By the time medics reached 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti on a Minneapolis street, one man had been shot dead, a suspected offender had slipped away, and a federal agent was missing part of his finger. What happened in those minutes is now described in starkly different tones by law enforcement leaders and their critics.
According to a detailed report from Fox News, federal immigration officers say a planned arrest spiraled into a fatal shooting and violent unrest in Minneapolis during a recent early-morning operation. Their account centers on three people: Pretti, a Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse; Jose Huerta-Chuma, the noncitizen they were trying to arrest; and an unidentified protester accused of biting off part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s finger.
What Federal Officials Say Happened
U.S. Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino told reporters that Border Patrol and ICE agents were carrying out a targeted immigration arrest in Minneapolis when the situation shifted rapidly from controlled operation to street confrontation. Federal officials say the target was Jose Huerta-Chuma, described in the Fox News report as a noncitizen with prior convictions for domestic assault involving intentional bodily harm, disorderly conduct, and driving without a valid license.
During that operation, authorities say Pretti approached agents while armed with a 9 mm pistol. Homeland Security officials, as quoted in the Fox report, say he “violently resisted” when Border Patrol agents tried to disarm him. A Border Patrol agent then shot Pretti. Medical personnel provided aid at the scene, but he was pronounced dead. State officials cited in the same report said Pretti had a valid permit to carry a firearm.
Federal officials identified Pretti as a Minneapolis resident, an intensive care unit nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, and a member of the American Federation of Government Employees. At the time of the Fox News report, there was no public indication in that coverage of whether Pretti was the subject of the operation or an armed bystander who intervened for reasons that remain publicly unexplained.
From Operation to Unrest
According to federal officials, the shooting of Pretti sparked a rapid buildup of protesters at the scene. Bovino said the atmosphere deteriorated as crowds confronted officers. He described a “violent mob” that interfered with the attempted arrest of Huerta-Chuma and forced agents to abandon the operation.
“This individual is still roaming the streets today,” Bovino said of Huerta-Chuma at a press conference quoted by Fox News. “This individual walks the streets today because of those choices made by politicians and those, perhaps, weaker-minded constituents that chose to follow directions of those politicians. Sad state of affairs.”
Bovino’s comments place responsibility for the failed arrest on elected officials and activists rather than on operational decisions by ICE or Border Patrol. The Fox report does not include responses from local officials, civil rights groups, or witnesses who might challenge or corroborate his characterization of the crowd as “violent.”
The Bitten Finger and Escaped Suspect
ICE Executive Assistant Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Marcos Charles told reporters that as tensions escalated, a group he described as “violent agitators” attacked an ICE special agent. During that confrontation, Charles said, one protester bit off part of the agent’s finger.
“The protester literally bit off part of that agent’s finger,” Charles said, according to the Fox News account. He added that the officer received immediate medical care and was transported to a hospital. “The officer is recovering but is now permanently maimed and has lost part of his finger.”
In the confusion, Bovino said agents were forced to pull back from the location, which allowed Huerta-Chuma to escape custody. As of the Fox report, federal officials said he remained at large. The article does not state whether anyone was arrested in connection with the alleged biting, nor does it identify the protester by name.
Charles also used the press conference to argue that the incident reflects a broader increase in violence against federal immigration officers. According to Fox News, he said there has been an uptick in confrontations against federal law enforcement in Minneapolis and across the country, while emphasizing that ICE operations aim to remove “criminals, gang members and terrorists” from local communities. He cited internal ICE figures that more than 3,400 noncitizens had been arrested in Minnesota operations, but those figures have not been independently published in the reporting that is currently available.
Oversight, Force, and Missing Details
Both Border Patrol and ICE are part of the Department of Homeland Security. Their enforcement actions and use of force are governed by internal policies and by review systems that include the DHS Office of Inspector General and, for Border Patrol agents, the Customs and Border Protection Office of Professional Responsibility.
In typical shooting cases involving federal officers, local law enforcement, federal investigators, and sometimes state attorneys general conduct parallel inquiries. Those investigations can examine key questions that remain unanswered in the publicly available Fox News account of this incident, including:
Item 1: Whether there is body-camera, vehicle-camera, or bystander video that shows Pretti’s approach, his interaction with agents, and the moment he was shot.
Item 2: Whether Pretti pointed or fired his weapon, or whether agents perceived a threat based on his movements or other factors.
Item 3: How clearly agents identified themselves and issued commands before using deadly force.
Item 4: What specific actions the crowd took before agents abandoned the operation, and how the use of force by both officers and protesters is documented.
The Fox report attributes its account almost entirely to statements and summaries by federal officials. It does not indicate whether reporters reviewed incident reports, interviewed independent witnesses, or obtained comments from Pretti’s family, Huerta-Chuma’s representatives, or local authorities in Minneapolis. Without those additional perspectives or documents, the public record remains heavily weighted toward the narrative of the agencies involved in the shooting and the crowd control decisions that followed.
đź”´ The Telegraph has analysed first-person accounts and witness footage to provide a comprehensive view of the shooting of Alex Pretti by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
It casts doubt on the administration’s account.
Read the analysis here ⬇️https://t.co/cywrsf4PTl pic.twitter.com/keI5PEyhY4
— The Telegraph (@TheTelegraph) January 25, 2026
Politics Around Immigration Enforcement
Bovino’s statement at the press conference not only described operational details; it framed the failed arrest and the agent’s injury as consequences of local political decisions. He explicitly blamed “politicians” and “weaker-minded constituents” who opposed ICE operations.
This reflects a broader pattern that has emerged in immigration enforcement debates over the past decade. Federal officials have repeatedly argued that local policies limiting cooperation with ICE, or public protests against immigration raids, make it harder to arrest individuals with criminal records. Critics of aggressive enforcement respond that such operations can destabilize communities, sweep up people with relatively low-level offenses, and sometimes take place in residential neighborhoods where bystanders can be drawn into confrontations.
What sets the Minneapolis incident apart, based on the current reporting, is the combination of three outcomes in a single operation. A target with a prior criminal record allegedly escaped. An armed civilian with a valid permit was shot dead by a federal agent. A different agent lost part of a finger in what officials characterize as a protest attack.
Each of those outcomes would typically trigger its own line of scrutiny: a criminal investigation of the shooting, a manhunt and risk assessment around the escaped suspect, and a separate case regarding the alleged assault on a federal officer. As of the Fox News report, the public does not have access to charging documents, autopsy findings, or investigation summaries that could clarify what happened and why.
What Remains Unclear
Several central facts remain unresolved in the available public narrative.
First, the role and intent of Pretti are still murky. Officials say he approached agents armed and that he “violently resisted” efforts to disarm him. The reporting does not indicate whether he fired his weapon, whether witnesses support the federal account, or whether he said anything that might clarify why he approached an active immigration arrest with a drawn or holstered pistol.
Second, the legal status of the alleged protester who bit the agent is unknown from the Fox coverage. It is not clear whether that person was arrested on scene, later identified, or charged with assault on a federal officer, which is a serious federal crime. The absence of this detail makes it difficult to assess how thoroughly the most graphic allegation in the officials’ account has been pursued in court.
Third, the conditions that allowed Huerta-Chuma to escape have not been described in operational detail. Officials emphasize that crowd interference forced them to retreat, but there is no public description of decisions made by field supervisors, whether additional units were requested, or how close agents came to securing the suspect before disengaging.
Finally, because the main account of the incident comes from federal officials speaking soon after a lethal use of force and a serious injury to a colleague, it represents an early and institutionally interested version of events. Subsequent investigations, if released, often confirm some details and complicate or contradict others.
Until more records, independent witness statements, or official investigative findings become public, the picture of what happened during that Minneapolis immigration operation will remain incomplete. One man is dead, another remains a wanted fugitive according to federal officials, and an ICE agent is permanently injured. How those facts are interpreted, and who is held responsible in court or at the policy level, depends on information that has not yet been fully shared with the public.
