Trump Seizes on New Alex Pretti Video to Brand Him ‘Agitator and, Perhaps, Insurrectionist’ in Late-Night Rant

(AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

President Donald Trump seized on new footage of Alex Pretti in an altercation with ICE agents recorded two weeks before he was fatally shot by Border Patrol to brand him an “agitator” and “perhaps, insurrectionist.”

In a Truth Social post early Friday, the president said Pretti, the 37-year-old killed on January 24, had lost “stock” pointing to newly surfaced video footage that he said showed a “crazed” display of “abuse and anger” toward immigration officers days before the shooting.

Trump wrote:

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. It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

The footage, published by the News Movement on Wednesday and investigated in corroboration with BBC News, showed a confrontation on January 13 between a man identified by his family as Pretti and federal immigration agents.

In the video, the man shouts at officers, spits at them, and kicks the rear of their vehicle as it pulls away. Agents then exit the vehicle, tackle him, and deploy chemical irritants as onlookers scatter. The man is released moments later, and the agents leave.

A second video, published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, showed a different angle of the same incident. Pretti’s family confirmed to the outlet that he was the man seen in both clips.

CNN reported earlier this week that Pretti had broken a rib during an altercation with federal agents more than a week before his death, though the Department of Homeland Security told the network it had “no record of this incident.”

Trump’s remarks come after his administration initially portrayed Pretti as a domestic terrorist immediately following the killing, alleging he had planned to “massacre law enforcement.”

While Pretti was carrying a holstered firearm, video shows it was never in his hand, and it was taken away by an agent before the shooting.

Addressing the Jan 13 video confrontation, a lawyer for Pretti’s family said in a statement to the Associated Press: “A week before Alex was gunned down in the street – despite posing no threat to anyone – he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents,” adding that “Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.”

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