MINNEAPOLIS — A new episode of the Shots Fired podcast examined video of a fatal Minneapolis shooting involving U.S. Border Patrol agents, with the hosts urging viewers to look past “surface-level opinions” and consider how quickly physical resistance, crowd pressure and the presence of a firearm can escalate an encounter.
In the episode of Shots Fired, co-hosts Mark Redlich and Kyle Schoberg analyzed the publicly available video and discussed how the encounter escalated, emphasizing that their commentary was based on observable actions rather than conclusions about criminal or civil liability.
“We’re here to offer our perspective from a law enforcement side,” Schoberg said. “Everybody’s giving surface-level opinions on it and it goes way deeper into that.” Later, Schoberg added, “We’re here to just break it down as fact value what we see in the video from a law enforcement perspective.”
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Federal claims highlighted at the start of the episode
The podcast opens with a clip summarizing federal officials’ account of the shooting.
“Border Patrol officials say the shooting happened while conducting a targeted operation for a person in the country illegally,” the clip states. It adds that officials “claim Pretti approached Border Patrol agents with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun…along with two magazines and say he violently resisted their attempts to disarm him.”
In the same opening clip, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says, “We will not allow violence against our law enforcement officers,” and later adds, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals.”
Federal officer training
A key thread throughout the discussion was training — specifically, whether federal immigration-related enforcement is being carried out in environments the hosts believe require different preparation.
“My initial analysis of all of this, looking at it, is the federal government is out of their league,” Redlich said. “They have encountered more situations in the last two months than those officers have ever trained for.”
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Schoberg agreed: “They’re not equipped of proper training to be in municipal-type cities like they are dealing with these types of situations that have blown way out of…their league of them being able to handle it.”
Breaking down the confrontation
As Redlich and Schoberg walked through bystander videos, the hosts described a sequence they said begins with pepper spray being deployed and escalates into a struggle.
“Alex tries to intervene and really he’s protecting this this lady that was down there,” Schoberg said. “That’s when Alex steps in and he tries to protect this lady.”
Schoberg said the encounter shifted when agents attempted to detain him: “They all go to the ground and that’s when the ICE agent spots the gun…One of them yells out, ‘Gun.’”
“And now put yourself in as a cop in a struggle with somebody and someone yells out gun,” Schoberg continued. “I mean, that’s not something you want to hear. Now you’re fighting with somebody on the ground who’s being resistive who’s armed with a gun.”
Schoberg also pushed back on commentary questioning the number of officers involved in the struggle, noting the difficulty of physically controlling a resisting subject.
“For anybody that hasn’t tried to control somebody’s hands, arms, a full-grown man who’s physically resisting you, it is challenging,” he said. “It’s also not as easy as you would think when a grown man is physically resisting you.”
According to Schoberg, once the firearm was seen, agents attempted to prevent it from being used. “One of them actually physically disarms him while he’s on the ground,” he said.
Warning against frame-by-frame conclusions
The hosts repeatedly criticized slow-motion or frame-by-frame analysis of the video, arguing it can distort how use-of-force decisions unfold in real time.
“Everybody’s breaking this down frame by frame in slow motion,” Schoberg said. “That’s not how this works in real life.”
He continued: “You don’t get to break everything down frame by frame as it’s happening. I mean, things are happening at the…split seconds.”
Claims about intent discussed, not resolved
The hosts also addressed federal officials’ public statements regarding Pretti’s intent.
“Federal authorities are actually saying that Alex was there carrying a gun and he intended to use and to quote kill law enforcement,” Schoberg said, later referencing Noem’s statement that the incident constituted “an act of domestic terrorism.”
During the discussion, the hosts questioned how those claims would be supported publicly and emphasized that investigators would ultimately determine what evidence is released.
‘We need to let all the facts and evidence play out’
By the end of the episode, Schoberg said he was not drawing a final conclusion about the shooting.
“I’m not going to side either which way because I don’t know,” he said. “That’s why we need to let all the facts and evidence play out.”
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