Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Fury. Grief. Anguish. Locals on the frontlines of Trump’s attack on Minneapolis are speaking out—and we’re on the ground tracking the aftermath.
Minnesotans awoke to fresh terror Saturday morning as news broke that federal agents had shot and killed another local in the streets. The victim, 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti, was pinned down by several agents before being shot multiple times. The Associated Press reported that Pretti was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who lived just two miles from where he was killed.
Heeding calls to take to the streets, neighbors immediately poured into nearby intersections, confronting tactical Border Patrol units. Agents fired continuous rounds of tear gas and flash grenades into a crowd of all ages that had gathered to bear witness and demand an end to what they described as a federal siege of their city.
Soon after, our reporter Sam Van Pykeren visited the area and spoke with grief-stricken residents, who unleashed a torrent of anguish over the killing—the second in just over two weeks in a city reeling from President Trump’s intensifying immigration crackdown.
“This is fucking crazy, I don’t recognize our country,” said Megan Cavanaugh, a 52-year-old from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. She described a loud, chaotic, but peaceful protest where locals were hit with rubber bullets, pepper spray, and smoke bombs. Calling herself “not a protest type of person,” Cavanaugh said “it was the scariest experience I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.”
Fury. Grief. Anguish. Locals on the frontlines of Trump’s attack on Minneapolis are speaking out—and we’re on the ground tracking the aftermath.
Minnesotans awoke to fresh terror Saturday morning as news broke that federal agents had shot and killed another local in the streets. The victim, 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti, was pinned down by several agents before being shot multiple times. The Associated Press reported that Pretti was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who lived just two miles from where he was killed.
Heeding calls to take to the streets, neighbors immediately poured into nearby intersections, confronting tactical Border Patrol units. Agents fired continuous rounds of tear gas and flash grenades into a crowd of all ages that had gathered to bear witness and demand an end to what they described as a federal siege of their city.
Soon after, our reporter Sam Van Pykeren visited the area and spoke with grief-stricken residents, who unleashed a torrent of anguish over the killing—the second in just over two weeks in a city reeling from President Trump’s intensifying immigration crackdown.
“This is fucking crazy, I don’t recognize our country,” said Megan Cavanaugh, a 52-year-old from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. She described a loud, chaotic, but peaceful protest where locals were hit with rubber bullets, pepper spray, and smoke bombs. Calling herself “not a protest type of person,” Cavanaugh said “it was the scariest experience I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.”
