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Man Shot And Killed By Federal Agents In Minneapolis, DHS Says He Was Armed; Police Chief: Man Killed By Federal Agent Was 37-Year- Old American Citizen; DHS: Man Fatally Shot "Violently Resisted" Attempts To Be Disarmed; CNN Analysis: Videos Appear To Show Federal Officer Took Gun From Alex Pretti Just Before Fatal Shooting; Man Shot & Killed By Fed, Agents In Minneapolis. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 24, 2026 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[18:01:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: I am Jake Tapper in Washington on a dark day for this country. We begin this hour with the breaking news. Protesters taking to the streets of Minneapolis after 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis V.A. Hospital after he was shot and killed by federal agents earlier today.

Here, we are going to show you some video showing the scene unfolding. You can see several federal officers surrounding the individual. This is the third shooting and the second fatal shooting involving federal agents.

Let's watch this video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(Gunshots)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh (bleep)! What the (bleep)! They killed him! Did they (bleep) kill that guy? (Bleep), dude!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: There are other angles of that video -- other video angles and we are going to -- we are working on bringing those to you as well.

Minneapolis, of course, has been at the center of the Trump administration's hardline federal immigration enforcement operations, which have prompted widespread protests in the city for weeks.

As for today's shooting, the Department of Homeland Security claims that the agents in question were acting in self-defense, that the man approached them with a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun and they attempted to disarm him. The armed suspect reacted violently, and the agent fired defensive shots.

It is true that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says the individual says Mr. Pretti was a "lawful firearm, concealed permit carrier." The question, of course, was he actually even holding his gun at the time in his hand? Had he been disarmed before the shooting? These are all questions that we are waiting for the answers to.

State and local officials are condemning the shooting and more broadly, the tactics of these federal agents in the city. And right now, we have a call from the Governor to remove ICE from Minneapolis altogether. We are covering this story from all possible angles.

We are joined now by CNN's Sara Sidner. She is on the ground in Minneapolis. Also with us, CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, who has the latest on the Trump administration's immigration enforcement surge into the city.

Let's start with Sara.

Sara, tell us what you're seeing there.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, look, people here in this community who have come together have a simple message. When DHS says it is the illegal immigrants that are causing crimes, they say it is ICE that is causing crime and fear. They see ICE as an agency that has now completely trampled on constitutional rights.

People holding signs to that end, they see ICE as a force that is terrifying citizens and people who are here as immigrants with legal status. They see ICE as a force that has used illegal tactics here to make people feel afraid.

And I do want to just give you an idea where this all happened, so that you can sort of get a bigger view of where it happened. That is 26th and Nicollet Avenue, where people have gathered and managed to sort of push ICE out with the help of local authorities who showed up, allowing the federal agents to leave.

But just down the street, so if you walk just a few yards away, you will see the donut shop, the donut shop where the first video that many people saw of what happened, it was filmed from there, showing right in front of it the agents jumping on who we now know is Alex Pretti.

Now, we've heard from DHS saying things and from Greg Bovino, who is the commander saying things like, this man was coming here to massacre police. That is not in any way, shape or form what witnesses have seen from him and what they saw and what some of the videos have shown, is that there was someone who was trying to be detained by ICE at some point, who was taking video.

[18:05:26]

He went over to shield her to try to pull her away and then you see all of the agents piling onto him. That is what witnesses are telling us, that he was trying to shield someone else from ICE's tactics, and he ended up being jumped upon by several members of the federal agents. Let me go and show you what has happened, where that exactly happened. So, you saw the donut shop there? This is the memorial to Alex Pretti that has now grown here.

He was an ICU nurse at the Veterans' facility here. He was a person who had come out. He was initially filming what was happening because people were called. They were called here when they saw that ICE was doing an operation and there is a whole community chat, if you will, trying to get people out to try and what they feel is protecting their own.

And so he showed up here and he, as a U.S. citizen, an ICU nurse, someone who had a legal permit to carry, which in this state perfectly legal, as the Governor said and he ends up being shot and killed by ICE.

There is a great deal of not just anger, but a great deal of sorrow here as well, at the loss of yet another life at the hands of ICE. Three shootings by ICE in just under a month. People say that right there should tell you something. They are more afraid of ICE than anything that ICE says it is trying to protect people from -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Sara.

And Shimon, we just heard from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. I am going to read again this quote of hers describing the event, because once again, we do have video of this. We have shown one angle. There is a better angle that we are trying to work on getting approved, so we can show it to people about what actually transpired.

And I just want to read this to you. She said about the shooting of Alex Pretti: "An individual approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun. The officers attempted to disarm this individual, but the armed suspect reacted violently. Fearing for his life and for the lives of his federal officers around, an agent fired defensive shots." She also said that "... the suspect also had two magazines with ammunition in them that held dozens of rounds."

"This looks like a situation," Secretary Noem said, "... where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage."

Shimon, you've seen at least three or four angles of this. You've talked to people. Is that true? Is that an accurate description?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: No, no. I mean, at one point, Jake, right, we were watching this video. I mean, his hands are up. And also, if he was trying to inflict, as she said, this sort of maximum damage or try and kill law enforcement, he would have had a lot of opportunity to do that.

And it is also not entirely clear what they are basing that information on. Just showing up, I think you made a brilliant point earlier when you were talking about just simply having a gun does not mean it gives the right to a law enforcement official to shoot someone. That's a serious question that now needs to be asked, because that is essentially what, Jake, they are arguing here.

And so when you see Mr. Prett, his hands are up at one point. He is brought down to the ground. What happens after that? What do the officers do after that? There are, what -- five or six of them surrounding him. They are fighting with him. He is resisting to some degree, of course, we can see that in the video. They are turning him around, it seems.

And then what happens? Where does the gun go? Who gets the gun? And what do they do with the gun? I think that's a legitimate question, because at some point, one of those officers has that weapon because we see a photo of it in a vehicle and it is on the seat of a vehicle. How does that happen?

So, there are a lot of questions over that, over the crime scene. I think there is a big question right now about who is investigating this and whether that investigation is being conducted in a thorough and fair way, because the Minnesota state officials are saying they are not being allowed to have access to the scene, and so then who is investigating?

When something like this happens, a law enforcement shooting, it is a very important investigation. It is supposed to be very thorough.

[18:10:10]

There are supposed to be all kinds of analysis done. Crime scene investigators, who is doing any of that?

The other thing that I found very interesting that Kristi Noem -- and, you know, we hear this from her and we hear this from Gregory Bovino, the commander-at-large for the Border Patrol, who is running a lot of this operation is that they are performing according to their training. They are responding -- that this officer responded according to training.

Well, then you have to sort of start questioning what kind of training is this, if this is the way that they are responding? In every incident, this is what they say. They have responded to a threat and they are responding according to their training.

So there are a lot of questions there, and the other thing I will say, Jake, every law enforcement official in this country now at this point who has spoken out about what is happening here, has raised so many questions about their conduct and how things are going here. I have never seen anything like that where sheriffs and police chiefs stand up and say, wait, the federal authorities here have gone too far. That is a remarkable moment and it just tells us where we are at this point in this country.

TAPPER: Yes. I heard from a Sheriff earlier today after the shooting who was upset about the shooting, did not think it looked like a good shooting, but also was really worried about his officers, about his Sheriff's Deputies, because this -- if we start with the assumption that most law enforcement are good, decent people that want to do the right thing, which is my personal assumption, his concern is, this doesn't help them. It doesn't help them do their jobs.

And I am sure there are a lot of law enforcement officers out there thinking that today. Thanks, Shimon.

Here to discuss this further is CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe.

Andy, I want to ask you about the video itself. We have new footage from a second angle, and I want to warn viewers that they might find this disturbing, but we want to bring as many of the facts possible for viewers as we can.

Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(Whistles blowing)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Bleep) you!

(Whistles blowing)

(Horns blaring)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Okay, so that's -- that was the guy that you just saw pushed, that is Alex Pretti, and the camera is going to go back to him. There he is, there he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(Whistles blowing)

(Horns blaring)

(PEOPLE shouting)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, that is police brutality. They are hitting that observer! They are kicking him in the face!

(PEOPLE shouting)

(Gunshots)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What the --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, there is -- those are moments leading right up to the shooting. There is another angle also from the sidewalk, and we are working on getting that cleared as well.

What is your reaction to that?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, Jake, it is absolutely -- what we are seeing is absolutely horrific aberration of law enforcement authority and you're watching the absolute worst examples maybe other than the murder of George Floyd, maybe the worst law enforcement tactics I've ever seen deployed in an incident repeatedly, unfortunately, we are seeing it.

The video that you just mentioned that we are working on getting, that angle from my perspective, looking at that video, there is no indication on that video that Alex Pretti had a gun in his hand at any time, which would mean that he didn't ever present a threat to any of those law enforcement officers.

It is very clear, he is walking across the street with two females. The one female is basically assaulted by a lone ICE officer. He shoves her so hard she falls on the ground and Pretti turns to go to her aid. He then places himself in between the officer and the woman. The ICE officer then sprays him in the face with some sort of chemical irritant, and then grabs him by the arms and spins him around, and that's when the struggle takes place.

So, you know, it is highly likely that during the struggle, they have him on the ground. There's either four or five officers. So, that's what, eight or ten hands on him and it is likely in that moment that they, you know, discover that he has a gun somewhere on his person, which he is lawfully entitled to carry with those extra magazines, and then they deploy lethal force on him.

It is just -- it is one of the worst things I've ever seen. I mean, I don't --- there is no way to justify how they initiated that violent interaction, how they escalated that violent interaction and ultimately concluded it by killing an American citizen.

[18:15:14]

TAPPER: So, the questions I have, and I am not a law enforcement officer, are, did he have a gun? They say he did. Did he have a license to have a gun? The Police Chief says he did. Then the ones after that I have are, did he have his hands on the gun at any time? I have not gotten a clear answer to that, but the implication, obviously, from Bovino and Noem is that he showed up with the gun to commit mass murder of law enforcement. I do not know what they base that on, other than the fact that he had a gun. And in this country, in certain places like Minnesota, you're allowed to have one.

And then the last question is, did they take the gun from him? Did they disarm him before they shot him? Which some of the angles seem to suggest is true? What am I missing? What are the other questions that you have as former FBI Deputy Director?

MCCABE: Yes, you've hit all the relevant questions. Did he have a gun and did he have legal authorization? Well, we know he had legal authorization to carry one, Minnesota has confirmed that.

But any experienced police officer who has been reasonably trained knows that policing the streets of America in 2026 means, by definition, many of the people you encounter are going to be carrying guns. You know, no matter how you feel about our current state of gun regulation, the fact is that people can lawfully carry the same guns that police do. They can conceal them if they have that sort of certification.

And so, the mere presence of a gun on someone you're interacting with is not enough to justify the use of lethal force. That person has to be presenting a threat to you that causes you to reasonably conclude that your life is in danger.

Well, if that person doesn't have his hands on or anywhere near his gun isn't presenting that gun to you, pointing it at you, threatening with it, or even showing it to you in a menacing way? If he is not doing any of those things, it is very hard to see how you articulate the use of lethal force.

And in this situation, I mean, good luck with that, because I think the video evidence is going to be a very powerful rebuttal to the arguments they will make. And I should also add here, this DHS and The White House have zero credibility, none in terms of describing to the American people what is happening on the ground in Minneapolis. We know this now for a fact.

They said Renee Good was a terrorist, she was not a terrorist. They said her wife was a terrorist, she is not a terrorist, either. They then released what they admitted was a doctored photograph of Nekima Anderson, who was arrested for participating in that protest in the church last weekend. They admitted that they falsified the photograph and then said in a post essentially, that the falsified photographs would continue.

So, we have no reason to take anything that the administration or DHS says about these people as fact. And I think that Kristi or I am sorry, Kristi Noem's comments about this were perfectly in line with that repeated history of misleading the public. They have failed to prove or present a single piece of evidence that indicates this person, Alex Pretti's intent to show up on the street and massacre law enforcement or ICE agents or anybody else, there is not any evidence of that whatsoever.

And in fact, there is pretty good evidence in those videos to point in the opposite direction.

TAPPER: Well, and if he is basing it entirely on the fact that he had a gun and magazines, even though he was a concealed carry permit holder, then that is -- should be alarming to gun rights groups and anybody else out there who has a concealed permit that the Trump administration is, at least rhetorically, certainly not in court, but rhetorically arguing that law enforcement has the right to kill you just for having a gun, if that is the only evidence that they have.

MCCABE: Yes, sure. I have a conceal carry permit as a retired federal law enforcement officer. Do I now have to think twice about carrying a gun even though I can do so lawfully? That simply having a gun on my person is going to make me vulnerable to being killed by law enforcement?

I mean, what is this administration saying with this -- with the condemnation and the vilification of this victim today? What are they saying?

If you carry a gun lawfully, you comply with the law and you carry a gun in a concealed way and have a permit to do so, but you're also protesting against the administration's policies, that makes you subject to being killed on the street?

TAPPER: Well, that's what Kristi Noem is arguing.

MCCABE: I mean, this is becoming --

TAPPER: I mean, she argued --

MCCABE: Yes.

[18:20:08]

TAPPER: -- he brought a gun. He is not a poster, you know, she was arguing that's a prima facie case that obviously, he meant to commit harm.

Andrew McCabe, thank you so much. Really good to have you on.

Stay with CNN. We have got a lot more of this breaking news, growing unrest in Minnesota following yet another deadly shooting involving federal agents and protesters. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:08]

TAPPER: And we are back following the latest out of Minneapolis after yet another fatal shooting by federal agents of a U.S. citizen.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that the man in question, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the local V.A. Hospital, they say he approached Border Patrol officers with a gun and violently resisted when officers attempted to disarm him. That does not align with a lot of other interpretations of the videotaped event.

Here is how the Border Patrol Chief, Greg Bovino, described the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY BOVINO, U.S. BORDER PATROL SECTOR CHIEF OF THE EL CENTRO SECTOR IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: We will not allow violence against our law enforcement officers, and we need state and local help -- state and local law enforcement to help us coordinate to get violent criminals off the street.

Mayor Frey and Chief O'Hara just a few minutes ago did the opposite of that by omitting the fact that the suspect had a gun and magazines full of ammunition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes joins us now from The White House.

And, Kristen, I don't think its disputed at this point that the victim, Alex Pretti had a gun. The question is, was he brandishing the gun? The question is, had the gun already been taken from him? Had he already been disarmed at the time that federal officers started shooting and killing him?

What is the Trump administration saying about all this?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, these are all arms of the Trump administration. This is a coordinated response. Any of these officials going out there, including Secretary Kristi Noem, they are all doing so at the behest of The White House.

And I know that Noem was in touch constantly with The White House today talking about the messaging on this. President Trump privately has defended the agent who pulled the trigger in this, and you saw from his post that he is still trying to change the messaging on immigration.

He actually was barely referencing it at one point, the shooting that took place and instead really trying to talk about fraud, it seemed like he was talking about a completely separate subject, and I was told that that was intentional on the President's behalf because he is trying to remind people why it is that they put these agents on the ground in Minnesota.

And of course, Jake, this comes as we've been reporting that President Trump feels like his message is getting lost on immigration. He has obviously seen the polling that shows that a majority of Americans disapprove of what these agents are doing in these various communities, but instead of blaming the polling, he is blaming the messaging, saying that they can turn it around.

But it is very clear that this White House seems to be all in on defending this agent.

TAPPER: Kristen Holmes, thanks so much.

Coming up, much more of our breaking news about the second deadly shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis of a U.S. citizen.

Stay with CNN. We are going to squeeze in a quick break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:32:28]

TAPPER: We're staying with the breaking news out of Minneapolis on this tragic day. We have a new analysis on some of the video that we've been showing you. CNN's Josh Campbell joins us now.

Josh, what -- tell us more.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake this is critical new information coming from our CNN investigates analysis of different angles of this incident that we've seen where you actually see the fatal shooting of this Minneapolis man. What we're learning from looking at these different angles. It appears at one point as Alex Pretti is being held down on the ground. Officers are trying to take him into custody. He does appear to be resisting.

But at one point, it appears that a federal immigration agent actually steps forward into that scrum reaches towards his waistband and appears to disarm him appears to pull a firearm away. So, there hasn't been in dispute. I don't think by -- by anyone that he actually had a firearm. The Minneapolis Police Chief said that he was a licensed gun owner, but it appears that that agent then pulls the weapon. He steps away. Just about 1 second after that agent steps away, then you hear gunfire and it's unclear which agent actually, you know, fired the first shot there.

It's also unclear whether that agent who appeared to remove his firearm from his waistband actually signal to others around that he was removing the gun, but that is critical information because there is this question about what type of threat did the Asian who fired first actually perceived. You could hear audio from agent saying, he's got a gun, he's got a gun. But there's no indication in any video that we've seen today that he was brandishing the weapon, that he was pointing it at any of the officers.

And I can tell you, you know, as a former law enforcement officer by policy agents are trained that you can only use deadly force when there is an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to yourself, the agent or someone else, merely someone having a firearm on them does not in and of itself justify the use of deadly force. That person has to pose some type of threat, so that will be the major question here about what that Asian was perceiving when they opened fire.

The other critical thing I want to point out, and I've looked at, you know, different angles of this video, it appears that there's this 1st set of shots about 1 or 2 shots, but then you can actually see on 1 of the videos Jake that an agent then fires multiple times after Alex Pretti is still on the ground. Again, we know from the video that he had been disarmed at that point.

There's this concept in law enforcement that's called sympathetic gunfire. And what it means is that if one person opens fire, say you're a law enforcement officer, if your partner opens fire, sometimes other officers will start shooting. It's just that -- that response, that sympathetic response.

[18:35:10]

They saw a threat, let's shoot. It's something they trained you not to do. You have to avoid it. Every single agent has to understand what the threat is before they open fire. So, a lot of questions here, Jake. And as I've been saying all day, and as you've -- you've mentioned, a lot of this really flies in the face of what we're hearing from the federal government. Objectively speaking, the head of the Border Patrol team there, Greg Bovino said that it appeared that Pretti was trying to massacre these agents. No indication on that video that that's the case.

So, again, there will be a question raised about what type of investigation is even done when it appears law enforcement -- the senior officials are already clearing the agents involved here.

TAPPER: And Josh, just as -- as a matter of policy, when there is what people in law enforcement call an officer involved shooting, which means a law enforcement officer has killed someone, when there is that type of situation, that kind of tragedy. Is it normal for the likes of Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, or ;Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander or the President of the United States, is it normal? Is it standard operating procedure? Is it responsible to come out and say this person was X, this person did Y, this person was going to do Z? Our officers had no choice but to do what they did.

CAMPBELL: It's historically abnormal for anyone at senior levels like that to essentially prejudge an investigation. And one thing, you know, that I think is really concerning, again, I'm -- I don't care where people come down on the immigration debate. This is objectively speaking, when Greg Bovino made that statement that this person was -- looked like he was trying to massacre the agents, a reporter pressed him and said, well, did he point the weapon at those agents? Did he brandish it? What happened? And he quickly clammed up and pivoted to, well, there will be an ongoing investigation to look into all of that.

You can't have it both ways. You can't prejudge from the beginning and say, we think the agents were right. This person was a domestic terrorist, as White House advisor Stephen Miller described it, while also saying, well, we're going to have an investigation and expect the public to actually believe that that investigation will be done credibly. Does anyone watching right now believe that any of those senior officials in government are going to contradict what the President has already said and these other senior officials based on what this investigation may come out with?

So, it's really a crisis of confidence right now when we see this prejudgment of an investigation. And then, of course, there's a major question about whether this will be the federal government only, whether local law enforcement will be involved. Interestingly, Jake, the chief of police told me earlier today after this event happened, his officers responded. Federal government agents tried to prevent his officers from even accessing the crime scene. He said, no way. He ordered his officers to stay there as part of procedures to preserve that evidence.

So, we're seeing the tension between local and federal law enforcement. There'll be a big question about the credibility of what this in federal review looks like.

TAPPER: Josh Campbell, thank you so much for your reporting.

Let's discuss this all with CNN Senior National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem and CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller.

Juliette, you're a former assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. What's your take on these videos?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: My take is exactly like Josh's. What the government is telling us we're seeing is not what we're seeing. And that's why you have independent investigations or, you know, what happened before, what happened after. From my perspective, based on at least half a dozen videos I've seen today, this is a person who is disarmed, not a threat, clearly disabled in the sense that he is on he is on -- he's on the street when they shoot at him multiple times.

So -- so, what's happening here is less about, I think, the shot by shot of the videos and something that we now call kill and slander. This is what this department -- this is what this administration does now. It -- it is authorizing federal, it is authorizing federal law enforcement to kill U.S. citizens, deny an objective investigation and then slander the victim. That is the kill and slander. That is all they do now. They did it with good. They are doing it with this victim now. It needs to be called out and it needs to be challenged not just by the media, but of course, by local officials and local law enforcement. That is their tactic now.

They have created a -- without an appropriate investigation, they have created a federal law enforcement right to kill U.S. citizens who are even at best unruly, angry, whatever, right? That is what they have now created. And then they do the kill and slander. And that is a terminology that is part of their M.O. right now and it's shameful. Honestly, at this stage, it is so shameful.

[18:40:03]

And -- and one hopes that local law enforcement and -- and sounder, less extreme brains or heads in the administration understand what they have done.

TAPPER: John, what was your reaction when you saw the videos?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, my first reaction is the video is very confusing and not quite clear because what you miss there is the beginning. And the beginning is going to be really important.

Jake, this is a big gap for us. What we want to know is how exactly did this begin? Let's give us some choices. Number one, an agent detects a bulge that he thinks is a weapon on a person who's moving around the agents on the set or his jacket blows back and he sees the gun in a waistband or the individual brandished it. We have no information as to what brought them to this individual, Mr. Pretti, in the first place.

And it may have been none of those things. It may have been that they tried to stop and question him for some other reason. And as we have learned from these, they are using extraordinarily broad discretion in that regard of who they stop and why. And when he struggled, they might have spotted, seen or even felt the gun when somebody else gun when he's on the ground. All of this is important to understand, and we've gotten no detail on

that. And it may be because they don't understand it yet either. There's protocol about interviewing each of the agents who are involved in trying to get him into custody, pinning him down. Obviously, the shooting agents, we don't know if there were one or more that fired shots. So, a lot of gaps here.

Now, is it different from the case of Renee Good? Yes, because there is a weapon introduced into this scenario in the hands of somebody who's not an agent. That is a bit of a game changer, but it doesn't really mean anything till we have those other facts.

TAPPER: John, what do we know about the FBI investigation into the incident? What would be the first steps if we were in a normal world where there was going to be a thorough, vigorous, fair investigation?

MILLER: You know, I've been involved in literally dozens, if not hundreds, of investigations of officer-involved shootings, both in New York and Los Angeles, especially the part that unfolds on the scene and the review at the end. There are protocols for this. And it's important to point out, if you've seen one officer-involved shooting, you've only seen one officer-involved shooting.

Each one is different in its particular fact pattern, not just as to what happened, but as to what was going through each officer's mind who might have been involved or fired shots, as Josh Campbell very aptly pointed out. In a normal world, to get to your question, the agents would be separated from each other so that they wouldn't be comparing notes or stories. They would be interviewed separately. Body cameras would be reviewed, although we are seeing that most of the people deployed in Minneapolis don't seem to be operating with body cameras.

They might go over what's on the body cameras after the interviews or before the interviews with the agents so that they could have a clearer picture of what happened. And this would be an investigation that would likely go in front of a grand jury to decide whether or not the shooting was legally justified and so on.

As we saw in the Renee Good case, which is, you know, with the absence of a gun being involved, perhaps even more controversial than this one, although both are lightning-rod controversial, you see that the Deputy Attorney General of the United States said, listen, we've decided that the agent's actions were justified, and the criminal investigation is into other people, not into the agent or the shooting.

We're not crystal clear here on whether there is an investigation into the shooting that is a criminal examination of the agent's conduct.

TAPPER: Yes. Juliette, thoughts?

KAYYEM: Absolutely. I want to -- look, there's the killing and the -- and -- and what exactly happened. There is the commitment to an investigation. And as both John and Josh said, that -- that failure to commit to a -- objective investigation from the perspective of Homeland Security and the deployment of troops, excuse me, deployment of immigration officials into cities with a mandate that no -- the White House is not clear what their mission is, right? It has changed over time. It has gone from crime to -- to immigrants.

[15:45:01]

It's -- you know, ironic at best that two Americans are the ones who have been killed by them, with suggesting this is not about immigration rates.

But the failure to -- the immigrants, it's, you know, ironic at best that two Americans are the ones who have been killed by them, with suggesting this is not about immigration rates. But the failure to commit to a investigation, what do you think that means to the CBP and ICE officials out in the street? It gives them a sense of license. And that is what is going on here.

Once there is one killing, and you have the Deputy Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security saying things that are not true about the victim and about what we know about the investigation, you then have a second, you tell me how this stops, right? If you're not willing to investigate, if you're not willing to put law enforcement through an investigation, if they did the right thing, a grand jury will determine that they did the right thing.

This is a license for a federal -- not even law enforcement, immigration agencies ...

MILLER: Yes.

KAYYEM: ... to shoot and kill without consequence. And then, as I said, you know, kill and slander, and then slander the victims. We have no idea. They want us to believe, honestly, that a nurse with no criminal conviction, with only traffic violations, wakes up one day and becomes a terrorist against ICE. They have no video of this. They have nothing. That's what they want us to believe and that's the narrative that they -- that they're going to go with and that's a license for another dead American, and another dead American, and another dead American.

TAPPER: Juliette Kayyem, John Miller. Thank you to both of you. Many legal questions surrounding the shootings in Minneapolis involving federal law enforcement and protesters. More on the breaking news after this quick break.

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[18:51:23]

TAPPER: Back to our breaking news out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, where federal agents have shot and killed a 37-year-old man during an Immigration Enforcement operation. DHS officials claim that the man, who is a U.S. citizen, was a U.S. citizen, was carrying a gun, and an officer shot him in self-defense. The shooting now prompting new clashes between state and federal officials and adding to ongoing tensions between ICE officers and protesters in Minnesota. Joining us now is CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.

Priscilla, fill us in on what the reaction has been like to this latest shooting. I remember after the shooting of Renee Good, you heard from people within the Department of Homeland Security who were horrified and didn't think it was a good shooting. What about this one?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, to that end, Jake, I've been talking to my sources, and Homeland Security officials are, as our teams have been, pouring over the videos of this incident, also collecting accounts from the scene to try to piece together what exactly unfolded here that led, of course, to that fatal shooting.

Now, as we heard from the Homeland Security Secretary, there will be an investigation. That's standard protocol. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection does have an Office of Professional Responsibility that, in any incident like this, would get involved, and they are getting involved now as well, which means that internally, over the course of the morning and in the afternoon, officials have been trying to collect an entire picture and narrative here as to what happened and that is continuing to happen now.

But, of course, Jake, this happened against the backdrop of a city that has been on edge, not only because of this incident but also, as you mentioned, with the shooting of Renee Good, and even just this week when a father and his 5-year-old son were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So, this has been building now for some time over the course of the month to lead to a moment where the city, as you see images there, and people are protesting. And, of course, all of this stems from the Trump administration's Immigration Enforcement agenda.

We heard from the Homeland Security secretary during a press conference say that Immigration Enforcement is exactly what the people asked for. That's a quote from her. Well, there are people who certainly do want Immigration Enforcement. They don't want it this way, however, where there have been now incidents of U.S. citizens who have been shot by Immigration Enforcement officers.

And, frankly, Jake, even internally, there are Immigration Enforcement officers who do not like this, who do not want their operations to veer into shooting U.S. citizens. So, this has become a very tense situation and one where even the vice president flew into Minneapolis this week to try to, again, control the message here because the Immigration Enforcement part is getting lost for this administration amid what has become a quite chaotic scene in Minneapolis for many reasons over the course of this month.

TAPPER: So, the Trump administration seems to be doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on the enforcement efforts. They sent more federal agents into Minnesota after the shooting of Renee Good. What do we know about their plans now after the shooting and killing of Alex Pretti?

ALVAREZ: Well, they have made it quite clear that they are not going anywhere. But just to elaborate on what you shared there, Jake, in December of last year, they started sending more agents to Minneapolis after this welfare fraud scandal that ensnared the Somali community. Then they sent 2,000 more in the beginning of January, leading to around 3,000 federal agents on the ground, an unprecedented number of agents in the city.

[18:55:07]

They say some of that is to serve as protection for officers, but that just could pave the way or has paved the way for very tense situations that have attracted protesters and created a situation that has clearly become untenable, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much. There's a lot more still to come on the unrest in Minnesota, on the shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a ICU nurse at the VA in Minneapolis. Our breaking news coverage continues with Erin Burnett. That's going to start after we squeeze in a quick break, and she'll be with you and pick up here after that.

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