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Iowa City VA workers, community hold vigil for slain Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti
Candlelight vigil draws health care workers, veterans and community members demanding justice after Minneapolis shooting
Feb. 1, 2026 7:18 pm
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IOWA CITY — With snow falling steadily, about 200 people gathered Sunday evening outside the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center for a candlelight vigil honoring Alex Pretti, a VA nurse, union member and federal worker killed last month by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.
Vigil attendees — including VA health care workers, labor union members, veterans, immigrant rights advocates, faith leaders and community members — held candles and signs bearing Pretti’s VA employee photo, showing him in blue nursing scrubs with an American flag behind him. The signs read, “This is what service looks like” and “Care. Compassion. Courage. Alex Pretti.”
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2547, which represents hundreds of nurses and health care professionals serving Iowa veterans, stood alongside speakers and community members. Organizers said the vigil was intended both to mourn Pretti’s death and to call for accountability and changes to federal immigration enforcement practices.
Pretti, 37, was an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a member of AFGE Local 3669. He was fatally shot Jan. 24 during a Department of Homeland Security operation in Minneapolis.
Aaron Williamson, third vice president of AFGE Local 2547, told the crowd that gathering outside their workplace was both a moral obligation and an act of solidarity.
“Being here tonight is a very noble and honorable act — gathering outside of our place of employment to honor and pay respect to one of our own,” Williamson said. “We are doing what is right, just as he was doing when his life was so unjustly taken from him.”
Williamson described Pretti as someone who showed up for his community, saying video footage shows him helping a woman who had been pushed to the ground moments before he was confronted by federal agents.
“That act of compassion resulted in Alex losing his life in the most violent and senseless of ways,” Williamson said. “Tonight, we stand together as VA employees, as proud union members and as decent human beings to recognize the heroic efforts of Alex Pretti.”
Bridget Jermeland, a health care worker from Iowa City, said she attended the vigil to ensure Pretti’s family knows he had not been forgotten.
Jermeland said Pretti’s killing was a tragedy and raised concerns about the erosion of the right to protest peacefully. She criticized early statements from Trump administration officials who described Pretti as a domestic terrorist and armed agitator.
“That wasn’t the video that I saw,” she said. “Everybody gets due process. That’s the rule everybody has to follow.”
According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday that investigators are examining “everything that would shed light on that day.”
The investigation now is being led by the FBI. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem disclosed the shift during a Fox News interview, saying her department would cooperate fully with the FBI-led investigation.
The change came after multiple videos of the shooting emerged, contradicting early claims by Trump administration officials that Pretti had aggressively approached officers with a gun. Video footage shows Pretti holding his cellphone while being tackled to the ground, with one officer removing a handgun from the back of Pretti's pants as another officer begins firing shots into his back.
Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, according to the videos.
Both Jermeland and Williamson expressed skepticism about the investigation’s impartiality. Williamson cited previous federal efforts to block Minnesota officials from conducting their own inquiry or preserving evidence.
“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that justice will be served,” Williamson said.
Williamson also condemned administration officials for labeling Pretti a terrorist and questioning his right to be armed.
“It is repugnant. It is disgraceful,” he said. “Watching the footage of him trying to help a young woman up off the ground shows me he was not there with violent intent. He was there as one of us.”
The Associated Press also has reported on newly surfaced videos of a separate altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death, during which he kicked out the taillight of a federal vehicle and was briefly restrained. Attorneys for Pretti’s family have said that earlier incident in no way justified the fatal shooting days later.
Joe Stutler, a disabled combat veteran, told the crowd that VA workers like Pretti are essential to veterans’ well-being.
“Alex was one of our caretakers,” Stutler said. “ … All of these AFGE folks, they take care of me, they take care of me and countless other veterans who have served our nation. These people deserve a lot more than what this particular administration is giving them. … I raised my hand and said I was willing to die for this country. The least I can get is you not killing the folks that take care of me.”
Sunday’s vigil came amid ongoing protests in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities following the killings of Pretti and Renee Good, as well as heightened federal immigration enforcement actions that have drawn widespread criticism and fear in immigrant communities.
The Iowa City vigil also followed student-led demonstrations across Eastern Iowa. On Friday, roughly 200 students at Cedar Rapids Washington High School walked out of classes as part of a national protest against federal immigration enforcement, while about 100 students and community members gathered near Coe College for a related demonstration.
The vigil concluded with a moment of silence as attendees lined the sidewalk with lit candles, organizers urging participants to remain peaceful and to remember Pretti by continuing the mission of caring for one another.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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