The Use-of-Force Dilemma in Minneapolis
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on January 24, 2026 and Renée Good on January 7, 2026, have forced an urgent question into the national conversation: Are federal immigration agents prepared for the unique challenges of enforcement operations in protest-filled, urban environments—especially when some protesters actively interfere with targeted operations and arrests?
This is not simply a partisan dispute. The answer affects how these incidents should be evaluated and what policy lessons should be drawn. If agents are being deployed into volatile conditions without adequate preparation, that points to systemic shortcomings requiring institutional solutions. If agents are following appropriate protocols in genuinely dangerous circumstances, that demands a different conversation—one that squarely addresses the risks and operational realities of immigration enforcement in resistant communities.
The facts in both cases remain contested. Federal authorities say Pretti approached U.S. Custom and Border Protection (CBP) agents with a 9mm handgun during an operation and violently resisted when agents attempted to disarm him. Minnesota officials counter that Pretti was a lawful gun owner and U.S. citizen with no criminal record, shot without justification. Good’s case presents a different set of circumstances—she was in a vehicle that federal officials say she used to try to strike an agent, though video analysis raises questions about that account.
What links these cases is not political sympathy for one side or the other, but a genuine policy problem: federal agents conducting immigration enforcement appear increasingly likely to encounter high-conflict urban scenes that their training and tactics may not be designed to handle. Compounding the issue is a lack of comprehensive and transparent data on federal use of force, which makes it difficult to determine whether Minneapolis reflects isolated breakdowns or deeper systemic gaps.
The Vehicle-Shooting Question
The debate over shooting at moving vehicles illustrates the dilemma. Many major police departments moved away from the practice decades ago after research in the 1970s and 1980s found that restricting such shootings reduced fatalities without increasing risks to officers. The practical logic is straightforward: shooting a driver rarely stops a vehicle immediately, and it can create a new danger—an uncontrolled car—while preserving the original threat.
Federal policy acknowledges this reality, at least in principle. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) policy prohibits shooting at vehicles “unless it is necessary to stop a grave threat” and bars using deadly force “solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.” U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) guidance goes further, stating that deadly force is justified only “when no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist,” including moving out of a vehicle’s path.
That is why the central factual question in Good’s case matters so much: Did her vehicle actually pose a deadly threat that could not be avoided? Video evidence is disputed, with some policing experts saying the agent could have moved while federal officials insist he acted in self-defense. Either way, this is precisely the type of split-second decision point that training and tactics are meant to prevent—not by teaching officers to hesitate under threat, but by teaching them to avoid positioning that creates an avoidable “shoot-or-be-hit” scenario.
Proper evaluation, then, requires more than replaying the moment shots were fired. It requires assessing the sequence of decisions that preceded it: positioning, approach, communication, and whether de-escalation opportunities existed and were pursued.
There is also a hard reality that complicates clean policy answers: What if protesters intentionally create these situations? If demonstrators believe agents will not shoot at vehicles, it may incentivize using cars to block or disrupt operations. Depending on your perspective this is either an act of civil disobedience or a dangerous obstruction of justice. Both viewpoints are plausible. The policy question is whether current federal tactics anticipate this dynamic—or inadvertently escalate confrontations.
Training for Urban Operations
A separate concern is the operational choice to deploy personnel with training and experience shaped by a different mission. Deploying CBP agents—whose training emphasizes patrol and tactical skills for remote border operations—into dense urban environments for interior immigration arrests raises predictable risks. CBP and ICE have different roles and different training protocols. CBP focuses on border security and enforces immigration laws at and between American ports of entry, while ICE investigates immigration and customs violations and enforces immigration law throughout the U.S. interior. Using CBP agents in complex urban scenes involving angry crowds, high media visibility, and legally armed citizens may place personnel in circumstances outside their preparation.
This is not a political accusation; it is basic institutional analysis. A use-of-force expert who also trained ICE agents put it plainly: “When you have incidents, you have to look at training. You have to look at, was there a gap in the training?” Those questions become more pressing in light of reported increased personnel. The Trump administration’s expansion of immigration enforcement raises the practical question of whether training and supervision scaled accordingly. Effective law enforcement depends on disciplined training, clear standards, and competent supervision—not simply increasing headcount.
The Data Transparency Gap
Another problem is that the public has remarkably little visibility into federal use of force in immigration operations. Many municipal police departments now track use-of-force incidents, publish policies, and report key metrics as part of modern accountability norms. Federal immigration agencies operate with far less consistent transparency, leaving policymakers and the public to rely on anecdote, litigation, and media reports rather than evidence.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) national use-of-force data efforts remain limited by voluntary participation and incomplete reporting. Without robust statistics, it is nearly impossible to determine whether incidents like those in Minneapolis are rare outliers or indicative of patterns tied to training, policy, or tactics.
This opacity harms both sides of the debate. Federal officials cannot credibly demonstrate that force is being used appropriately and consistently. Critics cannot credibly prove systemic misuse. The information vacuum fuels escalation, distrust, and conjecture—precisely the conditions under which volatile protests and enforcement encounters become more dangerous.
The Hostile Environment Factor
Federal officials are correct in describing Minneapolis as a challenging operating environment. Thousands of protesters have actively interfered with operations, using whistles, blocking streets, and confronting agents. When crowds are hostile and some individuals are armed—as Minnesota law permits—split-second judgments become far more difficult and officers face genuine danger.
But that reality strengthens—not weakens—the argument for disciplined tactics and specialized training. If the operational environment predictably produces chaotic scenes with armed citizens and aggressive crowds, the question becomes whether the approach itself is driving risk. Force rarely emerges from a single isolated moment; it stems from a sequence of actions and reactions, each raising or lowering the odds that deadly force becomes “necessary.”
There are reasonable arguments on multiple sides. Enforcement advocates can argue that agents have the right to defend themselves when threatened. Use-of-force experts can argue that better training and tactics reduce fatal encounters without undermining mission effectiveness. State and local officials can argue that federal operations are creating public-safety burdens. Civil libertarians can argue that risky operations in American cities will inevitably result in tragedy.
The point is not to declare one camp entirely right and the other entirely wrong. The point is to prevent more U.S. citizens from being injured or killed.
What Would Actually Help
If policymakers want fewer lethal outcomes, the agenda should be practical, measurable, and grounded in what works in modern policing.
- Clearer operational guidance should emphasize avoiding tactics that predictably create deadly-force decision points—particularly in vehicle scenarios where DOJ guidance already stresses avoidance when possible.
- Agents tasked with urban enforcement should receive specialized training distinct from rural border operations—training that focuses on crowd dynamics, de-escalation under provocation, lawful interactions with armed citizens, and pre-planned tactical positioning that reduces the likelihood of fatal split-second choices.
- Operational adjustments can reduce predictable flashpoints—whether through different staffing, different timing, different arrest methods, or different coordination with local officials—without compromising the enforcement mission itself.
- Shootings should be investigated independently and credibly, with standards that ensure accountability while recognizing that officers may face real threats.
- Comprehensive data collection and transparency regarding federal use of force would allow evidence-based assessment of whether current practices are working, and where they are failing.
In public policy, we must acknowledge that two things can be true simultaneously: Federal agents operating in Minneapolis face real dangers, and the people shot were U.S. citizens exercising their constitutional rights. More violence may follow unless something changes—either in federal tactics, local resistance, or both. That reality should matter more than scoring political points.