More than 100 community members gathered Sunday afternoon at a snowy Fountain Square for a vigil one day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis.
The man was identified as Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse. Video footage from a witness and independently verified by The New York Times shows Pretti holding a phone during the shooting, contradicting a Department of Homeland Security X statement claiming ICE agents tried to disarm Pretti and shot him in self-defense.
The Times has verified videos showing the agents removing a gun from Pretti’s person before the shooting. Videos verified by The Times also showed that Pretti did not draw the weapon.
Minneapolis has witnessed increased federal immigration enforcement in recent weeks, and Pretti is the second person and U.S. citizen ICE agents have killed in the city this month. The first was 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, whom agents fatally shot three weeks ago.
Good’s death prompted a similar emergency vigil Jan. 8, organized by Evanston-based activist group Pink Poster Club. The organization also arranged Sunday’s protest alongside Evanston Latinos, Indivisible Evanston and Sanctuary Evanston.
Sunday’s vigil was “intentional in uplifting” Evanston’s Latino community, Evanston Latinos Executive Director Ricardo Villalobos said.
Villalobos said Sunday’s programming of songs and speeches, done in both English and Spanish, aimed to showcase Latino culture. Toward the protest’s end, he took the stage with his guitar to perform a song in Spanish.
“People being impacted are people who sometimes don’t have a voice,” Villalobos told The Daily. “We want to make sure that the voices reflect the community being impacted.”
In addition to acknowledging Pretti and Good, Villalobos spoke about Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy from suburban Minneapolis who was detained alongside his father, as well as several victims who have died in ICE custody.
State Sen. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago) and Mayor Daniel Biss, both running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District seat, stood among attendees at Fountain Square. Both candidates have called for ICE to be abolished.
Simmons told The Daily that President Donald Trump should be impeached and private prisons holding abducted individuals should be abolished.
“I’m out here because I’m outraged, and Evanstonians are outraged at the fascist takeover of our country, where we’re seeing cold-blooded murders in the streets,” he said.
Biss called ICE’s actions a “campaign of terror” and acknowledged that “everyone’s trying to figure out what they can do” in an interview with The Daily.
“We need to match their escalating violence with escalating nonviolent resistance everywhere we possibly can,” Biss said.
A pair of Northwestern students at the vigil, including Weinberg sophomore Sophie Beveridge, called on their classmates to engage more with community issues.
As they took the stage alongside a fellow attendee to lead the crowd in song, they pointed out how few NU students attended the event.
“We’ve been talking about how our campus feels so quiet,” Beveridge told The Daily. “I feel like it’s very easy to feel removed from what’s going on in the world and in this country.”
Beveridge said she and her classmates have begun brainstorming volunteer and fundraising activities to promote civic engagement among NU students, particularly those including art and music.
Chicago resident Loretta Martin stood among the chorus of attendees that accompanied performers on Sunday. Despite not speaking Spanish, Martin said the songs struck a chord.
“We didn’t know what it meant, but we knew what it felt like,” Martin said.
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— ‘Get the f—k out of our cities’: Community members hold vigil to honor Minnesota woman killed by ICE
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— ‘We cannot be silent’: Evanston businesses stand up to ICE amid escalated enforcement
