"I don't like shootings. I don't like it. But I don't like it when someone walks into a protest and has a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded with bullets. That's not good either," US President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that the officers acted in self-defense.
Holding a mobile phone
When 37-year-old Alex Pretti of Minneapolis approached the officers, he was holding a cellphone and filming. The officers were seen standing and talking to civilians, then pushing them.
The 37-year-old was seen standing between the police and the civilians and was pepper-sprayed. Pretti was then surrounded by several police officers and wrestled to the ground.
Pretti is believed to have been carrying a handgun in a holster on his hip, a weapon he is said to have been licensed to carry, but he is not seen at any point taking or attempting to take it out of the holster. Instead, examination of the footage suggests that he was disarmed while lying on the ground.
One officer was seen removing the gun near Pretti's hip and another drew a gun. Two officers then shot Pretti with at least ten shots in five seconds.
The weapon removed from Pretti matches the weapon that the Department of Homeland Security claims belongs to him, according to US investigations.
Trump doesn't want to answer
Trump declined to answer The Wall Street Journal about whether he thinks the police officers who shot Alex Pretti did the right thing, but he said he was open to eventually withdrawing the immigration police ICE from Minneapolis.
In a post on Truth Social, the president demanded that Democratic governors and mayors across the country, including in Minneapolis and Minnesota, turn over all “criminal illegal immigrants” in state prisons and detention centers to federal authorities and to “cooperate” with the government.
