Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent this weekend, suffered a broken rib during a previous encounter with federal officers, according to a report.
A week before his death, Pretti, 37, had a rib broken when a group of federal officers tackled him as he was protesting their detention of other people, sources told CNN.
Since launching President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis last month, federal officers have been collecting information about protesters and agitators in the city.
Among that information were details about Pretti, gathered before he was shot to death Saturday, sources told CNN.
A memo directed officers in Minneapolis to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protesters, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to CNN.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Independent: “DHS law enforcement has no record of this incident.”
Calls byThe Independent to Pretti’s family went unanswered Tuesday.
Pretti’s earlier encounter with federal officers unfolded after he saw ICE agents chasing what he described as a family on foot. He stopped his car and began shouting and blowing his whistle, the source said.
Pretti, an ICU nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, told one of CNN’s sources that five agents tackled him. During the altercation, one of the agents leaned on his back, leaving him with a broken rib. Pretti was released at the scene.
“That day, he thought he was going to die,” the source said. After the incident, Pretti was given medication consistent with treating a broken rib, according to the report.
Earlier this month, a DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations officers in the state directing them to use a new form to provide information on protesters and agitators.
While Pretti’s name was known to federal agents, according to the CNN source, it is unclear if the new intake form was used to share his information.
Some Trump officials have spoken about creating a database of protesters, including Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who told Fox News earlier this month that he was “pushing for” it.
“We’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding and assault, we’re going to make them famous,” Homan said.
Homan was sent to Minneapolis Tuesday by the president in an apparent effort to calm tensions in the state.
One video, taken in Maine and shared on social media last Friday, showed a federal agent recording a license plate of a woman watching their operations and telling her: “We have a nice little database and now you are considered a domestic terrorist.”
DHS has denied that the agency keeps a database of protesters.
“There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS. We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement. Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told CNN.
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