US immigration agents shot and killed a US citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday, officials said, causing fierce protests and condemnations from local leaders in the second such incident this month.
The Department of Homeland Security characterised the incident as an attack, saying a Border Patrol agent fired in self-defence after a man approached with a handgun and violently resisted attempts to disarm him.
But bystander videos from the scene verified by Reuters showed the man, identified as Alex Pretti, 37, holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, as he tried to help other protesters who had been pushed to the ground by agents.
As the videos begin, Mr Pretti can be seen filming as a federal agent pushes away one woman and pushes another person to the ground.
Mr Pretti moves between the agent and the women, then raises his left arm to shield himself and turns away as the agent pepper-sprays him.
Mr Pretti turns and tries to aid the woman who has fallen as the agent continues to spray him. As Mr Pretti lifts up the woman, the agent pulls him off her and Mr Pretti is forced onto his hands and knees by several agents. One of them pulls an item from Mr Pretti’s waistband then quickly moves away from the scene.
Moments later, an officer with a handgun pointed at Mr Pretti's back fires four shots at him in quick succession. Several more shots can then be heard as another agent appears to fire at Mr Pretti.
The agents initially all back away from Mr Pretti’s body on the road. Some agents then seem to offer medical assistance to Mr Pretti as he lies on the ground, while other agents keep bystanders back.
The shooting of Mr Pretti, an intensive care nurse, drew hundreds of protesters to the neighbourhood to confront the armed and masked agents, who used tear gas and flashbang grenades. Demonstrations also broke out in New York, Washington DC and San Francisco, among other cities.
It also raised tension between state and federal officials, already at odds with the Trump administration over the shooting of another US citizen, Renee Good, on January 7.
