In Shift, DOJ Opens Civil Rights Investigation Into Alex Pretti Killing

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — The U.S. Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs ICU nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, marking a sharp shift from the Trump administration’s earlier approach to the case.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Friday that the Justice Department will conduct its own inquiry alongside a previously announced Department of Homeland Security investigation.

Administration officials had initially said the federal review would be limited to a narrow "use-of-force" examination led by Homeland Security.

Blanche said the investigations will run on parallel tracks.

“We are looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day,” Blanche said at a news conference.

He cautioned against characterizing the move as an expansive probe, describing it instead as a standard federal investigation, the New York Times reported.

The announcement represents a turnabout amid mounting national scrutiny of Pretti’s death and the broader immigration enforcement operation underway in Minnesota. The killing sparked widespread outrage and intensified criticism of the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities.

Concerns about the handling of the case have also grown among some Republican allies in Congress, adding pressure on the administration to expand its review beyond Homeland Security.

Friday's announcement came after federal agents arrested independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in connection with an anti-ICE demonstration that disrupted a church service in St. Paul earlier this month.