KC leaders react to 2nd killing by federal agents in Minneapolis. ‘Stop the chaos’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas City leaders condemned federal agents after Border Patrol killed protester.
- Videos show Pretti holding a phone, not brandishing a weapon, before being shot.
- Officials and lawmakers split along party lines over federal use of force and policy.
Kansas City political leaders reacted with a mix of horror and outrage Saturday to the second fatal shooting of an American citizen this month by federal authorities in Minneapolis.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was gunned down by a Border Patrol agent after being pepper sprayed, wrestled to the ground, and struck by officers.
“How many people must die? How many rights must be ignored? How much cowardice must persist? Before our leaders bring an end to the reckless federal assault on Minneapolis and America’s cities?” Mayor Quinton Lucas posted on X, calling the lethal action a “stain on our Constitution, our freedoms, and our humanity.
“Stop the occupation. Stop the chaos. Stop creating a civil war in Middle America,” Lucas wrote in a second post.
Pretti’s father told the Associated Press that his son was “very upset” with the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration in his city. He said Pretti participated in protests after the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good, a former Kansas City resident, who was shot dead in her vehicle by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
“My heart breaks for another family that must bear the horrific pain that comes with losing a loved one,” Kansas City’s longtime Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver posted on Saturday.
“How many more Americans must die at the hands of federal agents before Republicans in Congress will put an end to the administration’s reckless, lawless, and dangerous immigration agenda?” Cleaver continued.
Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, threatened on Saturday to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security, a maneuver that could lead to a partial government shutdown next weekend.
Kansas and Missouri Republican elected officials did not immediately take to social media to weigh in on the shooting. Earlier this month, some GOP lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt and Rep. Bob Onder, echoed top Trump administration officials’ characterization of Good as a crazed leftist who brought her death upon herself.
In the hours after Saturday’s shooting, DHS posted an image of a handgun and claimed that a Border Patrol agent “fired defensive shots” after Pretti “violently resisted” attempts to disarm him.
“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” the post reads. DHS Secretary Krisi Noem called Pretti a “domestic terrorist.”
Pretti was licensed to conceal carry a firearm, according to his family. But videos filmed from different angles in the moments before he was shot show that Pretti was holding a phone — not a gun — in his hand when he was pepper sprayed and tackled. At no point did he appear to brandish a weapon before the fatal shots were fired.
Former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander excoriated federal agents’ actions in a TikTok video, describing Pretti’s death as a murder.
“Alex Pretti was exercising his First Amendment right. He was doing it properly,” Kander said. “He was also properly exercising his Second Amendment right, because he was carrying a firearm that he was legally licensed to carry, and he was carrying it concealed.
“First, his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was swarmed and detained and searched by several officers, without cause. And then, his Fourteenth Amendment right was violated, when while he was restrained and totally defenseless, he was shot several times and killed by officers,” Kander continued.
“History tends to remember poorly the people who kill peaceful protesters. It tends to remember them as the bad guys.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2026 at 10:22 AM.
