Federal officials have repeatedly claimed that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees who fatally shot Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti on Saturday did so in the midst of a "riot." The situation, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said after the shooting, was "a violent riot" where "you have someone showing up with weapons." Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who headed the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis until he was reassigned this week, echoed that assessment during a CNN interview the next day.
This alleged riot figures in attempts to blame Pretti for his own death, and it could be relevant in evaluating the decision to grab and restrain him, which resulted in a scuffle that ended with lethal gunfire. But it is inconsistent with bystander videos of the incident, photographs of the scene, eyewitness accounts, and the report that CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) gave Congress on Tuesday.
