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Man Shot And Killed By Federal Agents In Minneapolis; Winter Storm Intensifies. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired January 24, 2026 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[23:00:10]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome into our breaking news coverage and we want to welcome our viewers joining us from all around the world as well. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

We begin of course in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a federal where federal agents have shot and killed a 37-year-old man during a protest today. Alex Pretti was an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Hospital. His family says in the moments before he was killed, he was trying to protect a woman ICE agents had pushed down. He was doing this while being pepper sprayed.

CNN has examined video of the deadly encounter. We are going to play it for you. But as we do that we do want to warn you, it is graphic. It's very hard to watch. You will see that it shows several federal agents wrestling him to the ground.

At least one agent appears to be kicking him. Mind you, his back is to them at this point. Later in the video, federal agents fired at least 10 gunshots. The Department of Homeland Security says officers took this handgun from Pretti and fired at him in self-defense. But at no point in any of the videos reviewed by CNN can he be seen wielding a weapon.

Minneapolis Police say he was a lawful gun owner with a permit. Still, Trump administration officials are calling Pretti, in their words, a domestic terrorist. This is DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, DHS SECRETARY: When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism. This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Homeland Security and the FBI are now investigating the shooting. State investigators, though, say federal officials have blocked them from accessing the scene. In fact, they have now sued the Trump administration. State leaders are disputing the Trump administration's account of the shooting.

Governor Tim Walz says, video disproves the Trump administration's "nonsense and lies" about domestic terrorism. And the Minneapolis mayor had this message for President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACOB FREY, MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR: To President Trump, this is a moment to act like a leader. Put Minneapolis, put America first in this moment. Let's achieve peace. Let's end this operation.

And I'm telling you, our city will come back. Safety will be restored. We're asking for you to take action now to remove these federal agents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: President Trump posted a long statement on Truth Social accusing Minnesota leaders without evidence of using the shooting in Minneapolis to cover up theft and fraud in the state's safety net programs. Let's bring in CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild, who is joining us now on the ground in Minneapolis. Whitney set the scene for us. It's now 10:00 PM there, Minneapolis time, what are you seeing?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: It is very quiet here. We are a few blocks away from where this shooting happened. That was around 26th and Nicollet. We are at 28th and Blaisdell here. And what we're seeing here is mutual aid response from law enforcement. So we're seeing other jurisdictions, law enforcement vehicles here, a vehicle that appears to be from the National Guard.

We know that Governor Walz has now mobilized the National Guard. That was something he had talked a lot about over the last several weeks. He had planned to potentially deploy them if he thought it was necessary. Now, after this third shooting in about as many weeks, Jessica.

Now, Governor Walz has decided today is the day that they need to be mobilized. So we expect that, you know, it is possible that we will see more National Guard presence if that is warranted.

[23:05:07]

I think the other context here to consider when you're thinking about the National Guard is that, these local law enforcement here has been dealing with protests over and over, and over for weeks now, really, since the Renee Good shooting, and even prior to that when were starting to see members of the public confronting federal law enforcement. The Renee Good shooting happened on January 7th. And then, we started seeing these much bigger protests.

And law enforcement here is saying that their rank and file officers, the men and women on the ground, are simply tired. They are worn out from working these protests, working all of this overtime, having days canceled. And they have also been doing all of this, Jessica, for the last few days in subzero weather.

Right now, it is 7 below zero here at least the temperature is going to continue to drop. And so it is necessary to bring in these additional resources from surrounding jurisdictions as well as from the National Guard, according to officials here. This is very calm, very quiet. Earlier today, there were a couple of hundred people who were in this general area.

They have now since dispersed. It was about an hour ago that we saw a group of people here who had suggested that they were planning to at least visit the vigil, if not engage in another protest, perhaps nearby. But this is very, very quiet, very calm. Earlier tonight, were also at the Federal building, the Whipple Building, which is a few miles from here outside of Minneapolis. It was very calm there as well.

That was where we had really seen those clashes between protesters and federal law enforcement in the past. Today, very quiet. This is a city now that understands how to deal with these protests, understands how to move law enforcement around to minimize any potential impact. And I think a good example of that, Jessica, is again, this cruiser here blocking off the street because we are several blocks away.

So there's no vehicle is going to get anywhere near where that shooting happened at 26th and Nicolett here, Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Whitney Wild for us on the ground in Minneapolis. Thank you so much for that. Let's bring in CNN's Tom Foreman, who's here now to walk us through what we're hearing from federal officials, Tom. And what this new video, which is -- which comes from bystanders who were standing right there as all this happened. What it shows?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. If we look at this video to begin with, Jessica, you need to know the narrative of this. No matter how you feel on this issue of protesters or anything else, watch the video and let's go through the narrative.

You will see Mr. Pretti come in here in just a moment, and he moves out toward the middle of the street. Of course, the camera moves a lot. There he is. That's his arm coming up right there. And in a minute now you see him out in the street waving at traffic.

And in a moment, I want you to note the moment when agents first seem to engage with him. And, I mean, approach him as if they see him and want to say something to him. This car goes past, and now you see an agent moving toward him. Then the camera goes off a little bit.

When he comes back, you'll see this woman get shoved to the ground violently. Here you see Mr. Pretti, ICU nurse, trying to go over to her. They both end up getting pepper sprayed. So he looks more like he's trying to get away with her or trying to go somewhere else.

He gets yanked back over here. The agents all crowd around him. And you may notice one agent in the middle who briefly rises up and turns his back right there. Here it comes there you see the guy right in the middle there leaning over, and he turns away. And that's when the shooting occurs in all of this.

The amount of time from when the agents first sort of engage with him, when presumably he thought he was just there protesting, shooting video, to the time that he winds up dead is about 30 seconds. So less time than I've been talking right now. That's how fast that happened.

So, Jessica, nonetheless, despite that scene where he does not seem to be going toward agents, he certainly does not seem to be brandishing any kind of weapon. He does not seem to be fighting with agents except to the degree that they have him pinned down on the ground there. This is what's being characterized by the White House, by the Trump administration, as him representing, as we saw some tweets earlier today, where they represented him as being, like, there to massacre agents and that he was some instant threat.

And there's just no real sense here that it says it looks like a situation where he wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement. You watch that video and you're like, well, he had agents all around him. If that were the case, why wasn't he brandishing a weapon? Why wasn't he doing anything more?

And you remember the agent I pointed out in the middle that I wanted you to look at? CNN went through and analyzed a lot of this video and particularly that video. Watch him stepping away there. He has what certainly looks like the gun in question here. And that freeze frame, Jessica, that we're looking at right there, that is happening somewhere around a second before the shooting happens.

[23:10:05]

The first shot and then the nine shots that come afterward, which would suggest that whatever threat he may have presented, if that's the only question, this gun, that it was just being taken away from the scene at that moment. All of which is to say, not that there is clear evidence from any video, because in a lifetime in this business, video can always be a little bit confusing and as to exactly what it proves. But what it definitively does not prove at this point is the view being put forward by the Trump administration, that this guy was somehow out there stalking and trying to kill agents out there.

In fact, he looked very much like a man who was trying to get away from them that they yanked back, took a gun off of him, and then he wound up dead again in about 30 seconds. It's just a remarkable story. And this is why -- this is why people have to want a full investigation. No matter which side you're on in this whole debate, you want a full investigation.

If you think the officers did the right thing, you should want, in my experience, a full investigation to prove it, an independent investigation. And if you think that they did the wrong thing, you should want a full investigation, an independent investigation. And if you just don't know, you should want an independent investigation. That's my experience. And watching this video all day, I'll tell you, it's been quite a thing to watch.

DEAN: I'm sure. Yes, you want to get to the truth of what happened in that moment. Tom Foreman, thank you so much. We really appreciate that.

Joining us now is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller. John, you have covered law enforcement. You have been a part of law enforcement for many, many years. As you're watching all of this unfold today, what are your questions you think still need to be answered? Obviously, there are a lot here and there's a lot swirling around any potential investigation as well.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, there's a lot we don't know. Even though we've seen all of these videos from different angles, from across the street, from the sidewalk, from down the street, but we start off with fundamental questions. If Mr. Pretti was going to that demonstration that day to videotape agents, to blow the whistle, to be an activist, one question is, why would he be carrying his gun in a situation where it was entirely possible he could end up tangling with agents or getting arrested or ending up in that situation with a fully-loaded weapon, additional magazines? Did he know he was going to be there? Did it come up suddenly?

That's one question. But regardless, he was carrying it legally. He was authorized to possess it.

But in that moment, when he starts to engage with the agents after they push the woman, he ends up on the ground. At what point do they find that gun and how? Is it during the struggle? Does somebody feel it? Does it fall out?

Is that gun where it appears one of the agents may pick it up on the ground and comes out of the circle with it, is that his weapon or somebody else's weapon? These are things that the videotape suggests. We just don't know all of it for sure.

So, you know, as Tom pointed out, they need to have a thorough investigation. Now, who's going to do that? Is it going to be the federal government? In the last shooting involving Renee Good, they said that they didn't see any need for an investigation because they concluded the shooting was justified despite so many questions about it.

Is it going to be done by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that has a specialized unit that does exactly these kinds of cases involving officer involved shootings? And if it is, who has this evidence? Who has possession of the gun? It appears to be the federal authorities.

What about the shell casings that will match up to the agents weapons? How many agents fired? Who will have possession of those guns? So we're really in a period of such flux here about things that could be answered by a thorough investigation and the uncertainty that any of that is going to happen and if so, by whom, and will they have the cooperation they need?

DEAN: Yes, absolutely. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, in addition to the investigation, is just as I've been talking to other guests, the training that these federal agents have when it comes to situation like these, and also more broadly, just the situations that these border patrol and ICE agents are being put in and putting themselves in when it comes to this immigration crackdown. What should we know about the training they get?

Because you think about, you know, city police departments here in New York City or in Minneapolis, they are heavily trained on how to deal with protesters and de-escalation, all of these things. Is that something that these federal agents are also trained in?

[23:15:09]

So it's interesting, the surge to hire agents for DHS caused the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, FLETC, in Georgia to take the training from six months down to six weeks. So that's 47 days of training. That is not the kind of training that agents are normally given. It's a very rushed thing.

Now, we don't know. That's a mix of agents there. You've got agents from all over the country, some of whom are very experienced and some of whom may be new. So you've got this great divide of who has experience on the street, who has the adequate amount of training, who had just a little training. That's one thing.

And the other thing is, what kind of agent are they? You've got ICE agents, you've got border patrol agents, you have customs agents there, CBP. Border patrol actually gets a lot of training in crowd control because they deal with large groups sometimes coming together across the border. ICE agents generally don't. So you see this mix with this real disparity in terms of talent and experience in the street.

And I think we're seeing the signs of that as we see these encounters. There have been more than a dozen shootings since this effort started a year ago under the Trump administration as they moved from city to city and town to town. And three, so far in Minneapolis in just the time they've been there, including two that have been fatal.

DEAN: Yes, all right. John Miller, always good to have you. Six months to six weeks seems like an important piece of information. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Still ahead, we're going to continue to follow our breaking news tonight, growing unrest in Minnesota following this second deadly shooting involving federal agents and protesters. Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: US officials are urging Americans to stay at home as a massive winter storm sweeps through the country. It is bringing heavy snow and crippling ice that's stretching 1,300 miles and moving east now. We're already getting reports of power outages increasing and impassable road conditions.

Airlines have canceled more than 14,000 flights between Saturday and Monday. And that number is keeps going up. That's according to the tracking site, FlightAware.

Joining us now is Chad Merrill, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. Chad, walk us through what you're seeing.

CHAD MERRILL, SENIOR METEOROLOGIST, ACCUWEATHER: Yes. So far we've seen anywhere from three to six inches of snow and up to three fourths of an inch of ice across the lower Mississippi Valley as this storm pushes east. Here's the swath of real estate that is going to see severe impacts from significant icing. We're talking from the Dallas Fort Worth Area, Shreveport, all the way into northern parts of Alabama and especially the Appalachians, the Western Carolinas and also parts of Virginia.

This storm is now moving towards the DC area. We're just starting to see some flurries enter the DC. area. This is our swath of snow with this particular storm system. So we're talking about a stretch of real estate from Oklahoma City all the way up into Louisville seeing 6 to 12 inches. The highest amounts with this storm is going to be focused anywhere from Southern Illinois and Indiana, a stripe of real estate through parts of Ohio.

And then there you see the interior parts of the Appalachian Mountains. Basically from north of Hagerstown, Maryland, all the way in towards the Boston area, we are going to see anywhere from 12 to 18 inches. I think the Worcester Hills and parts of the Catskills will see that bull's eye.

So this storm continues to move east across the Mid Atlantic tonight, tomorrow, and then ends early on Monday. So the power outage risk, we are going to see power outages continue to multiply all night long, all day tomorrow. Widespread power outages here across Central Texas all the way into the lower Mississippi Valley, and then here across parts of the Appalachians.

This same area as you see here is going to be very cold through next week. Those temperatures 15 to 30 degrees below average. What that means is that, ice is not going to melt anytime soon as very cold air moves in. So these folks are going to be without power for an extended period of time as that cold air pushes in.

The timing of the ice, 7:00 PM this evening through 7:00 AM Sunday, and then 7:00 PM Sunday once you get into parts of the Southern Mid Atlantic. So we have a very strong storm system producing very heavy rain. What we are also concerned about along the I-95 Corridor, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and New York is a bit of a lot of sleet mixing in with this snow and that's going to make the roads even more dangerous.

Travel not recommended all the way through the weekend. And there's the cold weather again. That pours them behind it for the last week of January all the way down to the Gulf Coast. And then on top of that, Sunday afternoon and evening, there is a risk for severe weather here from Mobile to Dothan to Panama City. And we're looking at localized flooding, hail, isolated tornadoes and those wind gusts anywhere from 50 to 60 miles per hour. So again, the storm spreading into the Mid Atlantic tonight and then up and through the Northeast as we go into Sunday. And the early part of Monday, a major storm system. There's going to be thousands of power outages. We're going to see plenty of airport delays as well.

And with the cold air coming in behind it, expect those travel delays all the way through next week and power outages that could last for at least several days.

DEAN: It's quite a storm. Chad Merrill, thank you so much for that. We appreciate it.

Meantime, tensions remain high in Minneapolis after this second deadly shooting involving immigration agents. Still ahead, reaction from the family of the man who was killed today. They're calling the administration's account of what happened sickening lies.

[23:24:43]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Going back now to our top story out of Minneapolis. The family of a man shot and killed by federal agents is denying the official account of that incident. They say that their son, Alex Pretti, who you see here in a baseball bat, was clearly holding a phone, not a gun, before the shooting Saturday morning. And they say he was trying to protect a woman pushed by agents while he was being pepper sprayed.

Homeland Security Department says the agents fired defensive shots after an armed man resisted attempts to take his weapon away from him. A top Border Patrol official later criticized state and city leaders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER-AT-LARGE: We will not allow violence against our law enforcement officers. And we need state and local help, state and local law enforcement to help us coordinate to get violent criminals off the street. Mayor Frey and Chief O'Hara just a few minutes ago did the opposite of that by omitting the fact that the suspect had a gun and magazines full of ammunition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now, Gregory Bovino, who you just saw there, did not say if Pretti pulled a gun before he was shot. Minneapolis police say he had a legal gun permit and that they believe he was a US citizen. For more on this, let's go to Julia Vargas Jones, who's in Los Angeles. Where do things stand, Julia?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are learning more and more about Alex Pretti. I have been talking to some people who knew him, Jessica. And look, the reaction is shocking from the past week from people -- talking to people on the ground there. I had someone react to me this morning and say, how are we supposed to go on like this?

[23:30:10]

You know, I've come on and talked to you before about how forcefully Minneapolis, Minnesotans I should say, had been reaction reacting to the presence of those 3,000 federal agents in their city. This has only intensified since this morning. We've heard more and more people have reached out, have voiced their outrage with this situation.

One woman said to me, you know, it is so important for people like Alex Pretti to be out there filming. She compared him and the others who have gone to film those interactions between ICE, DHS, CBP in those enforcement operations to the woman who filmed the death of George Floyd in 2020.

That is very much the kind of the magnitude of how this is being felt in Minneapolis. That's what we've seen from our colleague, Sara Sidner, on the ground there as well. I do believe that we have some video that I wanted to walk through with you, Jessica, a new video of a new angle from inside a car.

This is the car that we've seen on the other two videos, this white car. This is the first time, I believe, right now that's where we're seeing Alex Pretti on the screen there. You can't hear what's going on, but this is -- this woman is honking. She's been honking her horn, trying to alert those -- the people around her to what's going on. And this is the moment he gets on the ground and then we hear those 10 different shots.

What we do see from this video is that, there was a rush from one side to the other side of the street. You know, we've talked about how complicated these situations are. You've had multiple guests on, speaking about how these are all split second decisions that law enforcement officers are making when in these kinds of encounters.

But we see Pretti there trying to put himself between that law enforcement officer with a what seems to be a pepper spray or some kind of chemical agent and a woman. She's holding that orange bag. He grabs onto that woman, he doesn't let go until he gets thrown on the ground by those officers, Jessica.

That is just -- it's remarkable that the more that we're getting, the more information, the more angles, different videos that we're seeing, the more we're learning about this. The more disparate the accounts sound from the people on the ground to what we heard DHS from the CBP commander, Gregory Bovino, saying that this was someone attempting to massacre those officers on the ground. So a lot more questions coming in as we get more video, as we get more angles, and hear from more people who were on the ground this morning are still out there in Minneapolis.

DEAN: Certainly. All right, Julia Vargas Jones, thank you for that. And I do want to bring in CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter, who's joining us now. Brian, the governor, Governor Tim Walz, had previously encouraged residents to record incidents with ICE agents.

And we're seeing, you know, there's just been a lot of talk about how critical video is, why it's important to have video of what's happening. And can you walk us through what you think the impact is of having those videos?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: And there are some indications, there's some indications that Alex Pretti was hitting record on his phone or at least holding his phone out to record the detention of somebody else on that street in Minneapolis this morning. And then, there are at least four videos of what happened next.

As Julia was just indicating, there are probably other copies out there as well. As the day has progressed, we have seen more and more angles of this particular altercation. And it is part of a pattern now that we are seeing in Minneapolis and beyond, where nearly every incident, nearly every aggressive arrest, nearly every shooting, it is filmed by multiple people from multiple angles, sometimes by the federal officers themselves.

We saw that on January 7th with the killing of Renee, of Nicole Renee Good. These multiple angles are, in some cases, incredibly helpful. People are able to understand what happened in more detail. But the multiple angles also cause cherry picking. They cause different folks, different ideological positions, take different sides, nitpicking at different parts of the videos for their own political ends and we've seen all of that happening again today.

So it really is something to reckon with, Jessica, this era of ubiquitous video. This idea that Governor Walz and other Minnesota officials have said to residents, if you see ICE officials, if you see them on your street, get out your phone and hit record. That's a message to residents who feel relatively powerless, believing they're under occupation, that they actually do have some power.

And Walz said it again today. He said, these videos will be used for prosecution in the future. And whether that happens or not, that's a powerful message to his residents to say, actually that camera phone in your pocket, that has some power and you can use. And we've seen that again today.

[23:35:12]

DEAN: Yes. And as you note though, there are these dueling narratives of what happened in multiple events, but especially today, from federal officials, local officials, people on the ground. How is that playing out online? Obviously these videos making their way onto X and a number of other platforms where people are consuming.

STELTER: Right. These videos are just the starting point. They are not the end point. And I've been talking with folks who put these together for a living, some who work at news outlets, others who work for online investigative outfits who say, you know, we try to sync up the videos, try to slow them down, look at them frame by frame, get all the possible context.

But then ultimately, it's up to viewers to decide what they see. And as our colleague CNN's Van Jones recently wrote, we're not even watching the same movie in America anymore. Due to algorithms, due to partisan media filters, people are seeing very different movies. I do have to say though, we're here on Saturday, almost midnight Eastern Time. This one might be different. If you look at the online reactions today, you are seeing many principled conservatives have just as many criticisms as you're seeing self-proclaimed progressives. You are seeing some people put down their partisan filters in this moment.

Not all for sure, but there is some of that. This video of multiple angles of this man's death is breaking through. It's not just political junkies, it's not just people in Minnesota paying attention. You can see this all across the social web where people are consuming this and having a reckon with it.

And by the way, we haven't even talked about, what is the impact of seeing a man die over and over again on camera, close up, in slow mo. This is the second time in a month that all of America has stopped and had to bear witness in this way. And that has an impact, that has an on all of us.

I'm not smart enough to know what it means. Maybe pastors and others talk about that at church tomorrow morning. But that is the kind of thing that these videos bring out when we are seeing this death in close up over and over again.

DEAN: Right. We cannot discount that. That is such a great point, what that does just to the American, the collective psyche and everyone's individual psyche as well.

STELTER: Yes.

DEAN: Brian Stelter, thank you so much. It's great to see you. We really appreciate it.

And joining us now is Donell Harvin. He's a Homeland Security analyst and faculty member at Georgetown University's Emergency and Disaster Management Masters Program. Thanks for being here with us late on a Saturday night where we've just seen so many things happening over the last really 12 to 14 hours.

Donell, in a new court filing, we are learning that a witness today's shooting says Pretti did not resist or reach for a gun before the shooting. Obviously, we have all the videos that people, we were just talking about with Brian. In terms of response from these agents, is this, in your opinion, an appropriate level of response?

DONELL HARVIN, HOMELAND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, if you listen to the administration, they came out really early on this, this CBP officer, agent, as they say it was, did everything by the book, right? He followed his training, followed protocols and neutralized what they're calling a domestic terrorist that was bent on mass murder.

Parsing that aside, which is clearly not what we're looking at, this is really an abhorrent use of physical force. This is a use of force by, in this particular case, by federal agents that I've never seen in my 30 year career. I've done law enforcement, I've done homeland security, and I've done forensics. And this is clearly, clearly not what Americans want to see on their news feeds or certainly on social media. And it's terrible.

DEAN: And as you're watching this video, you're saying this stands out to you over decades of experience in the field and teaching. What is standing out to you about -- what in particular when you're watching this?

HARVIN: Well, the first thing is why are these federal agents engaging these protesters that are clearly peaceful? They're approaching them, which is obviously refutes, which you can see in your own self, what the federal government said. These individuals did not approach federal agents.

The federal agents, closed space, approached them and really started using tactics that state and local law enforcement would never use. There's no attempt at de-escalation. And when this individual that was shot, Mr. Pretti, tried to shield a victim of ICE, he was then taken down to the ground. And this is what unfolded.

Beyond that, there's a couple of things that maybe get a little technical. I was in the police academy, I was a police officer. The first thing that you can see is the video angle where it looks like they realize that he has a gun. And then a couple of seconds later, it looks like a law enforcement officer retrieves that gun and starts running away from the crowd.

[23:40:08]

Then after that, the shots are fired. What that tells me is that, there may have not been good communication. You're trained in the police academy or federal law enforcement academy, when you spot -- when you're wrestling with a suspect and they have a gun, to shout out, gun, gun, gun.

Once you retrieve that gun, you're supposed to say, I got the gun or the gun's been retrieved. If that didn't happen, and that individual didn't let everybody know that he had the gun and that the threat was reduced, that scrum wouldn't know, that scrum of law enforcement officers. And so, it's quite possible that gun was retrieved and federal agents didn't realize that. And they shot what appears to be an unarmed man.

DEAN: Yes. And so, where does local -- this intersection between local and state authorities, and government and the federal authorities, and federal government, where do we go from here? You know, we're seeing the international, the group of police chiefs calling for finding a way forward, trying to figure something out. What happens now?

HARVIN: Well, here's the problem. The problem is that you have a lot of ICE agents surged in an area that has little to no trust in the federal government. And that's not just at the civilian level, that's not just the population, that's at the state and local level. So there's no trust between the level of governments, which I haven't seen in my entire career.

Generally, state, local and federal officials work seamlessly together. And so, there's no trust, there's no collaboration, there's no coordination. And you're going to have issues like this because there's no deep confliction between these officers, between these level of government. And so at some point, thankfully, Governor Walz called out the National Guard to keep these protesters away from ICE, because they're being placed in a position that they're not familiar with and they're not trained with.

Earlier you had John Miller on talking about the training. These ICE and CBP officers are not trained to police. They're not trained in what we call civil disturbance or dealing with demonstrations. And when you place them in that type of situation and they don't have the training, you're going to have volatile conflict like you're seeing right now.

And so at some point, I think cooler heads need to prevail at all levels of government, and they need to find a way forward so that ICE can do their job even though they don't -- the state and locals and the population don't like it, but really keeping the public away from these ICE and CBP officers that really aren't trained to deal with the public in the way that they're doing right now.

DEAN: All right. Donell Harvin, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

HARVIN: Thank you.

DEAN: And we'll continue to follow the breaking news out of Minneapolis. Still ahead tonight, a neighbor describes the man shot by those federal agents and paints a very different picture than the version given by federal officials.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:46:34]

DEAN: Tonight in Minneapolis, those tensions remain high, especially between federal immigration agents and protesters. For a second time this month, a person has been shot and killed by federal agents during that immigration crackdown in the city. Thirty-seven-year old Alex Pretti was killed during an altercation this morning.

The Department of Homeland Security saying an agent fired in self- defense after Pretti resisted attempts to disarm him. Pretti's family and witnesses on the ground dispute that account. Minneapolis police say he was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. Earlier, CNN spoke with his neighbor and he told our Sara Sidner, Pretti was not the person described by immigration officials.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS GRAY, ALEX PRETTI'S NEIGHBOR: Alex was my neighbor. I remember Alex walking his dog by my house. But the Alex that I want the world to remember was out on the streets yesterday with 50,000 people on general strike and a mass non-violent protest.

He was an ICU nurse. He was a worker like myself. He was part of the fabric of my community along with immigrants and many other people who represent our neighborhood. And the people destroying our neighborhood are these ICE agents who are running around out of control, who have done nothing to make my life safer, done nothing to make my life better. This is not about crime and it's not about fraud.

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Greg Bovino, one of the commanders with ICE, made these statements about Alex after he was killed by ICE agents saying that he came here to massacre law enforcement agents. Does that match the person that you know, the neighbor that came over to your home when you had a housewarming?

GRAY: This is the same Greg Bovino who's overseeing the massacre of my neighbors, who drove around my neighborhood throwing tear gas with a motorcade and then ran for cover when people non-violently disrupted him. Well, everything they say about my neighbors is a lie. These are ordinary people who are trying to keep their neighborhood together and to stay whole.

And that's why I think the next step is to have a mass non-violent march. We need another general strike to shut down the flow of profits to Trump and his billionaire allies, because that's what it's going to take to win.

SIDNER: When you talk about Alex, there is a whole apparatus here, right, where people text each other and they tell each other what's going on and they use whistles if they see ICE in the neighborhood. Was he part of that? Was here because he wanted to protest and ask ICE to leave the community?

GRAY: At this point, everyone's a part of that. Everyone has a whistle. In every shop, there's a know-your-rights training. The whole community is standing together against this occupation of ICE, which is part of a divide and rule tactic that the Trump regime is pushing on us because they have no answers for the real issues that working class people face.

My health care bills will not go down because these deportations. I won't get a job because these deportations. My life will not improve and it doesn't make my life any better. This is about divide and rule, and about terrorizing people. And that's what this occupation's about.

And that's what Alex was fighting for by taking film of someone getting abducted. And that's what they killed him for. And that's why I think the Alex I want people to remember was part of a mass non- violent community resistance. And we need to do that again, but this time we need to make it bigger and stronger until they leave.

And they don't just leave Minneapolis, but they leave everywhere. I don't want them to come -- go from my city to some other city. I want this to end forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Additionally tonight, we are tracking this monster winter storm here in the US. It is intensifying as it makes its way east. Coming up, we're going to show you where the heaviest snow and ice are hitting right now. [23:49:55]

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DEAN: A massive winter storm is sweeping through the US, bringing heavy snow and crippling ice that's now stretching 1,300 miles and moving East. By the time Washington, DC wakes up tomorrow, the snow is going to be cranking. Those first flakes will be flying as far north as New York City.

Thousands of people south, including in Texas, have already lost power as freezing temperatures set in across that state and others. And for more, let's bring in Brian Mason, Director of Emergency Management for the City of Houston, Texas. Brian, thanks for being with us tonight. Walk people through what the current situation is in Houston.

BRIAN MASON, DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS: So right now in Houston, we're still waiting for that freeze line to sink down and hit our area. We did a lot of preparations the last three or four days. But as of right now, we're still just getting kind of a cold wet rain, but we're expecting in the next three to five hours or so it's going to start to transition to a freezing rain down here in Houston.

DEAN: So what is your knowing that? What is your biggest concern for tonight and then in the coming days as well?

MASON: That's a good question. So tonight's really going to be the roadways and some treacherous driving conditions. And then after the moisture moves out, we're going to get some really cold temperatures down here, especially for Houston. Temperatures potentially in the teens with wind chills in the single digits.

[23:55:00]

And as you know, down here in Houston, our infrastructure isn't really built for those type of cold temperatures. So then we'll shift from a frozen precipitation potential event in roadways to more of a power and water, and utility infrastructure type situation potentially.

DEAN: Yes. And what about those power outages? Obviously there is real concern about the potential for that. How are you all planning for that?

MASON: Yes. So, you know, after the winter storm we had in '21 ERCOT, which does our statewide electric grid, made a lot of significant improvements. You know, right now here in the Houston area, we do not have any power outages. You know, the ERCOT, the main distributor of the power.

As of right now, it looks like our margins may be a little bit close on Monday morning. We may have about 5,000 or 6,000 megawatts in reserve, but it's definitely something we're monitoring closely. We've opened 12 warming centers for our community down here. All of our warming centers have backup generation tied in or associated with them. And a lot of our critical infrastructure, our water plants, our wastewater plants, our replacement stations, all those also have backup generation just to make sure we're safe.

DEAN: All right. Brian Mason, we are wishing you the best. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

MASON: Thank you.

DEAN: And one of the world's best known free climbers has scaled a skyscraper in Taiwan. Alex Honnold climbed to the top of the Taipei 101 on Sunday in a little over an hour-and-a-half. He climbed to the top without any ropes or safety gear. It was streamed live on Netflix. Honnold later received congratulations from Taiwan's president.

Thanks so much for watching this hour. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York City. Stay with us, though, we've got more news for you when we come back.

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