AI-enhanced image depicting shooting of Minnesota nurse includes hallucinations
- Published on January 26, 2026 at 23:23
- 3 min read
- By Gwen Roley, AFP USA
Social media is awash with graphic footage from the moment US federal immigration agents shot and killed 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but one supposed frame from the scene was manipulated using artificial intelligence. Experts confirmed the image was a synthetic enhancement of authentic video of the shooting, as is evidenced by one figure missing his head.
"It's on video and here is a freeze frame," reads the caption of a January 25, 2026 Facebook post sharing the visual.
In the image, agents surround and point a gun at the head of a man, assumed to be Pretti, who is kneeling on the ground.
Users spread the picture rapidly across Instagram, Facebook, X and Threads with its supposed high quality standing in contrast to some of the grainy footage of the incident that had already been shared.
One post on X suggested the image should be the cover of an issue of Time magazine. While some used the image to criticize US agents' use of force, others claimed it proved that Pretti was pulling out a weapon during the confrontation.
Tensions in Minneapolis over US President Donald Trump's surge of immigration enforcement agents to the city were heightened once again on January 24 when federal officers shot Pretti, a US citizen, after having tackled him to the ground.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed the nurse intended to harm agents but video verified by Bellingcat and the New York Times showed Pretti never drew the pistol local officials said he was licensed to carry and had apparently been disarmed by the moment he was shot (archived here).
The incident follows the January 7 shooting of another Minneapolis resident and US citizen, Renee Good, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. The Trump administration also claimed Good was endangering the lives of officers to the contradiction of video evidence, while AFP debunked several misleading visuals allegedly associated with the event and the victim.
Similarly, the supposed high-resolution picture of agents shooting Pretti is manipulated using artificial intelligence.
A reverse image search reveals it strongly resembles footage from one angle of the incident, which was verified by the New York Times, Bellingcat and others. However, the authentic video is much more pixelated and lower quality.
Several elements of the alleged high-quality still are characteristic of AI-generated images.
The agent kneeling next to the figure meant to be Pretti does not appear to have a head. One of the officer's legs bends at an unnatural angle next to an indiscernible object.
The item in Pretti's right hand in the manipulated image, which some claimed to be a weapon, is still blurred but authentic footage shows that he was holding a phone on that side.
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Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Information (archived here), told AFP the GetReal Security lab he co-founded also concluded the image was an AI enhancement of a real video frame. He said this type of AI-generation has become popular as users try to create clear images from original but low-quality videos.
"The issue with these images is that the AI enhancement tends to hallucinate details," he said in a January 26 email.
He pointed to similar posts which synthetically "unmasked" the agent who shot Good. AFP also previously debunked images using artificial intelligence to "enhance" security footage to identify the shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation about protests in Minneapolis here.
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