Minneapolis community leave ‘I Voted’ stickers at Alex Pretti’s memorial site

Alex Pretti’s memorial site, which has been covered by flowers and signs for months, now has new pops of color – “I Voted” stickers from community members.Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was killed by federal immigration officials during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis region in January. His death happened just days after an immigration official in the city shot and killed another US citizen, Renee Good.Voters in Minneapolis have been leaving their “I Voted” stickers at the memorial site after participating in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Donald Trump’s aggressive and sometimes violent mass deportation campaign has been a key issue for voters across the country during this midterm cycle.“I knew Alex Pretti,” said a retired physician who worked with Pretti and asked only to use his first name, Arne. “I just knew that he was a competent nurse – a really, really liked guy. And he was assassinated.”Arne left his “I Voted” sticker at the memorial site and choked up when speaking about his vote, Pretti and when federal immigration officials killed him.At the end of 2025 and early this year, Minnesota became a major target for the Trump administration.

Federal immigration officials descended on the area in a large-scale operation. Community groups organized rapid response teams throughout the city to prevent officials from arresting immigrants.

The immigration operation led to the shooting deaths of Good and Pretti.Many groups involved in the immigration rapid response work have shifted their attention on to the elections. In Minnesota, voters are choosing a Senate candidate and governor, as well as House candidates.“The country has humiliated itself by putting in a bad man, a very very bad character,” Arne said of the president. “Today is a chance for America to say whether they support this kind of thing.”If they don’t oppose it, “then fuck America”, he added.In a primarily Somali neighborhood elsewhere in Minneapolis, Reverend Shandon Klein, a progressive pastor from the Park Avenue United Methodist church said she was “keeping a watchful eye over the polling place just to make sure I’m a non-anxious presence that’s available here and just ensuring that everybody has access to voting.“There’s a general, just, feeling of empowerment and really excited to get out there and vote,” Klein said.So far, no federal law enforcement officials have been spotted, despite threats by the Trump administration of deploying them to voting sites.