Tribute video unrelated to Minnesota nurse killed while protesting
- Published on January 30, 2026 at 16:06
- 3 min read
- By Marisha GOLDHAMER, AFP USA
Vigils and tributes to intensive care nurse Alex Pretti have been held in Minneapolis and throughout the United States after he was shot dead by immigration enforcement agents, but a video of a flag-draped gurney being rolled through a hospital hallway is unrelated. The veterans hospital where Pretti worked said the footage was not filmed at its facility, and visual elements indicate the footage likely dates to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Health professionals and coworkers paid tribute to ICU nurse Alex Pretti as his body was moved out of hospital," says a January 27, 2026 post on X from Al Jazeera English.
The same video showing two masked individuals rolling a flag-covered hospital bed down a corridor lined by people also wearing masks and scrubs received more than 193,000 likes on the Occupy Democrats Instagram account.
The clip was widely shared across X, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Threads amid bipartisan outrage over the January 24 shooting of Pretti.
Minneapolis has been gripped by weeks of protests against the roundup of undocumented migrants. Two Americans demonstrating against the sweeps -- Pretti and Renee Good -- have been shot dead by federal agents.
President Donald Trump's top aide Stephen Miller initially justified Pretti's killing by branding him a "would-be assassin" -- despite video evidence clearly showing he was assisting another protester when agents wrestled him to the ground and disarmed him of a licensed firearm he was not brandishing prior to being shot.
Trump had claimed he wanted to "de-esclate" the situation by appointing a new point man for operations in Minneapolis, border chief Tom Homan, but on January 30 he took to his Truth Social platform to call Pretti an "agitagor and, perhaps, insurrectionist" (archived here).
The deadly tensions in Minnesota have set off a wave of misinformation, and this video of the purported tribute at the hospital where Pretti worked is similarly misrepresented.
"This video was not taken at the Minneapolis VA," Veterans Affairs Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement emailed to AFP on January 28. "We have no other information about it."
Similarly, there is no such footage in the hospital's official news releases or on its social media accounts (archived here and here).
A keyword search revealed a Threads post from a user who said the footage was recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic at the Rocky Mountain VA in Colorado (archived here).
"I know all these people. As much as I would love to see Alex Pretti honored this way, this is not him" the January 26 post said.
AFP reached out to the user, Alan Smith, who posted a picture of a shirt that matches the gurney attendant in the video and other evidence of his employment at the Colorado hospital for more details, but a response was not forthcoming (archived here and here).
Contacted by AFP, the Colorado facility pointed to Kasperowicz's statement, but several visual elements indicate the image was likely taken prior to 2026, including the universal mask wearing by staff and their adherence to a semblance of social distancing along the corridor.
Fact checking organization Snopes pointed to visual similarities of a hallway picture geotagged on Google Maps to the Colorado hospital (archived here).
Moment of silence
There is also no evidence that Pretti's body was taken to the hospital where he worked. His parents told the Associated Press on January 24 that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner was holding their son's body.
Additional keyword searches bring up a Facebook post from January 26 that appears to show an actual moment of silence staff at the Minneapolis VA held for Pretti (archived here).
In the images, the staff is largely unmasked and stand much closer than in the video.
The pictures were shared by Garrett Peterson, who said in an October 2025 post he was celebrating 30 years of employment at the Minneapolis hospital (archived here).
State records confirm a person with that name is a registered nurse in Minnesota.
A few kilometers (miles) south of downtown Minneapolis, the place where Pretti died has been transformed into a makeshift memorial -- just blocks from a similar shrine marking the spot where Good was shot.
On January 28, despite sub-freezing temperatures, a candlelight vigil was held.
Read more of AFP's coverage of misinformation around the immigration enforcement in Minnesota here.
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