President Donald Trump smeared slain nurse Alex Pretti in an overnight social media post.
New video shows an encounter between the 37-year-old Pretti and federal immigration agents 11 days before Border Patrol officers fatally shot him Jan. 24, and the 79-year-old president suggested that newly revealed footage suggested the Minnesota man deserved his fate.
"Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces," Trump posted Friday on Truth Social at 1:26 a.m.
The Jan. 13 video shows Pretti cursing at officers and then kicking the tail light of a departing SUV full off federal agents, and one of them charges at Pretti and throws him to the ground as others fire pepper balls and toss smoke canisters toward a crowd of a dozen or so bystanders.
Three other officers pounced on Pretti and struck him while he was restrained on the ground, and he reportedly suffered a broken rib before wriggling out of his coat and joining the crowd.
"It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control," Trump seethed. "The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."
Pretti was legally carrying a handgun in both encounters but did not touch the weapon in either incident, but Trump officials have branded him a "wanna-be assassin" and "domestic terrorist" before the president's later attacks, and Trump has already suggested that officers were justified in shooting him.
"You can't have guns," Trump said earlier this week. "You can't walk in with guns."