Rachel Abrams: A warning that this episode contains descriptions of violence and graphic language.

Rachel Abrams: From the New York Times. I'm Rachel Abrams and this is the Daily.

Rachel Abrams: The [ ] DID YOU JUST DO? WHAT THE [ ] DID YOU JUST DO? Outrage and protest in Minneapolis after federal agents shoot and kill a man today.

Rachel Abrams: Border Patrol agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Rachel Abrams: The second fatal clash between federal authorities and protesters in less than a month.

Rachel Abrams: You murder. How dare you.

Rachel Abrams: Eyewitness video shows once again reckless, violent, and dangerous federal agents taking the life of a man. If it can happen here, it can happen in your community, too.

Rachel Abrams: The shooting prompted a fresh wave of fury and condemnation across the country.

Rachel Abrams: How many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?

Rachel Abrams: And it horrified residents in a city that has been revolting against a federal government crackdown on immigration.

Rachel Abrams: This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts.

Rachel Abrams: No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines. That is not a peaceful protest and you do not get to touch law enforcement.

Rachel Abrams: Federal officials alleged that the protester was the aggressor and that the agents acted in self-defense.

Rachel Abrams: Oh my god. Oh, they just saw somebody.

Rachel Abrams: But videos of the shooting directly contradict that claim.

Rachel Abrams: Today, we talked to our colleagues Devon Lum and Ernesto Londono about how the shooting unfolded and what may come next.

Rachel Abrams: It's Monday, January 26th. Devon, welcome to the Daily.

Devon Lum: Thanks for having me.

Rachel Abrams: So Devon, by now I think a lot of people have seen this really graphic footage of a man named Alex Prey getting shot by federal agents in Minnesota. The Department of Homeland Security claims that Prey was approaching these agents with a handgun, that he was intent on committing what they called, quote, a massacre. You are a member of our visual investigations team, which means that you have been spending a lot of time analyzing footage from this shooting, from the scene. So, what do you make of the government's claims?

Devon Lum: We've been analyzing footage from various different angles over the past day and a half trying to better understand what took place before, during, and after the shooting.

Rachel Abrams: Mhm. You know, there's contention over what happened between the federal government and the state government, and we're doing our best to resolve that contention by walking through the visual evidence as clearly and as in-depth as we possibly can. And the one thing that's blatantly clear in our analysis that contrasts with the narrative that the administration put out there in the immediate aftermath of the shooting is that Freddy was not holding a gun when he began interacting with the federal agents or throughout the entirety of their interaction. Instead, he's holding a cell phone.

Rachel Abrams: And can you just set the scene, Devon, at the beginning of the footage that you've been analyzing? What do we see? What's going on? The footage begins with two protesters interacting with a federal agent on a street in Minneapolis in front of a doughnut shop. We can see that Freddy is walking into the street with his outstretched arm holding his cell phone recording the interaction. He appears to be an observer in this moment. He's standing, you know, further away from where that interaction is taking place

Rachel Abrams: and appears to be directing traffic with his free hand. And how do things escalate from there?

Devon Lum: The agent who was interacting with the two protesters standing in the street begins to push the protesters in the direction of Mr. Prey and eventually they make their way towards where he's standing. So before I get into the details, I just want to say that these next moments happen very quickly. From the time that things started to escalate until the final shot is fired, just over 40 seconds elapsed.

Rachel Abrams: Wow.

Devon Lum: Once they get there, the agent pushes one of the protesters to the ground and Alex Prey steps in between the agent and the woman who has just been pushed to the ground. The agent begins firing pepper spray at him. In that moment, we can see that he's still holding his cell phone and his other hand is still free.

Rachel Abrams: Mhm.

Devon Lum: Then Alex Prey turns around to apparently try to help the woman who's been pushed to the ground up to her feet and the agent continues firing pepper spray at both of them. Several agents appear behind Mr. Prey and begin pulling him in order to get him down to the ground. Once he's down on the ground, several other agents are holding him down. They're grabbing at his legs. Mhm.

Rachel Abrams: They're pushing him in his back and they appear to be striking him repetitively.

Devon Lum: Mhm.

Devon Lum: Another agent walks towards the scrum and reaches toward Alex Prey with open hands. It's unclear at that moment why he's grabbing at him, but a few seconds later we hear someone saying he's got a gun over and over again. They say it repetitively,

Rachel Abrams: meaning that they might not have realized that he had a gun until that moment when he's on the ground.

Devon Lum: Exactly. And again, looking back at the footage, from any point of the interaction up until now, there is no visual giveaway that would indicate that agents knew that he was armed.

Rachel Abrams: So, what happens next? How does the scene unfold from there once he's restrained and on the ground?

Devon Lum: The agent who reached into the scrum with open hands, grabs a firearm from Alex Freddy's waist. Then about 1 second after Freddy's gun has been removed, another agent fires the first shot.

Rachel Abrams: So he can see the other agent taking the gun out of the holster.

Devon Lum: We're not exactly sure what he's seeing at this point because it's a very split second, but in the video it appears he has a clear vantage point of the disarming as it's happening. So, at this point, just to be clear, one agent has removed the gun, has backed away from Alex Prey, and that's when we hear the first shot that was fired. Yes, the gun that was apparently removed from Alex Py's hip is away from the pile before the first shot is fired. And after that first shot is fired, Freddy appears to get up onto his knees, and his hands, which were bunched up near his head, move down towards his sides. The agent fires three more times and Freddy begins to fall to the ground. He reaches down with his left hand while falling, apparently to brace himself and there is not appear to be weapons in either of his hands. Then the agent who initially pepper-sprayed Freddy joins in, and the two of them fire six more shots at Py's disarmed body, which is at this point laying motionless on the ground. In total, they appear to fire 10 shots in 5 seconds.

Rachel Abrams: We can hear in later footage that as agents are searching Alex Party's body after he's already been shot.

Rachel Abrams: One agent yells, "Where's the gun? Where's the gun?" So clearly not all of the agents know that Alex Prey had already been disarmed. You know, given the fact that the first shot was fired only about a second after PR's gun was removed,

Devon Lum: even though the agent who shot Alex Prey might have been able to see that the gun had been unholstered, it all is happening so fast that you can't know for sure whether he definitely knew that when he was firing.

Rachel Abrams: Well, sure, it's it's difficult to know what the agent who fired saw or knew when he fired other than that there was a gun present.

Devon Lum: Mhm. But what we do know is that Alex Prey was very clearly subdued on the ground. He was being held down and his arms were by his head.

Rachel Abrams: And again, the agent was standing behind Prey. He was aiming at his back. So he presented no clear threat to the agents at that point. But I want to stress that the statement that is being made by the Department of Homeland Security is that Freddy approached an agent with a gun.

Devon Lum: Right?

Devon Lum: It's true. He was armed with a gun, but the videos show he was not holding it in his hand throughout the entire interaction with the agents.

Rachel Abrams: Mhm.

Devon Lum: The Department of Homeland Security also said the agent fired out of concern for the agents safety. So, if we're looking at the footage and we're assessing whether or not there's a concern for safety, we can see that Freddy is on the ground, he's being subdued, and even if there's a gun on his hip, at one point, he can't reach it. So, the response to shoot him, to pull out a firearm and and shoot him rather than taking a beat to understand whether another agent, one of your colleagues, has disarmed the person you're about to shoot. It just doesn't comport with what the Department of Homeland Security is saying.

Rachel Abrams: You know, we talked to our colleague Charles Has on the show about a week ago. He described at that point what felt almost like a lull in the sense that it had been a few days since a federal agent had shot Renee Good. Obviously, people had taken to the streets were outraged, but it felt also like ICE was operating a little bit less visibly. And I think it was kind of an open question at that time whether things would escalate or would deescalate. And it feels really notable that here we are just a few days later reacting to another fatal shooting. Yes, this is the second shooting in less than a month that's been carried out by federal agents in Minneapolis where the footage that we've analyzed has conflicted with statements that have been made by the Department of Homeland Security about what took place. Tensions are already high online, around the country, and on the ground in Minneapolis, and this is sure to inflame them further. Devon Lum, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Rachel Abrams: We'll be right back. Ernesto. Hi.

Ernesto Londono: Hi, Rachel.

Rachel Abrams: I wonder Ernesto, could you just tell us what it's been like on the ground in the hours since Alex Prey was shot?

Ernesto Londono: I think this is a city where people are shell shocked. Ever since this immigration crackdown began late last month, there's been sort of a sense that things are escalating in a way that feels unsustainable. And Saturday morning, a second individual was killed by federal agents. In both cases, these were American citizens who had decided to take to the streets to monitor and to challenge the work of immigration agents. And in both cases they were gunned down. And I think people both in local government but just residents have been trying desperately to find an offramp from a situation they think is really dangerous.

Rachel Abrams: Can you talk about what we know about Alex Prey as of now?

Ernesto Londono: Yes, we know that he was a nurse at the VA locally. We are told that he cared deeply for his patients and that he was a beloved member of his community. We know that he carried a weapon and that he was allowed to be a gun owner and that he was armed when this occurred. We know he had no criminal record and you know he was a federal employee. So, I don't think we've seen any evidence to suggest that he was a violent person, but we're only, you know, about 24 hours into this. So, I think there's a lot we will learn in the hours and days ahead.

Rachel Abrams: What do we know about what Border Patrol was doing at the scene at that moment? Do we know anything about who they were trying to apprehend, for instance?

Ernesto Londono: So what we heard is that the border patrol agents were trying to find a specific guy, an immigrant from Ecuador, that they portrayed as somebody with a very significant criminal history, somebody who was violent. And what the Trump administration is saying is any effort of people impeding the work of these agents is unconscionable because they're just here to impose order and to keep people and neighborhoods safe. However, just hours after the shooting, you had the Minnesota Department of Corrections, which runs the prison system, come out and say, "Hey, we looked into this matter. We looked into court records. We can't find evidence that this individual has anything beyond some misdemeanor traffic citations. So, you know, essentially the state is pouring cold water on the genesis of the operation that led to this killing. If the shooting had been done by local authorities, you could imagine and predict sort of what would happen next just in terms of an investigation into the use of force. The shooting obviously happened by a border patrol agent. So I wonder how would it normally work in the aftermath of this kind of a thing. What would you normally expect and what do we know about what is happening now? So the way this has been handled in the past, for instance, when there was a US marshal who used deadly force here a few years ago is the federal government, the department of justice and its office of civil rights partners quickly with the state agency that has the most expertise in use of force cases. And they collect and review evidence jointly trying to make sense of whether the officer when he or she used deadly force had a credible fear that that was the only means to remain safe in the face of a dire threat to the agent or to others around them.

Rachel Abrams: These videos that have emerged to date, you know, while really providing us considerable amount of insight into what happened in that moment are only part of the story. And usually when this kind of investigation is conducted, you try to get more video of what was happening, you know, minutes before this, you try to get witness accounts of what was being said, you know, as part of this exchange. So typically, it takes weeks, if not months, for investigators to assemble a complete and conclusive picture that allows them to decide whether or not a prosecution is warranted. Mhm.

Ernesto Londono: What you saw in the immediate aftermath of the initial shooting early this month, the shooting of Renee Good is that top officials in the Trump administration said that the state agency was being cut off of the investigation. This was highly anomalous for these kind of shootings and it immediately created a concern among local officials that there was going to be a cover up, that we weren't going to get a proper and thorough investigation. Mhm.

Rachel Abrams: So what the local prosecutor in Henipin County, which includes Minneapolis, did was in the absence of sort of the ability of gathering firthand evidence, forensic evidence and witness testimony from the kind of people that would normally be involved in this kind of an investigation. She created an online portal and asked people out in the community to submit videos and any other evidence that might help her office establish whether or not a crime occurred and whether or not there's enough evidence to bring charges against the agents.

Ernesto Londono: That sounds extremely unusual.

Ernesto Londono: To call this unusual would be the understatement of the decade. And fast forward a couple of weeks when we have this second fatal shooting on Saturday. At the outset, local and state officials who ran to the scene to try to preserve and examine evidence were physically blocked from getting there. And as of this moment, they don't even know the identity of the federal agents who opened fire. So something as basic as knowing who it is you're investigating is going to make any prosecution or any investigation that people regard as credible and satisfying really really hard.

Rachel Abrams: And in the meantime, of course, you already have federal officials coming out and making conclusions as though an investigation has already been conducted. You have Cash Patel and you have Christine Gnome saying this guy was a menace. He had a gun. He was threatening agents. So while an investigation is still pending, you already have federal officials, much like in the aftermath of Renee Good, coming out and basically stating what happened as if we know for certain.

Ernesto Londono: Absolutely. And you know, usually there's an appeal for calm and patience in the wake of these kind of incidents which are so traumatic for communities. What we've seen in the case is the opposite. We've seen federal officials use really incendiary and jarring language to describe the conduct of people who have been observing, documenting, and challenging the work of immigration agents. They've characterized some of these people as domestic terrorists. And the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the governor, Tim Walls, the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, the mayor of St. Paul, who just got inaugurated a few days ago, the attorney general, and the top prosecutor in Minneapolis. And the contention is that all these Democratic elected officials have been speaking in ways that the federal government deems dangerous for their immigration enforcement operation because they've been resisting it and criticizing it and challenging it. Is there any evidence that local law enforcement is in fact obstructing or interfering with federal officials in their deportation efforts?

Rachel Abrams: No. It's important to point out that the city of Minneapolis and the city of St. Paul, they have chosen not to cooperate with civil immigration enforcement, meaning police officers in these cities do not ask residents about their immigration status. However, when it comes to people who are in jails and prisons, the state says that they cooperate routinely in facilitating a seamless and practical handover of individuals who are subject to deportation who are about to be released either from state prisons because they've completed their sentence or from jails. So local officials say the sense that Minnesota is this kind of radical sanctuary state where people who are here legally are essentially shielded by the local government is blatantly false.

Rachel Abrams: Can you walk us through how state officials are responding? People like Tim Waltz, Mayor Jacob Fry, Senator Amy Clolobachar. What are they saying? And and how has any of that rhetoric shifted since the first shooting? They are suing the administration trying to see if a judge orders the administration to put an end to the immigration crackdown. And Saturday's shooting led Governor Walls to deploy the National Guard because I think he and people in his administration feel that this city could once again blow up the way we saw in the wake of George Floyd's killing in 2020.

Rachel Abrams: M so I want to talk about the broader political response for a moment. Are there other options that elected officials both in Minnesota and beyond are considering right now? Federal lawmakers from Minnesota appear to be in lock step thinking that maybe the only way to shut this down or to use one of the few levers of power they have over the Trump administration is the threat of withholding funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The question though, you know, considering the fact that Republicans are in control of both chambers and Capitol Hill, is whether you could have enough Republicans peel off and agree with Democrats. And while I think we're starting to see glimmers of Republicans signaling discomfort, it's far from clear whether you'd have enough votes and enough opposition to really make a difference.

Ernesto Londono: Polls in this country show that most people are supportive of the Trump administration's stated goals of dealing with immigration by closing the border, enforcing deportations of people who are here illegally. But a majority of Americans think that ICE has gone too far in its tactics. And in recent weeks since the killing of Renee Good, you have started to see and hear people who have traditionally been supportive of the administration really question these policies. You had Joe Rogan basically compare ICE to the Gestapo. You had Maria Berto Romo pushing Cash Patel on television about what kind of threat Alex Prey could have possibly posed given the fact that he was holding a camera and not a gun. And so while it's incredibly hard to speculate of course about what comes next, I do wonder if the second killing feels like in any way a tipping point to you right now.

Rachel Abrams: I think the videos in this case are singularly horrifying. I also think just based on the kind of emails that have been streaming into my inbox over the past 24 hours that we remain a deeply divided country on the question of immigration and on the merits of a really draconian response to the problem of illegal immigration. There are people for whom these actions are not justified but welcome. There are many people who have written to me to say these people in Minneapolis who got gunned down had it coming. They shouldn't have been interfering with the work of immigration agents and let this be a lesson to other people who would want to challenge what they're doing.

Ernesto Londono: Right? I think one of the things that is really interesting about the two individuals whose lives were lost is on some level they're like deeply sympathetic figures. This woman was a mother of three and a poet. Mhm. And the second victim was a nurse who worked and took care of veterans. So, it feels hard, I think, for the average American to take this assertion that these two people who were gunned down in broad daylight fit the description of a domestic terrorist. So I think the key question is what happens to the segment of the electorate that is more moderate on these issues, that is more persuadable, and for whom these really searing images and videos are going to push them into the camp of thinking this has gone too far and that on some level the administration needs to be reigned in.

Rachel Abrams: Ernesto, thank you so much. Thank you. We'll be right back.

Rachel Abrams: Here's what else you need to know today. A dangerous winter storm pummeled much of the eastern United States on Sunday, shattering temperature records, knocking out power to more than a million homes and businesses, and wreaking havoc on daily life from Mississippi to Massachusetts. Five people were found dead in New York City over the weekend, and officials were investigating whether they died because of the cold. One person died of exposure in Austin, Texas, while the Louisiana Department of Health said two men had died of hypothermia. And Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, Democrat of Florida, was hit in the face by a man who told the lawmaker that he would be deported at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah over the weekend. The police said they responded to reports of an assault at the High West Saloon, a whiskey distillery and bar where a private party was being held. The attacker quote, "Told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face," said Mr. Frost, whose family moved from Cuba to Florida in the early 1960s in a social media post.

Rachel Abrams: "Today's episode was produced by Diana Wyn and Nina Feldman. It was edited by Lizo Balin and Lisa Chow. Contains music by Pat McCusker, Rowan Demy Misto, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. And was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.