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Federal Officials Dig in on Minneapolis Shooting Narrative Despite Video Evidence
A person reacts at a makeshift memorial at the site where a man identified as Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal immigration agents trying to detain him, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tim Evans
Senior Trump administration officials on Sunday defended the fatal shooting of a US citizen by immigration agents in Minneapolis even as video evidence contradicted their version of events and tensions grew between local law enforcement and federal officers.
As residents visited a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles in frigid temperatures and snow to mark Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti — the second shooting death by federal officers in Minneapolis this month — the Trump administration argued that Pretti assaulted officers, compelling them to fire in self-defense.
Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol commander-at-large speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” could not offer evidence that Pretti was trying to impede a law enforcement operation, but focused on the fact that the ICU nurse was carrying a gun, which he had a license to carry.
“The victims are border patrol agents,” Bovino said. “Law enforcement doesn’t assault anyone.”
Bovino and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Pretti of assaulting the agents, rioting and obstructing them.
“We do know that he came to that scene and impeded a law enforcement operation, which is against federal law,” Noem told Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing” program. “It’s a felony. When he did that, interacting with those agents, when they tried to get him to disengage, he became aggressive and resisted them.”
That official line, echoed by other Trump officials on Sunday, triggered outrage from local law enforcement, many in Minneapolis and Democrats on Capitol Hill, because of bystander videos that appear to show a different version of events.
HOLDING A PHONE, NOT A GUN
Videos from the scene verified and reviewed by Reuters showed Pretti, 37, holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, as he tries to help other protesters who have been pushed to the ground by agents.
As the videos begin, Pretti can be seen filming as a federal agent pushes away one woman and shoves another woman to the ground. Pretti moves between the agent and the women, then raises his left arm to shield himself as the agent pepper sprays him.
Several agents then take hold of Pretti — who struggles with them — and force him onto his hands and knees. As the agents pin down Pretti, someone shouts what sounds like a warning about the presence of a gun.
Video footage then appears to show one of the agents removing a gun from Pretti and stepping away from the group with it.
Moments later, an officer with a handgun pointed at Pretti’s back and fired four shots at him in quick succession. Several more shots can then be heard as another agent appears to fire at Pretti.
Darius Reeves, the former head of ICE’s field office in Baltimore, told Reuters that federal agents’ apparent lack of communication is troubling. “It’s clear no one is communicating to me, based on my observation of how that team responded,” Reeves said.
One of the officers appeared to have taken possession of Pretti’s weapon before he was killed, Reeves said. “The proof to me is how everyone scatters,” he said. “They’re looking around, trying to figure out where the shots came from.”
‘VIDEOS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES’
Brian O’Hara, the Minneapolis police chief, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the videos speak for themselves,” adding the Trump administration version of events was “deeply disturbing.” He said he had seen no evidence that Pretti brandished a gun.
Tensions in the city were already running high after a federal agent fatally shot US citizen Renee Good on Jan 7. Trump officials claim she was trying to ram the agent with her car, but other observers have argued that bystander video suggests she was trying to steer away from the officer who shot her.
Federal authorities have refused to allow local officials to participate in their investigation of the incident.
US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, told ABC News’ “This Week” that Trump’s surge of federal agents into Minneapolis was “completely out of control and out of balance,” and that they should leave Minnesota. She described the shooting of Pretti as “simply horrific.”
The deaths of Good and Pretti have sparked large protests in the Democrat-run city, although on Sunday morning the area where Pretti was shot was calm.
A woman wearing nursing scrubs ventured out in Sunday’s frigid temperatures to pay homage to Pretti, who she said worked with her. When asked what brought her out, the woman began to sob.
“He was caring and he was kind. None of this makes any sense,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified by name, saying she feared retribution from the federal government.
In addition to large protests in Minneapolis since Good’s death, there have been rallies in other cities led by Democratic politicians, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., since Trump began sending immigration agents and National Guard troops to those communities last year.
Trump has defended the operations as necessary to reduce crime and enforce immigration laws.
Pretti’s shooting triggered legal filings on Saturday night from state and local officials, as well as others.
A US district judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal officials from destroying or altering evidence related to the shooting in response to a lawsuit filed by Minnesota’s attorney general, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. A full hearing is set for Monday.
Lawyers representing protesters in Minnesota also asked an appeals court to reinstate a lower court’s order that prevented violent retaliation by federal agents against protesters, citing Pretti’s death and the likelihood of a surge of people taking to the streets.
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US-Brokered Peace Talks Break Off Without Deal After Overnight Russian Bombardment of Ukraine
Some windows glow in a residential building left without heating and facing long power cuts after critical civil infrastructure was hit by recent Russian missile and drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Alina Smutko
Ukraine and Russia ended a second day of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Saturday without a deal but with more talks expected next weekend, even as overnight Russian airstrikes knocked out power for over a million Ukrainians amid subzero winter cold.
Statements after the conclusion of the talks did not indicate that any agreements had been reached, but Moscow and Kyiv both said they were open to further dialogue.
“The central focus of the discussions was the possible parameters for ending the war,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X after the meeting.
More discussions were expected next Sunday in Abu Dhabi, said a US official who spoke to reporters immediately after the talks.
“We saw a lot of respect in the room between the parties because they were really looking to find solutions,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We got to real granular detail and (we feel) that next Sunday will be, God willing, another meeting where we push this deal towards its final culmination.”
A UAE government spokesperson said there was face-to-face engagement between Ukraine and Russia — rare in the almost four-year-old war triggered by a full-scale Russian invasion — and negotiators tackled “outstanding elements” of Washington’s peace framework.
Looking beyond next week’s negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the US official voiced hopes for further talks, possibly in Moscow or Kyiv.
“Those sorts of meetings have to happen, in our view, before we get a bilateral between (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Zelensky, or a trilateral with Putin, Zelensky and President Trump. But I don’t think we’re so far away from that,” the official said.
BOMBARDMENT OF UKRAINE BEFORE SECOND DAY OF TALKS
The bombardment of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and its second-largest city Kharkiv by hundreds of Russian drones and missiles prompted Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha – who was not at the talks – to accuse Putin of acting “cynically.”
“This barbaric attack once again proves that Putin’s place is not at (US President Donald Trump’s) Board of Peace, but in the dock of the special tribunal,” Sybiha wrote on X.
“His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table.”
Saturday was scheduled to be the final day of the talks, billed by Zelensky as the first trilateral meeting under the US-mediated peace process.
The UAE statement said the talks were conducted in a “constructive and positive atmosphere” and included discussions about confidence-building measures.
Kyiv is under mounting Trump administration pressure to make concessions to reach a deal to end Europe’s deadliest and most destructive conflict since World War Two.
US peace envoy Steve Witkoff said at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week that a lot of progress had been made in the talks and only one sticking point remained. However, Russian officials have sounded more skeptical.
RUSSIA WANTS ALL OF DONBAS
After Saturday’s talks, Zelensky said the US delegation had raised the issue of “potential formats for formalizing the parameters for ending the war, as well as the security conditions required to achieve this”.
The US official said the proposed security protocols were widely seen as “very, very strong.”
“The Ukrainians and many of the national security advisors of all the European countries have reviewed these security protocols. And to a person, and this includes NATO, including (NATO Secretary General) Mark Rutte, they have expressed the fact that they’ve never seen security protocols this robust,” the official said.
Ahead of the discussions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday Russia had not dropped its insistence on Ukraine yielding all of its eastern area of Donbas, the industrial heartland grouping the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the 20 percent it still holds of Donetsk – about 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) – has proven a major stumbling block to any deal. Most countries recognize Donetsk as part of Ukraine. Putin says Donetsk is part of Russia’s “historical lands.”
Zelensky has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has not been able to capture in four years of grinding, attritional warfare against a much smaller foe. Polls show little appetite among Ukrainians for any territorial concessions.
Russia says it wants a diplomatic solution but will keep working to achieve its goals by military means as long as a negotiated solution remains elusive.
Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said late on Friday that the first day of talks had addressed parameters for ending the war and the “further logic of the negotiation process.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine came under renewed Russian bombardment.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 375 drones and 21 missiles in the overnight salvo, which once again targeted energy infrastructure, knocking out power and heat for large parts of Kyiv, the capital. At least one person was killed and over 30 injured.
Before Saturday’s bombardment, Kyiv had already endured two mass overnight attacks since the New Year that cut electricity and heating to hundreds of residential buildings. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said on Saturday that 800,000 people in Kyiv – where temperatures were around -10 degrees Celsius – had been left without power after the latest Russian assault.
Zelensky said on Saturday Russia’s heavy overnight strikes showed that agreements on further air defense support made with Trump in Davos this week must be “fully implemented.”
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Conscription Law Heads to Final Vote in Knesset Amid Political Showdown
A drone view of Jerusalem with the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
i24 News – Israel’s conscription law is reaching its final stretch as the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to complete its discussions this week before bringing it to a first reading vote in the Knesset plenum, i24NEWS’s Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) affairs correspondent Ari Kalman reported Sunday.
The legal counsel of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to support the legislation, subject to changes that will be made in the wording of the law. However, it is not certain that this will satisfy its opponents. Meanwhile, opponents of the law within the coalition insist that they have “a majority that can defeat the law.”
Against the backdrop of the crisis with the Haredi parties, the state budget is expected to be brought to a first reading vote on Monday. Recently, i24NEWS reported that the Knesset’s legal advisor, Attorney Sagit Afik, told Knesset members that at least two months are required from the moment it is placed on the Knesset table until its final approval. Therefore, the coalition is required to submit it this week in order for it to be approved on time.
The problem facing the coalition and Prime Minister Netanyahu is that this year there is not enough time to pass the budget by the end of March, as Passover Eve falls on April 1, and therefore the budget needs to be approved in its third reading by March 25, two months from today.
Amid the pressure and the attempt to bring the budget to a vote, the Hasidic Council of Torah Sages published its decision this month against the conscription law: “The Council expresses its deep pain and concern over the campaign of harassment against Torah students by various authorities, the harm to them and to their rights, their public denigration and humiliation for being students of God’s Torah; something that is becoming increasingly severe.”
They also wrote that the Council of Torah Sages demands a law “without personal and institutional sanctions and without arrests, as has been customary all these years. Any other legislation that harms Torah scholars whose Torah study is their profession, imposes sanctions on them, or sets quotas is unacceptable. And it must be opposed with all force.”
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Syria and Kurdish Forces Extend Ceasefire by 15 Days Amid Rising Tensions
A person holds flags as people celebrate after the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of Syria’s oil-rich northeast, has signed a deal agreeing to integrate into Syria’s new state institutions, the Syrian presidency said on Monday, in Damascus, Syria, March 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
i24 News – A four-day ceasefire between Syrian government forces and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which expired on Saturday night, has been extended by 15 days, officials from both sides said, providing a temporary respite amid rising tensions in northeast Syria.
The extension, effective from 11 PM local time, was announced by Syria’s defense ministry to support an ongoing US operation transferring Islamic State detainees from Syrian prisons into Iraq. The SDF confirmed the agreement was reached through international mediation, while dialogue with Damascus continues.
The ceasefire follows recent advances by government troops, who seized swathes of northern and eastern territory from the SDF in the past two weeks, consolidating control under President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Sharaa had initially given SDF forces until Saturday to lay down arms or face renewed fighting.
The US has been conducting shuttle diplomacy to establish a lasting ceasefire and facilitate the integration of the SDF, which was Washington’s main partner in Syria for years, into the state led by Sharaa. Senior US and French officials reportedly warned Sharaa against sending troops into remaining Kurdish-held areas to avoid potential mass abuses against civilians.
As tensions escalated ahead of the Saturday deadline, SDF forces reinforced positions in Qamishli, Hasakeh, and Kobane. Kurdish security sources indicated the buildup was precautionary amid fears of renewed conflict.
The offensive earlier this month marked the culmination of a year of rising tensions. Sharaa, whose forces toppled Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, aims to bring all of Syria under state control, while Kurdish authorities have resisted merging their autonomous civilian and military institutions into Sharaa’s administration.
With key oil fields, hydroelectric dams, and facilities holding Islamic State detainees now under government control, the 15-day ceasefire offers a brief pause. The situation remains fragile, and the international community continues to monitor developments closely.