Green Bay Residents Mourn Death of Native Son Alex Pretti

Green Bay residents protest the shooting of Alex Pretti | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner

Green Bay protesters took to the streets Sunday afternoon in temperatures well below freezing to protest the killing of Alex Pretti, a graduate of Green Bay Preble High School who worked as an ICU nurse at a VA hospital in Minneapolis and was shot and killed Saturday by Border Patrol agents. As they crossed the Fox River, marchers formed a line longer than the Ray Nitschke Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Fox River.

“The only people who can defend us is us,” Daniel Castillo, a member of the Green Bay Anti-War Committee, told the crowd.

After he was shot by federal agents, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said Pretti, who was carrying a registered handgun when six Border Patrol agents tackled him, but did not unholster it, appeared eager to inflict “maximum damage” on assembled federal agents. Videos taken at the scene, showing Pretti holding a cellphone camera, not a gun, and trying to help a woman who was knocked to the ground by agents, as well as  what’s known about Pretti’s background, belie the Trump administration’s claims, the Minnesota Reformer reported.

In a statement, Pretti’s parents said they are “heartbroken but also very angry” and requested, “Please get the truth out about our son.” They said that “the sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.”

“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital,” the parents’ statement said in part. “Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman.”

Lori Blakeslee, communications director for the Green Bay Area Public School District, confirmed to the Wisconsin Examiner that Pretti graduated from Green Bay Preble High School in 2006.

In an interview early Sunday afternoon, Travis Vanden Heuvel told the Examiner he and Pretti were in a choir program together, and that the two were friends during elementary and middle school.

“I think he was standing up for what was right and just, and I’m saddened and angered by what happened and how it happened,” Vanden Heuvel said.

Vanden Heuvel said when he learned about the shooting, not knowing who the victim was, the word he had been using to describe it was tragic. His old assistant choir director had reached out to let him know Pretti had been killed.

“And tragic became devastating, not that this happening in America or in Minnesota didn’t already make it close to home,” Vanden Heuvel said. “I mean, I think we’ve been feeling it hit closer and closer to home.”

The Examiner previously reported on a march against ICE in downtown Green Bay almost a year ago, in the weeks that followed President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Castillo told the Examiner this is different from last year’s event.

“It was just the random activist that approached us and said, ‘Would you like to set up some sort of event that shows that immigrants are just people too?’” Castillo said. “…This is much different, and because people are angry… they’re just mad that a man was assassinated, extra-judicially murdered.”

Jennifer Gonzalez, communications coordinator for the Green Bay Police Department, said that “today’s demonstration, like others held in our community, was calm and peaceful, with no significant incidents.”

Protests also occurred elsewhere in Wisconsin, including in Milwaukee, Madison, Oshkosh and Superior.

State Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) said in a statement that “it is not surprising that Alex was a nurse with roots in Green Bay, a place where we believe in taking care of each other and respecting human dignity.”

“We must come together to demand accountability, because hate cannot win,” Rivera-Wagner said.

In a statement Saturday, Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich said “another American citizen is dead as the result of the federal government’s occupation of an American city, and the victim, Alex Pretti, was a graduate of a Green Bay high school.”

“Without knowing all the facts of the case, we can say with certainty that a full, transparent, and independent investigation must be conducted,” Genrich said. “I mourn his tragic death with his friends and family, and join the chorus of Americans who are rightfully demanding the federal government change course and enforce immigration law in keeping with local, state and federal laws and the U.S. Constitution.”