Tag: protests

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.

Pretti’s killing, and the subsequent secrecy surrounding the agents involved, comes as the country confronts the consequences of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. The sweeps in cities across the country have been marked by scenes of violence, against immigrants and U.S. citizens, by agents allowed to hide their identities with masks — an almost unheard of practice in law enforcement. As a result, the public has been kept from one of the chief ways it has to hold officers involved in such altercations accountable: their identity.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for a transparent investigation into the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse working at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.

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Maxine Waters Incites Violent Leftist Rioters in Los Angeles – Threatens ICE, “We’re Going to Fight You Every Inch of the Way”

Far-left Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was in Los Angeles on Friday, inciting her radical left followers to riot against law enforcement before several were arrested. 

The Gateway Pundit reported on the riots in Los Angeles, where anti-ICE demonstrators clashed with federal law enforcement and local police outside of the ICE detention center in LA during the nationwide “ICE Out Everywhere” protests.

Rioters were seen hurling objects at shielded federal agents who pushed back with pepper balls and nonlethal munitions.

Eventually, the rioters moved a dumpster toward the entrance of the ICE detention facility and set it ablaze.

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LA descends into a war zone as furious protesters brandishing Mexican and American flags while wearing gas masks ATTACK police

Chaotic scenes unfolded on Friday in Los Angeles as protesters carrying Mexican and American flags clashed with police while demonstrating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

Protesters stormed the outside of a federal prison in downtown Los Angeles and came face-to-face with police officers, who protected themselves behind shields before unleashing pepper balls and tear gas. 

One dramatic image depicted a protester striking an officer’s shield with a skateboard. Another revealed police firing non-lethal rounds at protesters in an effort to disperse.  

The Los Angeles Police Department issued a warning just before 9 pm, ordering all protesters near Union Station to disperse within 10 minutes.

Officers then infiltrated the scene and said they were met with bottles and rocks hurled at them, according to the LAPD’s social media account. 

LAPD Central Division announced a ‘tactical alert’ after federal authorities were hit with debris, bottles, and other objects.

As the night continued, the LAPD arrested ‘violent agitators’ who were allegedly ‘fighting with officers,’ one of whom was accused of ‘using a sling shot to shoot hard metal objects at officers who were standing on the line.’

Mayor Karen Bass later confirmed that five people were arrested during the dramatic confrontation. The Daily Mail has reached out to the LAPD for an update on the arrests. 

Bass urged protesters in the city to remain peaceful during a press conference on Friday, adding that violence was ‘exactly what I believe this administration wants to see happen.’  

‘I think the protests are extremely important, but it is equally important for these protests to be peaceful, for vandalism not to take place,’ she said. 

‘That does not impact the administration in any kind of way that is going to bring about any type of change.’

Protesters told the Los Angeles Times that officers positioned themselves on the roof and fired off nonlethal rounds, deploying a green and yellow irritant that created a large cloud. 

Many of the protesters were seen in gas masks as some covered their eyes and fled the scene. 

Obscene messages were written on the front of the Metropolitan Detention Center, and protesters were seen pushing a large red dumpster to barricade themselves from police. 

One of the demonstrators, Yamilet Segundo, 19, told the Los Angeles Times: ‘I told my friends we should come out after school to use our voice, but I wasn’t expecting to see this.’

‘It’s honestly really sad to see that it reached this point. I’m kind of nervous now because it seems like it’s getting violent.

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CCP-Linked Figure Caught Bankrolling Anti-ICE Agitators Through Shady Network

As clashes between agitators and federal law enforcement intensify in Minneapolis, the money trail behind the anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unrest is starting to surface.

Investigators and congressional Republicans are zeroing in on a wealthy American expat living in China who has been linked to a web of dark money groups accused of fueling far-left activism tied to Chinese Communist Party interests.

A Fox News Digital investigation this week identified several organizations acting as the primary engines behind the Minneapolis unrest, mobilizing protesters and coordinating messaging across multiple platforms to push demonstrations in Minnesota and beyond. Among the most prominent are the Party for Socialism and Liberation and The People’s Forum.

Both groups have been heavily subsidized by former tech executive Neville Roy Singham, according to media reports and congressional probes. Singham, a multimillionaire who sold his IT consulting firm in 2017 for $785 million, relocated to Shanghai and has largely remained out of reach of U.S. authorities.

A former federal prosecutor told Fox News Digital that Singham’s move to China effectively shields him from subpoenas, allowing his funding network to operate with little accountability.

Singham was the subject of a 2023 New York Times investigation that detailed his alleged ties to CCP-aligned propaganda efforts and his role in funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into opaque nonprofit organizations in the U.S. The report said more than a quarter-billion dollars had flowed through entities with vague names, minimal disclosures and mailing addresses tied to commercial mailboxes.

The 71-year-old U.S. citizen reportedly shares office space in Shanghai with the Maku Group, a media company he funds that promotes pro-CCP messaging, including efforts to “tell China’s story well.”

Singham’s name has surfaced in federal investigations for decades. The FBI probed him in 1974 for potentially being “engaged in activities inimical to U.S. interests,” according to records cited by lawmakers.

In 2025, Singham and organizations tied to his funding have faced mounting scrutiny from House and Senate committees. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., launched a House Oversight investigation last year into Singham’s alleged role in financing anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles.

“Mr. Singham, who resides in the People’s Republic of China, has a long track-record of assisting far-left entities, such as Code Pink, that oppose U.S. interests and support U.S. adversaries,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The Oversight Committee also flagged the Party for Socialism and Liberation as an organizer of “destructive protests and civil unrest,” pointing directly to Singham’s financial backing. The group did not respond to requests for comment.

The People’s Forum, another alleged organizer in Minneapolis, has drawn similar attention. In 2024, the House Ways and Means Committee questioned the IRS about tax-exempt groups promoting CCP propaganda, naming The People’s Forum in its inquiry.

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FBI Takes Over Investigation of Alex Pretti Shooting

The FBI is now leading the probe into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department said earlier this week that Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within the department, would be heading the investigation.

“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Friday that the FBI will lead the Pretti probe and that HSI will support them. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was also not immediately clear whether the FBI would now share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal probe.

In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

“I know you realize that situation was very chaotic, and that we were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said during the interview with Hannity on Thursday. “We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground.”

The change comes after two other videos emerged Wednesday of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti in a winter coat, yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

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Social Media Working to Protect ICE Clampdown in Minneapolis

There was a time, not terribly long ago, when the right claimed that the big social media companies weren’t just skewed to the left in terms of moderation, but that they were actually acting in the direct interests of the Democratic administration (House Judiciary Committee, 5/1/24).

When right-wing billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, eventually rebranding it as X, the right believed that he’d show the world that the popular site was a tool of the Democratic agenda (New Yorker, 1/11/23). The move increased Musk’s profile as a conservative crusader against social progress and economic populism before his brief stint as President Donald Trump’s federal jobs hatchet man in 2025 (Roosevelt Institute, 5/29/25).

Before a forced sale by its Beijing-based parent company, TikTok was attacked by both Democrats and Republicans because of its ownership, with both sides claiming that this not only gave the Chinese government the ability to spy on Americans, but also to skew political discourse away from Washington’s interests (FAIR.org, 11/13/23, 5/8/24, 1/3/25).

At Meta, founder Mark Zuckerberg quickly tried to distance his company from the notion that it acted in tandem with the Biden administration. Politico (8/26/24) reported:

Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta bowed to Biden administration pressure to censor content, saying in a letter that the interference was “wrong,” and he plans to push back if it happens again.

Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan (Joe Rogan Experience, 1/10/25) that the Biden administration had been “calling up the guys on our team and yelling at them and cursing and threatening repercussions if we don’t take down things that are true.” He asserted that Meta, and especially Facebook, “had gone too far in complying with such requests, and acknowledged that he and others at the company wrongly bought into the idea” (Axios, 1/10/25).

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Engineering Iran’s Unrest

John Maynard Keynes famously wrote in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919): 

“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of Society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

The United States mastered this art of destruction by weaponizing the dollar and using economic sanctions and financial policies to cause the currencies of targeted countries to collapse. On Jan. 19, we published “The US–Israel Hybrid War Against Iran,” describing how the United States and Israel are waging hybrid wars on Venezuela and Iran through a coordinated strategy of economic sanctions, financial coercion, cyber operations, political subversion, and information warfare. 

This hybrid war has been designed to break the currencies of Iran and Venezuela in order to provoke internal unrest and ultimately regime change.

On Jan. 20, just one day after our article, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly confirmed, without qualification, apology, or ambiguity, that our description is indeed the official U.S. policy.

“It is high time that the world’s nations face up to America’s rogue economic behavior… This lawlessness is illegal, reckless, harmful, destabilizing, and ultimately ineffective in achieving America’s own goals, much less global objectives.”

In an interview at Davos, Secretary Bessent explained in detail how U.S. Treasury sanctions were deliberately designed to drive Iran’s currency to collapse, cripple its banking system, and drive Iran’s population into the streets. This is the “maximum pressure” campaign to deny Iran access to international finance, trade, and payment systems.

Bessent explained:

“President Trump ordered Treasury and our OFAC division, Office of Foreign Asset Control, to put maximum pressure on Iran. And it’s worked, because in December, their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under; the central bank has started to print money. There is dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the street.”

This is the explicit causal chain whereby U.S. sanctions caused the currency to collapse and the banking system to fail.

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Homan Promises ‘Justice is Coming’ to Those Funding and Organizing Interference with ICE Operations in Minneapolis

Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters Thursday that “justice is coming” for those who fund and organize efforts to disrupt immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.

Real America’s Voice reporter Ben Berquam asked Homan, “Can you talk to us about what’s being done with the leadership on these Signal chats, on these WhatsApp chats, that are organizing the attacks against you, the obstruction against you? Are we going to be arresting those individuals, as well?”

Homan responded, “About the organization and the funding of the attacks on ICE, I’m not going to answer a lot about that, because I’m not gonna show our hand, but they’ll be held accountable. Justice is coming.”

He went on to state, “We’ve got to all remember … what started this. Four years of an open border, when millions of people were let into this country, unvetted.”

“The politicians that are continually attacking us — where were they the last four years, when the number of women and children sex-trafficked went to an all-time high? Where were they when a quarter of a million Americans died from fentanyl coming across the border?” Homan said.

“Now, we’re just trying to respond to what happened the last four years, and keep this country safe. And we’re arresting a lot of public safety threats and taking them off the streets.”

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Full known list of Alex Pretti’s battles with cops revealed before Minneapolis nurse was shot dead by DHS

Alex Pretti clashed at least twice with federal agents before one officer gunned him down, marking the second fatal shooting of a protestor in Minnesota this month. 

A Border Patrol agent shot the 37-year-old intensive care nurse during a scuffle at an a January 24 rally against Donald Trump‘s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. 

It followed the fatal shooting of mother-of-three Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan ‘Jon’ Ross in the same city on January 7. 

In the weeks before the deadly shooting, Pretti had violent skirmishes with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on at least two occasions. 

January 13  

One clash came on January 13 when Pretti was shown on camera daring ICE agents who were carrying pepper spray to ‘soak me, motherf***er’. 

The video shows Pretti shouting ‘f*** you!’ at the agents, before yelling: ‘What the f*** is wrong with you? Every decision you’ve made in your life is f***ing wrong!’  

He also referred to one of the agents as a ‘pepper spray b****’ and ‘f***ing trash’ as the officers climbed into their SUVs to leave the premises. 

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US Media Keen on Iranian Unrest—Less So on US and Israel’s Role in It

When protests against high inflation swept Iran in late December, the usual international suspects wasted little time in endeavoring to hijack the unrest—which prompted a violent government crackdown—for their own purposes.

On January 10, Donald Trump—fresh off his abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—took to his preferred social media platform to showcase his signature manic reliance on random capitalization and exclamation points: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” A few days later, another encouraging message: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING—TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

The protests have since dissipated, without any successful “help” thus far in the form of regime change or US/Israeli military attack, although Trump has dispatched a “massive fleet” to the Middle East “just in case.” The Iranian government, which blames the US and Israel for fueling the bloody upheaval, has put the death toll at 3,117 (Al Jazeera, 1/21/26), including state security personnel. The Canada-based International Centre for Human Rights—aptly described by prominent Mideast analyst Mouin Rabbani as a “faux human rights organization”—claims that no fewer than 43,000 Iranians were killed by government agents. In between those two extremes, all manner of other numbers have also been flung about.

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