By MICHAEL BIESECKER and JESSE BEDAYN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alex Pretti was forcefully taken to the ground by federal immigration agents after kicking out the tail light of their vehicle during a Minneapolis protest 11 days before he was shot and killed by Border Patrol officers, videos that emerged Wednesday showed.

The Jan. 13 scuffle was captured in a pair of videos that showed Pretti shouting an expletive at the federal officers and struggling with them. His winter coat comes off when he’s on the ground and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun and it is unclear whether the federal agents saw it.

A person with knowledge of the incident confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the videos is Pretti and that he had told his family of the confrontation, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters sensitive to the family.

The new videos immediately rekindled the national debate about the death of Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, posted one of the videos on X and commented, “Just a peaceful legal observer.”

Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said the earlier altercation in no way justified the officers fatally shooting Pretti on Saturday.

“A week before Alex was gunned down in the street — despite posing no threat to anyone — he was violently assaulted by a group of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents,” Schleicher said. “Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.”

Homeland Security Investigations “is reviewing” the new videos and incident, a spokesperson with the department said. It’s not known if any of the officers involved were also there when Pretti was killed.

Last weekend’s fatal shooting occurred on a sidewalk next to the street where Pretti had been videoing immigration officers. In video taken by bystanders, one officer pushes him, then Pretti is taken to the ground and a half-dozen officers try to subdue him. One spots Pretti’s weapon, which he was licensed to carry, and shouts, “He’s got a gun.” Two officers then open fire and Pretti is killed.

Trump administration officials quickly reacted, saying Pretti had approached officers with a gun and attacked them.

The altercation and shooting was captured in multiple videos and showed Pretti never brandished his gun and didn’t assault any officer. He was holding his phone when he was shot in the back while on the ground.

The new videos from the week prior to the shooting came from two sources. One, published by the Minnesota Star Tribune and later obtained by the AP, was taken by Max Shapiro, a witness who filmed the interaction. The second was by a crew for The News Movement, an online media outlet.

The videos show Pretti wearing glasses, a dark baseball cap and a winter coat yelling at federal vehicles, at one point appearing to spit and yell “trash” toward the driver’s side of a dark Ford Expedition with flashing red and blue lights.

As the vehicle pulls slowly away, Pretti kicks at the taillight and then delivers a second kick that shatters the red plastic and leaves the taillight dangling. The rear door of the SUV then swings open and an immigration officer wearing a gas mask and helmet gets out and starts walking toward Pretti.

The officer grabs Pretti’s shirt at his chest, pulling him back toward the vehicle as Pretti’s arms flail. The officer pulls Pretti back onto the street and down onto his knees, falling over Pretti in the scuffle.

Other masked and helmeted officers surround them and try to subdue Pretti. Others stand guard between them and a screaming crowd, before the officers set off tear gas canisters and withdraw.

After Pretti stumbles away, a man filming approaches and asks if he is OK.

Pretti affirms that he is, before turning to others involved in the melee and asking: “Are we all OK? Are we all safe?”

___

Bedayn reported from Denver.

The Minnesota women’s basketball team improved to 15-6 on the season with a 21-point victory at Penn State Wednesday evening.

Tori McKinney led the Gophers with 23 points, while Mara Braun recorded 22 points in an 87-66 defeat of the Nittany Lions. Four of five Minnesota starters recorded double digits in scoring, with Sophie Hart and Amaya Battle logging 12 points apiece. Battle also led all rebounders with 10 boards.

The Gophers improved to 6-4 in Big Ten play with the victory. Minnesota returns home to face Purdue on Sunday, with a tip-off scheduled for 2 p.m. The game will be televised on BTN+.

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A downtown St. Paul bar and comedy club has canceled six sold-out performances from a comic who went viral after posting jokes about Renee Good, who was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

Bill Collins, who owns Camp Bar and Laugh Camp comedy club, said it’s a safety issue, both for the performer and the audience. Soon after comic Ben Bankas posted the jokes, Collins started to hear threats of a boycott and picketing outside the venue in protest. “I’ve never had anything happen like this before,” he said.

Collins said Bankas’ management company, CAA, told him that if he doesn’t pay Bankas, CAA won’t book any comics at the venue in the future.

“They keep saying that there’s a contract and that they don’t see any evidence that there’s a force majeure situation and their position is that the comedian is ready and willing to perform and that they need to be paid in full,” Collins said.

Representatives for Bankas did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Collins said the bar stands to lose “somewhere in the neighborhood of $18,000.” The six shows scheduled Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the 150-capacity club were completely sold out.

The clip comes from a Bankas show in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., just days after Good’s death.

“Now for a moment of silence for Renee Good. Really hope that dog’s OK … and her pet,” Bankas said in reference to Good’s wife. “Her last name was Good. That’s what I said after they shot her in the face.”

Bankas goes on to call Good a “dumb, retarded lesbian” who “should have been shot 10 minutes before.”

Patrick Strait, author of the book “Funny Thing About Minnesota…: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Twin Cities Comedy Scene,” said Bankas is the type of comedian who is shocking, crude and wants to push buttons. “It seems to me he likes the argument. He likes the confrontation. He likes making people uncomfortable. In my opinion, it’s offensive and it’s extremely unnecessarily vulgar. But I guess there are people who like it, because that is super popular right now.”

Last year, several venues in Canada canceled performances from Toronto native Bankas after he made “crude and offensive” jokes about Indigenous people.

Collins questioned Bankas and his management for not backing down. “Maybe (Bankas) doesn’t know. He’s on the road, maybe he’s not paying close attention to what’s happening. I don’t understand how they think it’s a good idea to send this guy into this city right now. I don’t know how getting in and out of the venue would work for him and if the people coming to see him are going to have to go through crowds of protesters. The risk of something happening is just way, way too great. And it’s just mind boggling to me that they don’t see that.”

Collins compared the possible situation to conservative influencer Jake Lang, who was beaten by several counter-protesters at his “March Against Minnesota Fraud” protest he staged earlier this month at Minneapolis City Hall.

“He had the National Guard and Minneapolis police all around him and it didn’t work out real well for him,” Collins said. “I don’t know how you could look at that and think this is safe for him.

“It’s just upsetting, but we’re doing the right thing and we’ve got to make sure that everybody is safe. We’ll just have to deal with the consequences.”

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Federal immigration agents detained a volunteer food shelf delivery driver on Wednesday in the parking lot of the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center on St. Paul’s Kent Street, city-owned property that adjoins a city rec center and is temporarily hosting public library services.

Over the objections of community center staffers and legal observers, federal agents approached, handcuffed and detained Thao Xiong around 7:30 a.m. in the center parking lot, where they can be seen on video forcing him into one of three black sport utility vehicles they had driven onto the property.

“I showed them my documents already,” Xiong can be heard on video explaining to a center staffer who recorded him being led away. “He volunteers here,” the staffer tells the agents, pleadingly.

It was unclear on Wednesday evening where Thao was being held.

Volunteered at center

St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie and others later shared news of Thao’s detainment on Facebook.

Officials with St. Paul Parks and Recreation and the St. Paul Public Library system directed a reporter’s questions on Wednesday to Benny Roberts, director of the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, who issued a brief written statement.

Roberts, who did not identify Xiong by name, confirmed a volunteer had been detained and said “we are in contact with his family and community partners and are working to ensure the family receives all possible supports and resources from HQB.”

Roberts added later, “A lot of info is spreading but we’re still working on getting accurate info.”

City-owned property

While the nonprofit Hallie Q. Brown community organization operates the building, the structure itself is city-owned, and adjoins the city’s Martin Luther King Recreation Center. In addition to a food shelf, it hosts a childcare operation, and has housed the books and staff of the city library system’s Rondo Community Library since December, when the Dale Street location closed for a year-long renovation.

Xiong’s detainment flies in the face of recent city-driven efforts to keep ICE out of city properties, including Parks and Rec lots, during Operation Metro Surge, which has drawn some 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota.

The mayor’s office issued a formal cease and desist letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Dec. 19, with the goal of preventing ICE agents from using city-owned parking lots for immigration enforcement.

On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council held a public hearing on a proposed ordinance amendment that would codify the ban against ICE staging in city-owned lots, enshrining it in city law.

Neither effort has apparently stopped ICE agents from doing exactly that.

Community organizer

Jennifer Nguyen Moore, a 2018 candidate for the Ramsey County Board, said Xiong is the father of a young girl and has lent his voice and support to various campaigns for public office, including her own.

“He’s extremely passionate, and is very serious about justice and human rights,” said Nguyen Moore, recalling how he rode around on an adult tricycle-style bike carrying her campaign banner and spoke to neighbors on her behalf. “He just really loves the community, and he likes to amplify people.”

In interviews and presentations to the city council, Xiong, who is Hmong, has spoken openly about his experiences as a teen drug dealer, gang member and petty criminal and his subsequent incarceration, which ended a decade ago. He’s described himself as a community organizer in Frogtown and the North End and a voice for change.

“I got released from prison in November 2016 and I literally woke up one morning and I remember thinking ‘I’m gonna become somebody that will champion my community,’” said Xiong, in a written testimonial on the website of In Progress, a St. Paul-based arts nonprofit he became active with around 2018.

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“Every morning I wake up I have to challenge — challenge the police, challenge the district council, challenge our local government officials…. all these people,” he wrote. “But every morning I wake up and the only person I have to challenge is the person I’m staring at in the mirror. Every day I challenge that person to be better than the person yesterday.”