Minnesota Says the FBI Won’t Share Evidence in the Alex Pretti Case, and Buddy, That Smells Like Bureaucracy

The air in The Red Hat Saloon tastes like hickory smoke, cheap beer, and that special kind of stress you only get when a government agency starts acting like your cousin who shows up to the cookout empty-handed, then guards the leftovers like Fort Knox. Somehow the brisket is always “classified.”

Minnesota says the FBI is refusing to share evidence in the Alex Pretti shooting investigation

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans issued a statement dated Feb. 16, 2026: the FBI formally notified the BCA on Feb. 13 that it will not provide the BCA access to any information or evidence the FBI collected in the Jan. 24, 2026 shooting death of Alex Pretti.

Minnesota called the FBI’s lack of cooperation “concerning and unprecedented.” That is not bar-stool poetry. That is the state’s top investigators telling you something is off.

Fox News reported the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment as of Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. So the public gets silence with a side of shrug.

What the state says happened, and what it says it cannot get

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety BCA previously said (Feb. 6, 2026) that the Minneapolis Police Department asked the BCA to investigate an incident involving federal agents on Jan. 24, 2026, just after 9 a.m., on the 2600 block of Nicollet Avenue South in Minneapolis.

• The BCA said Pretti was 37.
• The BCA said he was officially identified on Feb. 2, 2026 by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Fox News reported Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Fox also reported he was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital and that he was recording federal officers on a street in Minneapolis when he was shot.

Fox reported federal officials initially said Pretti approached immigration agents with a 9 mm handgun and resisted when they tried to disarm him, but eyewitness accounts and bystander video raised questions about the government’s version of events. Fox described civilians blowing whistles and shouting, while authorities told the crowd to stay on the sidewalk.

Now the BCA is trying to do an independent review, and the FBI is essentially saying: you cannot see what we have.

Evans says the same cooperation problem is showing up in two other cases

Evans’ Feb. 16 statement also says the BCA reiterated requests for information, access to evidence, and cooperation in:

• The Jan. 7, 2026 shooting death of Renee Good
• The Jan. 14, 2026 shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis

The statement says it remains unclear whether there will be any cooperation or sharing of information in those two incidents, either. Fox reported Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis in early January, and authorities said she used her car to try to run over federal officers during an enforcement operation. Fox reported Sosa-Celis is a Venezuelan national accused of assaulting an ICE officer during a chaotic Minneapolis arrest last month.

What Minnesota says it will do anyway

The BCA says it remains committed to thorough, independent, and transparent investigations, even if it is hampered by lack of access to key information and evidence. It says it will present findings without recommendation to the appropriate prosecutorial authorities for review. It also says it is willing to share information with the FBI and DOJ if the FBI changes its stance, and that it will pursue legal avenues to obtain relevant information and evidence.

I want law and order. I also want a justice system that shows its work. Sunlight is not anti-law-enforcement. Sunlight is pro-truth. And truth, like good BBQ, can stand the heat.

Live free, grill hard, and demand receipts.