By MICHAEL BIESECKER, TIM SULLIVAN and JIM MUSTIAN

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Family members say the man killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Saturday was an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital who cared deeply about people and was upset by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in his city.

Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed getting in adventures with Joule, his beloved Catahoula Leopard dog who also recently died. He worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and had participated in protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs officer .

“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”

Pretti was a U.S. citizen, born in Illinois. Like Good, court records showed he had no criminal record and his family said he had never had any interactions with law enforcement beyond a handful of traffic tickets.

In a recent conversation with their son, his parents, who live in Colorado, told him to be careful when protesting.

“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”

The Department of Homeland Security said that the man was shot after he “approached” Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun. Officials did not specify if Pretti brandished the gun. In bystander videos of the shooting that emerged soon after, Pretti is seen with a phone in his hand but none appears to show him with a visible weapon.

Family members said Pretti owned a handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota. They said they had never known him to carry it.

Alex Pretti’s family struggles for information about what happened

The family first learned of the shooting when they were called by an Associated Press reporter. They watched the video and said the man killed appeared to be their son. They then tried reaching out to officials in Minnesota.

“I can’t get any information from anybody,” Michael Pretti said Saturday. “The police, they said call Border Patrol, Border Patrol’s closed, the hospitals won’t answer any questions.”

Eventually, the family called the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, who they said confirmed had a body matching the name and description of their son.

As of Saturday evening, the family said they had still not heard from anyone at a federal law enforcement agency about their son’s death.

Alex Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.

After graduation, he went to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, society and the environment, according to the family. He worked as a research scientist before returning to school to become a registered nurse.

Alex Pretti had protested before

Pretti’s ex-wife, Rachel N. Canoun, said she was not surprised he would have been involved in protesting Trump’s immigration crackdown. She said she had not spoken to him since they divorced more than two years ago and she moved to another state.

She said he was a Democratic voter and that he had participated in the wave of street protests following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, not far from the couple’s neighborhood. She described him a someone who might shout at law enforcement officers at a protest, but she had never known him to be physically confrontational.

“These kinds of things, you know, he felt the injustice to it,” Canoun said. “So it doesn’t surprise me that he would be involved.”

Canoun said Pretti got a permit to carry a concealed firearm about three years ago and that he owned at least one semiautomatic handgun when they separated.

“He didn’t carry it around me, because it made me uncomfortable,” she said.

Pretti had ‘a great heart’

Pretti lived in a four-unit condominium building about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from where he was shot. Neighbors described him as quiet and warmhearted.

“He’s a wonderful person,” said Sue Gitar, who lived downstairs from Pretti and said he moved into the building about three years ago. “He has a great heart.”

If there was something suspicious going on in the neighborhood, or when they worried the building might have a gas leak, he would jump in to help.

Pretti lived alone and worked long hours as a nurse, but he was not a loner, his neighbors said, and would sometimes have friends over.

His neighbors knew he had guns — he’d occasionally take a rifle to shoot at a gun range — but were surprised at the idea that he might carry a pistol on the streets.

“I never thought of him as a person who carried a gun,” said Gitar.

Pretti was also passionate about the outdoors

A competitive bicycle racer who lavished care on his new Audi, Pretti had also been deeply attached to his dog, who died about a year ago.

His parents said their last conversation with their son was a couple days before his death. They talked about repairs he had done to the garage door of his home. The worker was a Latino man, and they said with all that was happening in Minneapolis he gave the man a $100 tip.

Pretti’s mother said her son cared immensely about the direction the county was headed, especially the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations.

“He hated that, you know, people were just trashing the land,” Susan Pretti said. “He was an outdoorsman. He took his dog everywhere he went. You know, he loved this country, but he hated what people were doing to it.”

___

Biesecker reported from Washington and Mustian from New York.

Another flashpoint in the federal immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota occurred roughly two hours before the Gophers men’s basketball team tipped off against Nebraska on Saturday.

Gophers coach Niko Medved was preparing for the Big Ten game and said he had not seen news about the 37-year-old man who was shot and killed by agents in Minneapolis.

“First off, I had not heard that,” Medved said after a 76-57 loss to No. 7 Nebraska at Williams Arena. “For me, I’m not in politics. I think all of it is just terrible. The violence. The division. It’s just really disappointing. I’m just really disappointed in all of it.

“You wish you could influence it more, but you know you really can’t in our position. But that is really awful to hear. Again, I don’t know enough about (Saturday’s incident) to comment on it. All of it just really, really breaks your heart.”

Medved was asked if he talked to the team about the overall situation.

“I talk to guys individually,” he said. “I think we all just care so deeply about people and each other. I think that is always the message to these guys. Again, all of it is heartbreaking. Sometimes for us, too, you play a game and you want to kind of get away for a second and focus on what you are doing. All of it really just sucks.”

The Gophers’ athletics department has been quiet on the subject and are taking its cues from the university as a whole and President Rebecca Cunningham.

The Pioneer Press is gathering how leaders of local sports teams are reacting to the news.

The Timberwolves game against Golden State was postponed from Saturday night to Sunday and the TwinsFest ended an hour early Saturday evening.

On Friday, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve participated with tens of thousands in massive protests in Minneapolis, which ended inside the Lynx home arena, Target Center.

She made her stance clear with a post on X: “This my city. #ICEOUT.”

Twins executive chair Tom Pohlad was asked if the ball club considered shutting down TwinsFest while hundreds of businesses closed Friday for a general strike.

“Listen, no matter what you think, we all see what is going on in our community and we understand what we’ve all been through in the last five years. It’s heartbreaking,” Pohlad said. “Is there an argument to be made to cancel TwinsFest? Sure. But I think the Twins are about bringing people together and the community together. It’s for a good cause. The Twins community fund does great things. … I think it was the right thing to move forward with the event.”

Twins pitcher Pablo Lopez, a Venezuelan, was asked Friday if he was worried about ICE.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he told reporters as the Twins kicked off TwinsFest at Target Field. “Obviously, because I’m a Minnesota Twin, I get a lot of Minnesota things on my social media, which is the biggest outlet to be on top of things. I know it’s been a little crazy. I did have family members say be careful, don’t be somewhere you shouldn’t be. I try to just pay attention to that, it feels like, if it really shows up. But I am worried right now some people may be encountering bad situations with them.”

Minnesota United, which has the most multi-ethnic roster in the Twin Cities, had players carrying their immigration paperwork when preseason training started in early January in Blaine. They took a previously scheduled trip to Irvine, Calif., for training sessions from Jan. 15 to Sunday.

Loons chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad was asked about the situation on Jan. 13.

“It’s a real thing. Staff live it. Players live it,” he said. “We addressed the players on (Jan. 12). The league (MLS) has been great in reaching out and giving the support. … The whole club is kind of behind each other, not just the players. I think, first and foremost, it’s a really tough period for people that are really being affected. We’re doing our best to support each other and the players.”

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When he showed up at Wild training camp in September, veteran winger Yakov Trenin talked of a summer spent getting into some of the best shape of his career, and hinted that the fitness would translate into a better offensive season than his 2024-25 debut in Minnesota.

Trenin signed with the Wild as a free agent in the summer of 2024 after spending the bulk of his first five NHL seasons in Nashville, and posted seven goals and eight assists in 76 games a year ago.

His offensive numbers are on a better pace this season, as he entered Saturday night’s meeting with Florida having posted three goals and 11 assists in 52 games. But the evolution of Trenin’s game this season has been revealed in his play along the walls, where he’s quickly established himself as one of the NHL’s most prolific hitters.

He entered the meeting with the Panthers leading the NHL with 257 hits, which was 47 more than Kiefer Sherwood of San Jose, who was in second place. And Trenin has been able to deliver all of that punishment while, for the most part, staying out of the penalty box, owning just 23 minutes in solitary confinement this season.

Wild coach John Hynes — who also coached Trenin in Nashville — sees an art to Trenin’s ability to take his physical play up to, but not over, the line. The key, per the coach, is skating and timing.

“He’s moving his feet really well this year. So, you know, when you’re that big and you have the ability to be physical like he does, a lot of times you’re arriving on time. So, your hits are on time,” Hynes said. “They’re clean. They’re when they should be. They’re on arrival the same time as the puck. So, because he’s playing at a good pace, it’s allowing him to use his physicality the way he can without taking penalties.”

Trenin is officially listed as 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, but teammates who once played against him and now have to match up with him in practice say that might be an undercount. Wild defenseman Jake Middleton, who has racked up twice as many penalty minutes as Trenin so far, said you can feel a disrupting presence when No. 13 is on the ice.

“It’s way better than having to go against him, getting hit and having your shoulders touch every time,” Middleton said. “You know when he’s out there. Your best option is probably to dump it in, and he’s going to find a way to get it back while imposing some pain on the other D-corps.”

Trenin’s imposing on-ice presence stands in stark contrast to the friendly, shy smile that he offers in the locker room. Hynes notes that he is getting offensive chances even if the numbers are not eye popping, and some of the things Trenin brings to the Wild cannot be measured on the score sheet.

“Trying to deliver a clean hit. Like, make an impact, but don’t hurt anybody and don’t punish our team in the penalty box,” Trenin said. “(I’ve) always been physical, but this year I have more opportunity, I would say, for hits, and more often go for hits instead of for the puck.”

The end result is a disrupting presence when Trenin’s line is on the ice. When Trenin was asked how this season, and all of the physical play, is going, he had an answer with no hesitation.

“It’s so much fun,” he said, and the big smile returned quickly.

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It was to no one’s surprise that Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell made it public recently that they intend to bring in a veteran quarterback to compete with third-year QB J.J. McCarthy for the starting job next season.

That veteran, whoever it is, is expected to be the starter, not McCarthy.

The reason Daniel Jones signed with the Colts last year rather than re-sign with the Vikings was that he figured he had a better chance of winning the starting job in Indianapolis than he did in beating out McCarthy. Next time, though, McCarthy will have to beat out his competitor, not be handed the starting job.

— Who will the competition be? Ex-Viking Kirk Cousins remains a strong possibility, but he wouldn’t come to be the backup.

The only other option that makes sense is Kyler Murray. The Vikings could aim higher, but teams aren’t going to trade Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson or Justin Herbert. At the least, the Vikings couldn’t afford them.

— It’s a good bet the Vikings already have discussed with Justin Jefferson their quarterback plans for next season: Someone who can get him the ball.

— There are some technicalities involved in the way Cousins’ contract is structured, but basically the Falcons have to wait until March 12, the first day of free agency, to cut the 37-year-old. That’s probably going to happen, despite the fact that his former Vikings offensive coordinator, Kevin Stefanski, is the new head coach in Atlanta.

It could cost the Vikings between $15 million and $20 million to sign Cousins, who knows O’Connell’s offense, to a one-year deal. Cousins, by the way, sold his $1.25 million Inver Grove Heights home nearly two years ago.

— Regarding Murray: If the Cardinals keep the 28-year-old on their roster by mid-March, $20 million of his $27 million contract becomes guaranteed. If Arizona releases Murray, the Cardinals would owe him $36 million next season.
But an interested team could get him for the veteran minimum of $1.2 million as a free agent.

— Aaron Rodgers and the Vikings? He had a level of professionalism this season, but at 42 doesn’t have nearly the physical talents he once had; no longer can he get away from the pass rush, and while playing for the Steelers this season, he was constantly trying to get rid of the ball right away so he wouldn’t get hit. Rodgers can’t be ruled out, but it would be hard to imagine he’d be the Vikings’ first choice after being overlooked last year. Rodgers’ Hall of Fame career probably is over.

— What makes Indiana’s national football championship even more amazing is the fact that the Hoosiers won all 16 games apparently without cheating. That’s really hard to do, even now despite NCAA revenue sharing and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL).

It’s a decent bet that Indiana didn’t have as much NCAA revenue sharing and NIL money as the Gophers. The Hoosiers’ quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza who is expected to be the NFL’s No. 1 overall pick in April, was only a two-star recruit out of high school in Miami.

Twenty-two Indiana players transferred from James Madison University in Virginia. Is there now hope for the Gophers? Minnesota’s problem is that it doesn’t have Hoosiers coach Curt (“I win. Google me.”) Cignetti.

— Indiana’s Big Ten football championship this season was its first since tying with the Gophers and Purdue for the title in 1967.

“We beat the heck out of Indiana, 33-7 that season,” said Jim Brunzell, a freshman on that Murray Warmath-coached Gophers team.

Sadly, the Gophers’ prototype quarterback that season, Curt Wilson, died recently.

— Last season, Kyle Tucker, 29, hit .266 with 22 home runs and 73 RBIs for the Cubs and received a $240 million, four-year free agent deal from the Dodgers. Simley High grad Michael Busch, 28, last season hit .261 with 34 homers and 90 RBIs for the Cubs, but he’s not a free agent and two years away from MLB salary arbitration.

— Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blyleven will spend three weeks in spring training with the Twins in Fort Myers, Fla., beginning Feb. 12. He’ll suggest a move for starter Bailey Ober’s slider.

“He’s over on the first base side of the pitching rubber,” Blyleven told the Pioneer Press last week. “If he moved over to the third base side — 12 to 18 inches over — his slider’s going to be more attractive to the hitter rather than missing down and away.

“To me, pitching’s always geometry, planes and angles. Over the years, you talk to great hitters, what’s the hardest pitch to hit? It’s a good fastball down and away with something on it. And if you’re over on the first base side (of the rubber), visualize it to a right-handed hitter down and away — it’s straight.

“But what if we move over 18 inches; now that ball’s coming at the hitter down and away at an angle.”

Planes and angles certainly help, but what would also help Ober is a Bert Blyleven curveball, considered the best in baseball history.

“You know what, if I were on the first base side, I could not visualize where I was starting my curve ball,” Blyleven added. “Everybody has their different philosophies, but it’s the art of pitching rather than throwing.”

— Wishing the best for Twins 1987 World Series closer Jeff Reardon, 70, who recently underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery.

— It looks like ex-Twins infielder Jorge Polanco could be moving to first base for the Mets with his new $40 million, two-year contract.

— Minneapolis’ Dave Podas, 62, the recently retired head golf professional after 23 years at the opulent Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, is recovering from a home roof fall in Edina that shattered his right elbow. Podus, who is vice chairman of the PGA of America Rules Committee, also teaches at Braemar in Edina.

Frankie Capan, the North Oaks native, birdied the first two holes of his start at the American Express PGA Tour tournament on Thursday in La Quinta, Calif., but finished the round at one-over-par.

— Ex-1991 World Series Twins DH-outfielder Chili Davis, 65, these days is retired and playing golf in Arizona.

— New GM and chief operating officer at St. Paul’s storied Town and Country Club is Bridget Eckert.

— Roger Godin, the superb longtime recently retired Wild curator, on Saturday was to receive the State of Hockey Legacy Award.

— St. John’s of Collegeville, Minn. hit a home run last week by eliminating the interim tag and making Dan O’Brien its permanent athletics director.

— The Gophers men’s hockey team celebrates the 50-year anniversary of its Herb Brooks-coached 1976 NCAA championship team March 6 at Mariucci Arena.

— Ex-Gophers goaltender Jack LaFontaine of the American Hockey League Coachella Valley Firebirds kicked out 27 shots against the Abbotsford Canucks the other day for a second career shutout.

— A true-life national award-winning story by California sports writer Judd Spicer, a St. Thomas Academy grad, on Tracy Drake’s rise from a homeless youth to Division I golfer and Academic All-American has been made into a full-length documentary by Los Angeles production company Hybrid, LLC.

— St. Paul civic leader Pat Harris is getting rave reviews for his book, “A Season on the Drink,” an emotionally-moving, true story based on the St. Anthony Residence Softball Club.

— Karl-Anthony Towns’ official Minnesota connection has ended with the recent sale of his Medina mansion for $4.75 million. The ex-Timberwolf, now with the Knicks, was asking $6.5 million. Towns bought the home in 2020 for $4.52 million.

— Recent passings: Yvette Haskins, wife of ex-Gophers men’s basketball coach Clem; longtime retired Vikings ticket manager Harry Randolph; Carolyn Reichow, wife of longtime retired Vikings player personnel director and former St. Thomas Academy-Gophers pitcher Jerry Thomas.

Don’t print that

— An educated guess is that the Gophers offered to-be junior Koi Perich from Esko $1 million not to enter the transfer portal for next season. That’s a lot considering the market for a defensive back. It’s also a good guess that Oregon’s offer, which Perich accepted, was substantially more.

— A little birdie says Peter Knutson, the Southwest Minnesota State star safety from Sartell who is transferring to the Gophers with two years eligibility left, received a $70,000 NIL stipend with full tuition from Minnesota. He had better offers from other programs, including Iowa State.

— Ex-Vikings QB Sam Darnold is one victory away from the Super Bowl, which Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf have coveted for 20 years. He became one of just two QBs in NFL history to win 14 games in back-to-back years with two different teams, Minnesota and Seattle. The other? Tom Brady with New England and Tampa Bay.

— It will be interesting, considering Jordan Addison’s off-field transgressions, whether the Vikings feel they can rely on him enough to extend the wide receiver’s rookie contract. The Vikings aren’t expected to cut Addison, who turns 24 on Tuesday, but an extension is questionable. Remember Koren Robinson, the oft-troubled wideout the Vikings cut in 2006?

— By announcing that the Vikings intend to bring in a quarterback to compete with J.J. McCarthy next season, they essentially admitted they messed up last season by not bringing in a reliable QB.
— McCarthy was the only NFL quarterback this season to receive a taunting penalty, in the season finale against the Packers.

— Several Vikings, T.J. Hockenson, Aaron Jones and Javon Hargrave among them, will have to take big pay cuts or be cut outright.

— It’s unlikely that center Ryan Kelly, 32, who had three separate concussions this season, will return to the Vikings. Meanwhile, don’t be surprised if in the second- or third-round of April’s draft the Vikings choose 6-foot-5, 300-pound Ohio State center Carson Hinzman from Spring Valley, Wis.

— There’s whispering that a potential arena site for the Timberwolves and Lynx is the former printing plant of the Star Tribune, owned by Glen Taylor. It’s a big footprint with good access to the freeway in a vibrant part of Minneapolis. Taylor told the Pioneer Press last week his company is hiring brokers seeking potential developers.

“We would be open to anyone,” Taylor said.

Of the Timberwolves’ significant ticket price increases under new owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore, Taylor said, “There are so many ‘ifs.’ If they win the championship, they’ll probably be OK. But if we settle at where we are now, seventh or eighth place, and we get beat out before we get much further, there are a lot of people who are going to be hesitant to renew.

“Then they’ve got to worry about whether they keep their players or don’t keep their players.”

— Minnesota prefers a remodel of Williams Arena to a new arena because the school is geographically landlocked.

— The Vikings certainly will expect left tackle Christian Darrisaw to play more next season, and will look for insurance at that position in April’s draft.

— The Vikings, including returning players, signed 15 free agents last year. At nearly $50 million now over the salary cap, they won’t sign nearly as many this year.
— Some upper deck tickets with a face value of $100 for the Vikings’ season finale against the Packers in Minneapolis on Jan. 4 were selling for $20.

— Lane Kiffin, the Bloomington Jefferson grad, gets a $500,000 bonus for Ole Miss’ football playoff victory over Georgia even though he didn’t coach the game because he first left for the LSU job.

— By being traded from the no-playoff Vikings to the one-playoff game Steelers, wideout Adam Thielen collects a $53,500 bonus. Thielen, now retired, was the oldest receiver (35) in the NFL this season. He’s expected to join Aaron Rodgers in the annual celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in July.

— One private suburban Minneapolis golf club recently notified members that it is planning a greens-and-irrigation project with an assessment of nearly $35,000 per member.

— One Gophers coach said his program’s recruiting approach no longer emphasizes high school players over transfer portal players because there’s no longer time in college to develop players. Winning needs to come now, not later.

— Class guy: A Tony Oliva fan mailed a baseball to the Bloomington home of the Twins Hall of Famer, asking that he sign it and return it, and included $10 dollars for the effort. Tony, 87, returned the ball signed and the $10.

— Although interest in the Twins has waned since last season, it did not during the Twins’ recent fantasy camp in Fort Myers, Fla. There were 130 campers who paid more than $5,000 apiece to participate.

— The San Antonio Spurs are playing well, but there’s little doubt that the head coach in waiting is former Cretin-Derham Hall and University of St. Thomas guard Sean Sweeney, 41, recently named associate head coach.

— Kendall Blue, the former East Ridge and University of St. Thomas basketball star who received a $400,000 NIL deal from Nebraska for his senior season, is averaging 0.6 points and 4.3 minutes in 12 games for the No. 7 Cornhuskers, who won their 20th straight game against the Gophers on Saturday. For the Tommies last season, Blue started all 34 games and averaged 12.3 points.

— Mark Stodghill fondly remembers getting his first beer. The Rosemount High graduate was 17 and bat boy for the 1965 Minnesota Twins. Billy Martin was the Twins’ third base coach and in the off-season worked in promotions for Grain Belt beer. Billy gave Stodghill, now 77 and retired in Duluth, a six-pack of Grain Belt and, with a wink, told him the beers were for his parents.

Overheard

Terry Kunze, the astute Minnesota basketball icon, on Gophers first-year men’s coach Niko Medved: “I think he’s a great coach. No. 1, he has no players. I mean, they’re players, but they’re not really players. And he’s playing everybody tough. He’s got a tremendous offense — everybody’s moving. For what he’s got this season, he’s done a helluva job. I think he’s a winner and that he’ll get it done.”