<figure id="attachment_3267076" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3267076" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-3267076 size-full" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/f659b4dd-afp__20260125__93ya4ph__v1__midres__protestsafterusimmigrationofficerkillswomaninmin_cropped_1.webp" alt="" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3267076" class="wp-caption-text">Protesters gather in Minneapolis, demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was fatally shot by ICE agents. (AFP pic)</figcaption></figure>
MINNEAPOLIS: Bundled up in a yellow hat and black puffer jacket, Taylor was one of hundreds of protesters marching after the killing of a second US citizen this month by federal agents carrying out an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
The violence has put new pressure and scrutiny on US President Donald Trump&#8217;s aggressive deportation campaign, which has drawn demonstrators onto the streets of the Midwestern city.
&#8220;I think it was completely senseless, it was murder,&#8221; said the young woman, who did not want to give her last name.
Federal agents shot to death 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, claiming he intended to harm them during a confrontation on Saturday.
However, a video shared widely on social media and verified by US media showed Pretti never drawing a weapon, with agents firing at him seconds after he was sprayed in the face with a chemical irritant and thrown to the ground.
&#8220;I think the way that the government is bringing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in to take away our neighbours and to pull families apart is completely inhumane.
&#8220;If we don&#8217;t speak out for them, then other people won&#8217;t,&#8221; she added during the protest on Sunday.
Pretti was killed less than three weeks after another Minneapolis resident, Renee Good, was shot dead by an ICE agent &#8211; on a street just over a 1.6km away.
Trump and his officials quickly defended the officer who fired the shots, who has neither been suspended nor charged.
&#8216;This is America&#8217;
Coleen Fitzgerald, a 73-year-old retired construction worker, attended the protest wearing a clown costume and multi-colored wig and wig to mock the Trump administration.
&#8220;We started to have ICE people come up there and they&#8217;re coming into our restaurants and they&#8217;re going to people&#8217;s homes and they&#8217;re taking them,&#8221; she told AFP.
&#8220;We can&#8217;t live like this. This is America. We&#8217;re supposed to be free and they&#8217;re trying to take that away.&#8221;
Fitzgerald brandished a homemade sign, &#8220;Hire clowns, expect a circus&#8221;, against a backdrop of demonstrators chanting &#8220;our streets&#8221; and &#8220;ICE out now&#8221;.
Thousands of federal immigration agents have been deployed for weeks to Minneapolis, after media reports on alleged fraud by Somali immigrants &#8211; which Trump has seized upon.
The Democratic-led city has one of the highest concentrations of Somali immigrants in the US.
The area around Pretti&#8217;s killing was marked off Sunday by yellow caution tape with police cars parked across the road.
At a makeshift memorial near the site of the shooting, demonstrators gathered after the march to lay flowers and candles.
Locals wearing hats and coats huddled around a sea of bouquets. Some knelt despite the icy ground, with temperatures falling as low as 20 °C.
&#8220;Stop killing us, Enough is enough.
&#8220;ICE out, and Alex should be here&#8221; were among the slogans written on signs posted around the site.

MatchPoint Times

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