On Saturday, January 24, 2026, a local Minneapolis, Minnesota mountain biker was shot and killed by a US Border Patrol Officer. The 37-year-old man, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital who “loved the outdoors and mountain biking,” according to an MPR News interview with Dr. Dimiri Drekonja, who worked at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center with Pretti. “He was an incredibly competent person. He was incredibly good at his job,” Drekonja said. “There is no reason for a guy like that to be dead, let alone to be killed by the agents of a government that employed him.”
Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents
The shooting occurred shortly after 9 a.m. on Minneapolis’s South Side, where federal officers were conducting a targeted ICE enforcement operation when Pretti, who had been participating in protests against the immigration crackdown, arrived at the scene. According to bystander videos and witness testimony, multiple federal agents tackled Pretti, forced him face down to the ground, and one video appears to show an officer taking away Pretti’s gun just before another shoots him. Multiple rounds of gunfire—what sounds like 10 shots—are then heard as agents shoot Pretti in the back while he lies on the ground. Pretti, a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry, was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.
Controversy surrounds the shooting
The Department of Homeland Security immediately claimed Pretti approached agents with a handgun and intended to “massacre law enforcement,” with Trump administration officials calling him a “domestic terrorist.” However, multiple bystander videos and witness testimony directly contradict the federal account, with major media outlets finding no evidence of Pretti brandishing his handgun. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said, “Thank God we have video because, according to DHS, these seven heroic guys took an onslaught of a battalion against them or something. It’s nonsense, people.” Despite a federal judge granting state investigators a temporary restraining order to preserve evidence, Senator Tina Smith accused the administration of a “cover up,” saying federal agents refused to give state investigators access to evidence even after obtaining a warrant.
Memorial rides planned across the country to honor Pretti
Pretti was a regular customer at the Angry Catfish bike shop in South Minneapolis, and today the shop announced a memorial bike ride in his honor on January 31. The Minneapolis ride is set to start at Washburn Fair Oaks Park, though the shop hopes riders from other locations will also participate.
“Please join in, near or far this Saturday, 1/31 1:00 PM Central Time,” they wrote in a social media post. “We’re asking folks to host rides and come together. Bike shops and non-profits, cycling orgs and alt cycling collectives, city and rural. We are many but we stand together as one.”
In response, cyclists as far away as Atlanta are working to organize their own memorial rides to coincide with the one in Minneapolis. “He was one of us,” one of the Atlanta organizers wrote online.
Local Minneapolis bike company, Esker Cycles, publicly opposed ICE activities in Minneapolis
Prior to the shooting, local Minneapolis bike company Esker Cycles released a statement indicating that they would join in a general strike on Friday, January 23rd, called “ICE Out of Minnesota.”
“Over the years, when we have taken political stands, we’ve heard the ‘shut up and just talk about bikes’ many times,” wrote Esker. “But we won’t. Even though this should be fun, there are important, serious issues that we strongly believe in, and sometimes they are not fun.”
They continued, saying:
Recently, Minneapolis has been thrown into chaos. Our community is under attack for political reasons, and the cruelty that is being brought against our neighbors must be resisted.
We haven’t publicly said anything about this yet, because we didn’t know what to say. We’ve tackled this problem the best we can as individuals in the community more so than as a company.
But we have also noticed silence from the corporations of Minnesota, and silence is complicity. So while there is little a small business can do to battle a rogue federal government, we will do what we can, and we won’t be silent.
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