Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has activated the Minnesota National Guard at the request of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office after a federal agent fatally shot a man in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.
"Due to the potential for continuing and growing conflict related to today's federal agent-involved shooting, Sheriff Dawanna Witt has requested assistance from the Minnesota National Guard to support our deputies at the Whipple Federal Building so that we can reallocate deputies to other areas in need of support in the county," the sheriff's office said.
"Their job will be to assist the Sheriff's Office in protecting life, preserving property, and helping to ensure the safety of all community members."
Walz on Saturday said the federal government's "Operation Metro Surge," a Border Patrol-Department of Homeland Security effort to deploy agents into major U.S. cities to help federal partners with immigration enforcement and related operations, has to end.
Federal authorities have deployed roughly 2,000 to 3,000 immigration enforcement agents to Minnesota under Operation Metro Surge.
"This federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement, it's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state, and today that campaign claimed another life," he said during a press conference.
"I call on you once again: remove this force from Minnesota," Walz added.
Federal immigration officers shot and killed a man Saturday in Minneapolis, drawing hundreds of protesters in a city already shaken by another fatal shooting weeks earlier.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said a 37-year-old man was killed. He added that information about what led up to the shooting was limited. Media reports identified the man killed as Alex Jeffrey Pretti.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that federal officers were conducting an operation as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and fired "defensive shots" after a man with a handgun approached them and "violently resisted" when officers tried to disarm him.
O'Hara said police believe the man was a "lawful gun owner with a permit to carry."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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