Tensions are escalating in Minneapolis and across the nation after Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a U.S. citizen, was killed during an encounter with immigration officials on Saturday morning.

Pretti, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and an ICU nurse, has been identified by officials as the shooting victim.

The victim’s father Michael Pretti reportedly told the Associated Press, his son had participated in the protests because he “cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset.”

Neighbors were also shocked by his death. 

Jeanne Wiener, who lived next door to Pretti, told MPR News that she would chat with him when he was walking his dog around their Lyndale neighborhood.

“He was a calm person; he’s a nurse!” Wiener said Saturday. “I’m mad. I’m angry. This was a good person. This is not a violent person.”

Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, who worked at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center with Pretti, remembered him as an “incredibly competent person” who was good at his job.

Some visitors outside the Carl T. Hayden V.A. Medical Center on Indian School Road and 7th Street reacted in shock and anger over the shooting. 

“I seriously just heard about his and I cannot believe…well, actually, yes I can believe it now, Trump is messed up and he has destroyed our country,” said the visitor who was going to see a family member at the Veterans hospital when asked by Northeast Valley News for reaction about the deadly shooting in Minneapolis Saturday of the ICU nurse who worked with Veterans. 

“These so-called officials are nothing more than “rent-a-cops” deputized by the feds, handed guns and immunity to kill people,” said Valley resident George Adair, the son of an Amry Veteran. 

One nurse who asked to remain anonymous told Northeast Valley News, “We are no longer a free society. I notice people kinda keep their heads down now. It’s a very different country than the one I grew up in.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara in a segment on CBS “Face the Nation” said video of the shooting has raised “serious questions” about the account provided by Gregory Bovino, the official in charge of President Trump’s Border Patrol operations.

Video of the encounter shows Mr. Pretti, a U.S. citizen who had a permit to carry a firearm step between a woman and an agent who was pepper spraying her. Pretti is immediately hit with pepper spray before a group of agents pin him down. Agents then fired shots into his back and motionless body according to the New York Times. 

Trump officials were quick to label the victim, an ICU nurse, a “domestic terrorist” claiming, without offering evidence, that he had been out to “massacre” federal agents. 

Mr. Pretti never drew a weapon.