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THE FAR-LEFT NETWORK THAT HELPED PUT ALEX PRETTI IN HARM'S WAY, THEN MADE HIM A MARTYR
Encrypted Signal messages show 'rapid responders' mobilized demonstrators to harass federal agents, then socialist groups capitalized on killing to foment protests
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/far-left-network-helped-put-alex-pretti-harms-way-made-him-martyr


  • January 25, 2026



    The skirmish that led to Saturday's fatal shooting of an agitator by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis and the response that followed were driven by a complex network of far-left organizations with a wide range of causes, a Fox News Digital investigation found.

    A coordinated web of encrypted chats, street alerts and tracking of ICE "Abductors" in a sophisticated database reviewed by Fox News Digital shows that agitators were already mobilized at the scene where 37-year-old Alex Pretti was killed minutes before any shots were fired.

    ICE and Border Patrol agents were there to arrest an illegal immigrant criminal, and Pretti and others were there, outside a donut shop, to meet them as part of a strategic pattern of organized interference with law enforcement operations.


    Over the following hours, a national network of socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist cells in the United States leveraged the tragic fatality into a nationwide protest operation. While grief and outrage over Pretti's death is genuine, the network's real-time rapid response, using short sensational video clips and emojis as weapons of propaganda, offers a window into the disciplined logistics, messaging and coordination of far-left warriors fomenting insurgency-like confrontation with authorities.

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    "This level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis. It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities," Vice President JD Vance observed in a Sunday post on X.

    The encrypted Signal messages obtained by Fox News Digital in real time show that anti-ICE "rapid responders" were actively tracking, broadcasting and summoning "backup" around federal agents outside Glam Doll Donuts on Nicollet Avenue, where the shooting happened. Local "rapid responders" made at least 26 entries into a database called "MN ICE Plates" in the critical hours before and after the killing, documenting the license plate numbers and details of alleged ICE vehicles they claimed to see around Nicollet Avenue.

    The entry at row 344 read, "At the nicollet [sic] murder," chronicling a black Jeep Wagoneer at the location with agents allegedly "involved in shooting." Row 338 had a "Glam Doll Donuts" entry, tracking a black Ford Taurus.

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    At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."


    "26and 3rd," wrote "Willow," quickly following up with, "Outside Glam Doll."

    The video showed two agents, one wearing a vest marked "POLICE," studying the front door of Glam Doll before walking away, past a sign in the window that read, "ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA."

    As the camera rolled, the person filming yelled, "No!"

    The camera followed the agents as they returned to a maroon Dodge Durango, passing another sign in the window that read, "ALL WELCOME HERE."

    In the video, someone shouted, "Get out of here!"

    Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

    "Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.


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    "Multiple vehicles with many agents appear to be staging there," the alert continued. "One confirmed ICE vehicle seen was a maroon Dodge Durango [plate number], but it has driven away northbound on Nicollet." Fox News Digital has redacted the Florida license plate number included in the original message.

    ICE Assistant Director Marcos Charles said Sunday that the violence on the streets was "not a coincidence," considering the "chaos and mayhem" that agitators are fomenting in Minneapolis. At the same press conference, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino confirmed that Pretti was "on the scene several minutes" before the fatal shooting.

    Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

    Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

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    At 10:18 a.m. ET, the Signal network erupted.


    Using a red phone emoji to signal an all-points alert, a message blasted out: "?? easy. URGENT: observers urgently requested at glam doll donuts @ 26th & nicollet [sic]," the alert continued. "an observer has been shot by ice, unknown condition, emts [emergency medical technicians] present, please be safe. EDIT: medics requested to join perimeter in case agents start gassing. be aware there are many agents and mpd [Minneapolis Police Department] officers present."

    Within minutes, far-left activists descended on Nicollet Avenue. Soon after, a video showed corrugated boxes of supplies apparently lined up on a Minneapolis sidewalk for protesters, including boxes marked "DESINER MASKS" [sic] and "FREE WINTER HATS," next to piles of bottled water.

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    Within hours, socialist leaders turbocharged their "rapid responders" in Minneapolis and mobilized street protesters from New York City to Los Angeles.

    Media outlets, including CNN and MSNOW, described "angry protesters" but failed to identify the ideological networks behind the mobilization, even as protesters flashed their signs with their logos and names, touting socialism, communism and Marxism, on camera.

    The Minneapolis activation marked the beginning of an almost instantaneous weekend surge by far-left organizations, including hardened socialist and communist groups operating in an ecosystem that national security experts describe as an insurgent-style operation designed to exploit tragedy to wage a domestic political war.

    The strategy mirrors past mobilizations, including the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in May 2020, and exploits well-intentioned public sympathy by rapidly framing Pretti — an intensive care unit nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital — as a symbol of resistance, much like Renee Good, the first victim of an ICE shooting in Minneapolis.


    Just as they responded in real-time to mobilize "comrades" to march on the streets within 12 hours of the U.S. arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in early January, socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist groups now frame their activation as an action within the "belly of the beast" against the "hyperimperialism" of the United States.

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    Based on a digital analysis of scores of rapid-response messages following the killing on Saturday, a hub of communist and socialist nonprofit organizations emerged as key organizers of the protests. Many of them are funded by American-born billionaire Neville Roy Singham, a self-declared Marxist-Leninist living in Shanghai. Some are also offshoots of the People’s Forum Inc., a nonprofit hub Singham has funded in New York City since 2017 as an "incubator" for socialist and communist groups. The People's Forum declined requests for comment.

    At 10:48 a.m. ET, BreakThrough News, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and propaganda arm of the People’s Forum, broke the news widely of the killing, sharing a video recorded from inside the Glam Doll Donut shot of the tussle outside, punctuated by gunshots and frantic narration, "Holy s--t. What the f---!...Did they f---ing kill that guy? F---ing kidding me, dude."

    BreakThrough News put a dramatic black-and-white caption over the video: "BREAKING: Another CBP Shooting in Minneapolis." By Sunday afternoon, the video had 4.1 million views, alongside the outlet’s calls to support the People’s Republic of China, Venezuela’s Maduro and the communist revolution in Cuba.

    Before the video cuts off, someone can be heard saying, "Yo, we need people on site!"

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    [ and plenty more at the link ]




And all this is PERFECTLY OKAY with M E M and the Democrat-Bolsheviks. They just call ICE agents and Trump "Nazi thugs" , and act like all this had no role in the shooting. When the Left has been pushing on every front in Minneapolis and other blue states for EXACTLY this kind of incident to occur.
And then they blame Trump and the agents, for a situation the Soros-funded Left has spent millions and an army of activists across muliple cities nationwide to orchestrate.