On Saturday night, more than 1,000 people gathered at a vigil and vigil at Whittier Park in Minneapolis to remember the late Alex Pretti. shot dead by border patrol agent. After the vigil, demonstrators marched in subzero temperatures to the scene where Preti was killed on Nicollet Street, south of 26th Street.
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The scene of the shooting is less than three miles from a memorial created for Renee Good in the Powderhorn neighborhood on Jan. 7, the day she lost her life, and became an impromptu memorial with candles and flowers. shot dead Written by Jonathan Ross, ICE Agent.
Since hundreds of protesters gathered in the immediate aftermath of Preeti’s murder, people have erected barricades using trash cans, garbage cans and picnic tables, blocking traffic from surrounding roads. The area was mostly quiet until a wave of demonstrators poured in from a vigil in Whittier Park, where hundreds of people crowded around his monument.
“I thought it was just a dream, but now I’m here. It feels real. It really happened. When you shoot people in movies, you know it’s fake. I never thought it could be real,” said Isabel Atem, a nurse who drove from Woodbury, crying.
Atem said he felt sick when he came to know that Preeti was also a nurse. In a statement to multiple media outlets, Preeti’s parents said she was an ICU nurse at a Virginia hospital in Minneapolis.
“Nurses are there to help people, so why do they kill people and shoot guns?” Atem said.
Atem, an immigrant from Cameroon, said that even though he is a U.S. citizen, he is afraid to go outside as more than 3,000 federal immigration agents flood Minnesota, detaining residents regardless of their citizenship status.
Volunteers hand out hot drinks and food at the memorial for Alex Preti, who was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday, January 24, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
At Preeti’s memorial table, people were handing out hot drinks and food (fried rice and hummus) from local restaurants. Glam Doll Donuts, located across the street from where the Border Patrol agent shot Preeti, was open after hours and packed with people trying to stay warm.
Protesters at a nearby vigil flocked to Nicolette, and as Jake Anderson chanted, he held out the last of three gallons of chicken wild rice soup he had made that day.
Anderson, who lives in the Whittier neighborhood where Preti was killed, said she came to support everyone marching against “a brutal takeover of our city by totalitarian ICE members and people who don’t actually care about the safety of our communities.”
“I think there’s obviously a lot of anger and resentment, but there’s also just a sense of community,” he said as a man complimented his soup.
Some demonstrators smashed trash cans with hammers and hands as people chanted “no justice, no peace” and “F*ck ICE.”
The parents of Alex Preti, Michael Preti and Susan Preti issued a statement Saturday accusing the Trump administration of defaming their son with “reprehensible and disgusting” and “sickening lies.”
They defended their son’s actions, saying he was protecting a woman who had been shoved by federal agents. “Please reveal the truth about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.”
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