The two federal agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti during anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis were identified Sunday in a report.
Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Raymundo Gutierrez, 35, were identified as the shooters in government documents, ProPublica reported. They had not been named publicly prior to ProPublica’s reporting Sunday.
Ochoa is a Border Patrol agent who joined in 2018, and Gutierrez is a Customs and Border Protection officer who started at the agency in 2014, according to the outlet. Both men are from south Texas.
While leaders at the Department of Homeland Security promised a transparent investigation into the killing of Pretti, they refused to publicly identify the suspects themselves and did not comment on the report.
Ochoa and Gutierrez were both placed on paid administrative leave following the shooting, according to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. In the immediate aftermath of the killing, Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino said they’d simply been reassigned out of Minneapolis.
Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Alex Pretti, 37, was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital. (Dept. of Veterans Affairs)
Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was part of a group of demonstrators protesting against President Trump’s immigration crackdown on Jan. 24 in Minnesota. Ochoa and Gutierrez were among a group of officers who tackled Pretti and removed a handgun from his waist; then Ochoa and Gutierrez shot him dead, according to multiple bystander videos of the incident.
It was the second killing of a U.S. citizen protester during demonstrations in Minnesota in January, coming less than three weeks after another person, 37-year-old Renee Good, was killed by an ICE agent while sitting in her car.
The federal government also refused to identify that agent, but The Intercept first revealed his identity as 43-year-old Jonathan Ross. While some nations publicly withhold the identities of criminal suspects, such protections are not typical in the U.S.
