Pretti's family have hit out at the 'sickening lies told about our son by the Trump administration'.
Two Reform councillors are being condemned after posting support for ICE officers in the U.S., after protests turned violent and federal agents shot and killed an intensive care unit nurse who had joined protests against an immigration crackdown.
Alex Pretti, a US citizen who lived in Minneapolis and worked as a nurse, became the second person to be fatally shot in the city during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown this month.
Pretti is understood to have joined protests after Renee Good, also 37, was shot dead by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in her car earlier this month.
Bystander videos showed Mr Pretti with a phone in his hand, and his family insist he was not holding a gun when shot.
Just hours after the incident, Councillor Joseph Boam, the former deputy leader of Leicestershire County Council who represents Whitwick, posted an image saying “I stand with ICE”.
Leicestershire Live also reports that Cllr Michael Squires, also from Leicestershire County Council, congratulated the officers for their “heroic work saving the United States of America”. He also went further and claimed that Mr Pretti “was attacking law enforcement and had a gun” and the shooting was “clear cut”.
According to US officials, federal agents took defensive measures after they claimed that Pretti approached them with a handgun.
Pretti’s family have hit out at the ‘sickening lies told about our son by the Trump administration’.
They added: “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs.”
Governor Walz called on Mr Trump to “pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now”.
The two Reform councillors backing of ICE has led to condemnation, with Amanda Hack, the MP for North West Leicestershire, condemning their posts as “outrageous”.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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