Stella Carlson was on her way to paint children’s faces at a church when she heard the whistles—the now-ubiquitous warning signal that federal immigration officers had arrived in her Minneapolis neighborhood.
Instead of face painting, she ended up filming a man’s death and providing the crucial evidence that exposed the Trump administration’s lies about what happened.
Carlson, who has since become known as “pink jacket lady” from other videos of the incident, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she watched Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who treated veterans, spend his final moments trying to help a woman who had been knocked down during a street confrontation between protesters and federal officers.
WHAT’S GOING ON: Carlson’s video directly contradicted claims from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that Pretti had “brandished” his gun, and from Stephen Miller that Pretti approached law enforcement “with the intent to assassinate them.” Neither was true. Carlson said she didn’t even know Pretti was armed until after he was shot—and wouldn’t have gotten so close if she had.
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The video showed officers removed Pretti’s handgun from its holster seconds before he was pinned down and shot multiple times, including in his back.
“I remember him arching his back and his head rolling back,” Carlson said. She had previously seen people die in hospice settings. “I knew he was gone because I watched it.”
THE DETAILS: What happened next still haunts her. Officers attempted what she described as “some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors, and then maneuvering his body around like a rag doll, only to discover that it could be because they wanted to count the bullet wounds to see how many they got, like he’s a deer.”
Carlson wasn’t naive about the risks of being there. The fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer earlier this month made the danger of observing federal immigration enforcement very real. “I know every time I leave my vehicle or leave my house and I put that whistle around my neck, I know because of Renee Good, the risk,” she said.
WHY IT MATTERS: Her footage forced the White House into damage control mode. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who led the surge in Minneapolis and other cities, was pulled out of Minnesota. President Trump said he would seek to “de-escalate” the situation. The administration faced bipartisan backlash—not just from the shooting itself, but from top officials’ claims that Pretti had somehow invited his own death by legally carrying a firearm.
Of course, as of Tuesday, Carlson said federal law enforcement hadn’t contacted her despite her sworn statement about what she witnessed. She has “little confidence” in any federal investigation.
BOTTOM LINE: Carlson credits the community organizing that’s emerged over three weeks of federal enforcement actions for giving her the courage to stay and record. “We all have to be brave and we all have to take risks, and we’re all going to be given moments to make that decision,” she said.
Her faith isn’t in federal investigators. It’s in “various representatives throughout our country who are trying to do the right thing and make sure that justice is served.” Without her video, the administration’s lies about Alex Pretti might have stood unchallenged.