José Huerta Chuma lives with a constant question, he says - could he have done something differently that would have saved Alex Pretti's life?
Maybe if I hadn't gone to that place, or done it a little later or a little earlier, maybe it wouldn't have happened then.
It is in a telephone interview with CBS News that he emerges as the man whom immigration police were chasing last Saturday, when nurse Alex Pretti was shot dead by federal border police.
Came over 20 years ago
José Huerta Chuma has been described by the US Department of Homeland Security as a “violent criminal immigrant” who is in the United States illegally.
He himself says that he came to the United States from his homeland of Ecuador over two decades ago, that he has three children in the United States and that he works as a delivery driver.
I'm not a criminal. I was working that day and was supposed to pick up a delivery.
On his way there, he says he encountered a red car without license plates with federal agents.
When I then looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that they had turned around.
He says he parked, left the engine running and that the agents followed him and that he was let into a store, that the door was locked and that he stayed hidden for four hours.
Staying hidden
From his hiding place, he then saw Alex Pretti begin filming the agents and saw a woman pushed to the ground.
It happened so fast, he says, describing the shots from federal border police as "ra-ta-ta-ta."
It felt terrible. Watching and not being able to do anything about it.
According to CBS News, José Huerta Chuma's name is not on any lists of people to be deported. His case was dismissed in 2022.
Since the shooting, he has been in hiding, and the fear of being arrested and what will happen to his children has kept him from working, he says. But most of all, he is dismayed by Pretti's death.
I'm devastated. Why did they kill him? He didn't do anything.
