More On Alex Pretti

🚨 BBC obtains footage from January 13 of a man they say is Alex Pretti

Videos appears to show him spitting at federal law enforcement and attacking their vehicle
pic.twitter.com/cuXYO6PLIx

— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) January 28, 2026

The X post embedded above shows video footage of the altercation Alex Pretti had with CBP officers the week before he was shot, which reportedly resulted in him breaking a rib. It shows him kicking out the tail light of the CBP van and struggling with the officers. Several scenes in the video appear to show him carrying a firearm in the small of his back, as he did a week later when he was shot. Additional context has emerged this week that suggests he wasn't just a random bystander; he was deliberately dispatched to both scenes by an organized network purposely to disrupt CBP activities.

In yesterday's post, I also speculated that Pretti must have been part of an organized network of agitators with specific job descriptions and responsibilities. Jennifer Van Laar at RedState has summarized X posts by users like Cam Higby and Data republican that go into detail on precisely this subect:

We're learning a lot more about the people who were in the anti-ICE Signal chat groups that independent journalist Cam Higby infiltrated in Minnesota, the organization of the group, its donors, and the significance of the address at which Alex Pretti was obstructing federal officers.

. . . The groups are highly sophisticated. They're set up geographically; within the City of Minneapolis, they're generally divided by City Council district, but also cover St. Paul, Bloomington, and other suburbs. They start a new chat every day and delete the prior day's chat.

She then links to another RedState piece by Ward Clark that summarizes Higby's posts on the groups' training materials:

These training materials and the setup of this online system indicate that someone with some money is behind all this. These materials mention "patrol training" and mention the use of the Signal chat system.

This is precisely the question I've been starting to ask: this costs money. Let's go back to the Van Laar piece to get an idea of how complicated this is:

They have a set of emojis that each user puts around their name [in the Signal chats] when they're on shift, to indicate what position they're working that shift.

She prints a screen shot from a Higby post listing the various positions they work, including mobile patrol, stationary patrol, foot patrol, dispatch, hyper-local group messenger, license plate checker, medic, and aftercare provider. Van Laar links to another RedState piece that goes into more detail on how these functions are coordinated. It turns out that several local politicians, especially state Rep. Brad Tabke, recruit and coordinate the players. Tabke coordinates the Scott County ICE Watch Signal chat; Scott County is outside Minneapolis.

This is a confirmation email from a SignUpGenius ( https://t.co/3GLj420CWa) signup for “Scott County ICE Watch”, and it is very clearly signed by Brad at the bottom:
• He personally thanks me for signing up
• He gives instructions for patrol shifts, Signal app usage, posting… pic.twitter.com/d3FZDXFcuv

— 🇺🇸White Raven🇺🇸 (@White_Raven9515) January 24, 2026

Cam Higby has determined that Alex Pretti was part of one such group and appears to have had a specific role in it:

🚨 ALEX PRETTI IN ON SIGNAL CONSPIRACY?

In the highly organized anti-ICE rapid response signal group “Tom O’Hoch” says “WE suspect an ‘observer’ was shot”

Observers are what they call ICE chasers involved in the signal network dedicated to hunting down agents and harassing,… pic.twitter.com/hTmyJUKXGj

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) January 25, 2026

A Fox News story outlines what appear to have been the specifics of Pretti's dispatch via Signal chat to the scene where he was shot:

At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

"26and 3rd," wrote "Willow," quickly following up with, "Outside Glam Doll."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

After the shootinmg, additional Signal chat posts directed additional protesters to the site. This AP story concedes the existence of secret chat networks but portrays participants simply as public-spirited citizens:

To understand this world, talk to a woman known in the rapid response networks only by her nickname, Sunshine. She asked that her real name not be used, fearing retaliation.

A friendly woman who works in health care, she has spent hundreds of hours in her slightly beat-up Subaru patrolling an immigrant St. Paul enclave of taquerias and Asian grocery stores, watching for signs of federal agents. She can spot an idling SUV from the tiniest hint of exhaust, an out-of-state license plate from a block away, and quickly distinguish an undercover St. Paul police car from an unmarked immigration vehicle.

On the messaging apps, she’s simply Sunshine. She knows the real names of few other people, even after working with some for weeks on end.

She hates what is happening, and feels deeply for people living in fear. She worries the Trump administration wants to push the nation into civil war, and believes she has no choice except to patrol — “commuting” it’s often called, half-jokingly — every day.

So, the story says she "works in health care", but she also patrols every day in her Subaru. This would fit the job description of "mobile patrol" we see above. But someone doing this in a private vehicle would normally be reimbursed for mileage in a regular job. Gas is expensive. The opportunity cost of spending the day on patrol when she might be earning money at a normal job is also significant. And it sounds like many of these people are effectively on call -- this isn't a weekend hobby activity. What's really going on here?

Some of these people are being paid, This looks like serious work, dispatchers, license plate checkers, medics, on call. For instance, it sounds like Pretti was on call and sent to the job site by a dispatcher. it's the only conclusion I can draw. So do they get W-2s, 1099s, or what? Nobody seems to be looking into this.