BBC Confirms Authenticity of Viral Video Appearing to Show Alex Pretti Kicking Agents’ Car 11 Days Before Shooting

Footage published on Wednesday appeared to show Alex Pretti kicking an immigration agent’s car before getting thrown to the ground during a confrontation less than two weeks before he was shot and killed in Minneapolis.

The News Movement was the outlet that captured the incident on Jan. 13. It said in an X post that it “appears to be Alex Pretti interacting with federal immigration agents” and that it had the clip analyzed by the BBC, “whose facial recognition technology confirmed his identify to a 97% degree of accuracy.”

The BBC confirmed the authenticity of the video in their 10 p.m. GMT news broadcast. Reporter Ros Atkins said the man in the video “has the same coat, facial hair and gait as Alex Pretti and a facial recognition tool suggests a 97% match. We see him shouting abuse at the agents.” Separately, a spokesperson for the BBC confirmed to Mediaite that they reviewed the footage and verified its team did use facial recognition technology on the video.

You can watch the BBC footage below, or watch the footage on their website (the relevant portion begins at the :50 mark):

CNN, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and other outlets have also now confirmed with the Pretti family that the man in the video is Alex Pretti.

A narrator for the video said TNM’s team — comprised of reporters Dallin Mello and Dan Ming — received a tip that federal agents were blocking a street in Minneapolis around 10:15 a.m. When they arrived, they recorded a man who looked like Pretti spitting on a Ford SUV and shouting at immigration agents that they were  “f*cking trash!”

The man who looked like Pretti was wearing a black hat, brown coat, and had a beard; the narrator noted it was similar to the outfit Pretti wore when he was killed on January 24. He then smashed the right tail light by kicking it two times and flipped the middle finger at the vehicle.

At that point, “An agent then got out of the vehicle, grabbed him, and pushed him to the ground,” the voiceover said.

The man who appeared to be Pretti could be seen trying to scurry away from one agent before another agent grabbed him and they both threw him down.

“During the altercation, agents fired tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd,” the narrator continued. “They continued to hold the man down before they retreat and he walks away.”

The narrator said there appears to be a gun “visible above his waistband” in the footage.

In a statement, Steve Schleicher, an attorney for the Pretti family told Mediaite: “A week before Alex was gunned down in the street – despite posing no threat to anyone – he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents. Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.”

The footage quickly went viral on X shortly after it was posted on Wednesday. Republican communications adviser Steve Guest posted the clip and it pulled in 1.4 million views in its first two hours. He incorrectly said it was a “bombshell report from the BBC” — a mistake several other users made.

“Important context: Pretti was not a peaceful protester,” Guest added.

Greg Price — who lists “Rapid Response Manager” for President Donald Trump’s White House as one of his jobs on LinkedIn — also shared the clip.

“Alex Pretti spits on a federal agent and then kicks out his taillight in footage released by the BBC from 11 days before his death,” he posted.

Megyn Kelly shared the clip and said it showed Pretti had been “itching for another confrontation with Border Patrol, whom he’d been stalking, harassing and terrorizing.”

She continued, “HE had been victimizing THEM. His felonies are on tape. He was reckless, and it cost him his life. Find another post boy, illegal-loving Leftists.”

“WOW,” Tim Pool said in his caption for the video. He pondered if Pretti could have “been known to the agents as they attempted to arrest him?”

Ex-The Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra shared it as well.

And so did Turning Point USA contributor Savanah Hernandez.

 

The video comes a few days after President Trump said his administration is “reviewing everything” about the shooting.

Watch above via The News Movement on YouTube.

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David Gilmour contributed reporting.

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