Alex Jeffrey Pretti was a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse and U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by federal border agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 24, 2026.

Pretti protested. He was a caring person who wanted to help others. He didn’t agree with the practices of the government. He believed the government had turned against its own citizens. He was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry a firearm. Video analyses and media investigations indicate that a federal officer removed his weapon from his holster or waistband seconds before he was shot. Pretti has been vilified by the right-wing media and the federal government.

In contrast, Kyle Howard Rittenhouse is an American man who gained national attention at age 17 for shooting three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, two fatally, amid protests and riots in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in 2020. A jury found Rittenhouse not guilty on all five felony charges on November 19, 2021. He is currently working as a full-time employee at Gulf Coast Gun & Outdoors in Milton, Florida

Rittenhouse is alive.

Pretti is dead.

Below an unfinished painting I did in 1980, showing a shooting of German Jews by government agents in the 1930s, titled “Fear – unfinished”.