Five moments in the Alex Pretti shooting that raise red flags for policing experts

By David Nakamura, Sarah Blaskey, Peter Hermann, Derek Hawkins, Marianne LeVine and Zoeann Murphy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ 27-01-2026

The tactics U.S. Border Patrol agents used against Alex Pretti in Minneapolis probably violate modern policing guidelines, several experts said, and add to a growing body of evidence that federal immigration officers are deviating from professional norms.

The Washington Post spoke with eight experts — all of whom have served in law enforcement or studied officer behavior — who pointed to a sequence of actions by federal immigration officers Saturday morning that go against training guidelines designed to de-escalate potentially volatile situations.

The policing experts cautioned that the videos do not capture all the events leading up to the moment officers try to arrest Pretti, and that it is difficult to clearly see and hear everything that happens. But they were unanimous in saying that the situation probably could have been avoided by employing basic policing tactics that prioritize public safety and communication.

Pushing a bystander

Use of force expert Brian Landers is skeptical that the woman filmed being pushed by a federal agent had done anything to justify physical force. (Via X)

Several federal agents tackled and attempted to subdue Alex Pretti. (Via X)

Moments after Pretti was sprayed, several officers attempt to force him to the ground. Pretti never appears to be prone on the ground or to yield fully. At times, his knees are tucked under his body, agents holding him down, their hands on his back.

Officers are trained to subdue someone who is nonviolently resisting arrest with techniques intended to cause pain without injury — such as joint manipulations, stun guns, chemical agents or strikes to large muscle groups such as the thigh, Landers said.

“I saw a lot of what I would call sloppy wrestling,” he said.

The officers should have given Pretti clear commands that he was under arrest and to put his hands behind his back, said Christopher Mannino, a 25-year law enforcement veteran and former chief of the Park Forest Police Department in Illinois. Those commands need to be loud enough for the person to hear, he said, and ideally loud enough that witnesses also know what is going on, though such commands are not audible in the videos.

Mannino said it’s not clear whether Pretti was resisting arrest under the pile of agents. “His actions may be in response to being struck or kicked or whatever is happening,” he said.

Striking Pretti with a canister

A use-of-force expert said it appeared that a federal agent hit Pretti with a pepper spray canister while trying to subdue him. (AP)

As the officers attempted to subdue Pretti, one can be seen striking him near the head — it’s not clear exactly where the blows land — with what appears to be a chemical spray canister, at least four times. Experts said hitting his head with a blunt instrument would be allowed only if Pretti had done something to put the officers, or others, in immediate and serious danger, such as reach for his gun.

If Pretti was simply not cooperating, officers could use “compliance techniques” — such as joint manipulations — to get the suspect’s arms behind their back, experts said.

“There’s a car right there. You might push him onto the hood of the car, and what you’re trying to do is get the handcuffs on,” said Jim Bueermann, a former California police chief and president of the Future Policing Institute. “The fact that that many officers cannot control this guy quickly tells me that their training is lacking.”

It is not clear when officers realized Pretti had a gun. But the presence of a weapon alone does not justify a change in the level of force being used, much less deadly force, unless Pretti was actively reaching for it, Landers said.

Jeff Wenninger, who spent 33 years in the Los Angeles Police Department and investigated hundreds of officer-involved shootings, said standard practice would be to have two or three officers subdue a person of Pretti’s size. Any more can create unnecessary chaos and confuse the person being arrested if officers are giving conflicting orders, he said.

“What I saw was a heck of a lot of agents — I think up to six that were there — acting independently of one another,” Wenninger said.

Removing Pretti’s gun

As officers still tried to pin Pretti down, an officer in a light gray jacket entered the scrum and removed a gun from Pretti’s back near his waistband. A voice can be heard yelling what sounded like, “Gun! Gun!” The officer in gray is captured pivoting and retreating with the weapon.

Once the officer took the weapon, Mannino said, “I would expect him to communicate very loudly and multiple times, ‘I’ve got his gun. I’ve gotten his gun,’ something to that effect.”

Clear communication is important, he said, because the level of deadly threat has dramatically decreased once officers have secured the firearm. The officer who took the gun from Pretti “was right to step away from the altercation” and secure the weapon, a former Border Patrol official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss videos that are not completely clear, but he added that it was not clear if the others knew Pretti had been disarmed.

The fact that Pretti had a gun doesn’t automatically justify deadly force, which depends on whether officers reasonably perceived a serious threat.

“But a concealed weapon can absolutely make a tense, confusing scene worse,” Johnson said. “It compresses decision time, increases fear on all sides and can turn a crowd-control struggle into a lethal encounter in seconds.”

Using deadly force

Just as the officers secured Pretti’s weapon, another officer could be seen unholstering his own firearm from his right hip and pointing it toward Pretti’s back. In a split second, the first crack of gunfire erupts.

It is not clear whose weapon fired that shot. The officers on top of Pretti scrambled away as more shots were fired. In all, 10 shots could be heard, several of which were aimed at Pretti as he was prone and motionless on the ground and witnesses cry out in anger and disbelief.

If officers were aware Pretti had a gun but did not realize it had been removed, and Pretti reached toward where the gun had been, it’s possible that the officers reacted to what they thought was an imminent threat, experts said.

But Mannino noted that multiple rounds were fired after Pretti was lying motionless.

“It’s difficult to articulate a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm at that point,” he said.