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.
“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.
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.
In the video, someone shouted, “Get out of here!”
“Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street,” the message read.
“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.
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.”