Vigil held in Columbia for Minneapolis ICE-shooting victim  

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Around 10 people gathered on Monday near the Harry S Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital in Columbia to honor a man who was killed Saturday by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Candles were present, one person waved a flag that read “Defend Democracy,” another held up a photo of a man, while another accompanied it with a sign with the name “Alex Pretti.”

Pretti -- who worked as an Intensive Care Unit nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center for around five years -- was identified as the victim in Saturday’s shooting by federal agents.

Catherine Porter, of Columbia, is a veteran who goes to the Truman VA hospital and attended Monday afternoon’s memorial.

“There’s no real point to this [vigil] other than to honor him [Pretti],” Porter said. “I can’t speak for other people, but I’ve been… this past year has been very difficult for me. I don’t believe our country’s going anywhere in the right direction. It needs to be turned around and I hope people are seeing that now. We don’t want the Gestapo in the streets. Nobody wants that.”