him.
“He was a good man,” Michael Pretti added. “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.”
The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation following the shooting, which remains active, ABC News reported Tuesday.
“I aspire to be like him,” Alex Pretti’s sister told Stephanopoulos. “He always stood up for what he believed in.”
