A growing memorial stands Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026 where Alex Pretti, 37, was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents days before at Nicollet Avenue and 26th Street. CNN reported that a group of federal agents tackled Pretti a week before he was killed, breaking a rib. Radke, whose family moved away before she started high school, said Pretti was “generous, curious, sweet” as a kid. He later went to nursing school and became an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. This article, “Alex Pretti ‘had a way of lighting up every room he walked into,’” has been republished from the Minnesota Reformer under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.