{"id":443641,"date":"2026-02-01T23:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T23:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/443641\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T23:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T23:07:08","slug":"cbp-agents-jesus-ochoa-raymundo-gutierrez-idd-in-alex-pretti-shooting-propublica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/443641\/","title":{"rendered":"CBP Agents Jesus Ochoa, Raymundo Gutierrez ID\u2019d in Alex Pretti Shooting \u2014 ProPublica"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.<\/p>\n

The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.<\/p>\n

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.<\/p>\n

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.<\/p>\n

Pretti\u2019s killing, and the subsequent secrecy surrounding the agents involved, comes as the country confronts the consequences of President Donald Trump\u2019s aggressive immigration crackdown. The sweeps in cities across the country have been marked by scenes of violence, against immigrants and U.S. citizens, by agents allowed to hide their identities with masks \u2014 an almost unheard of practice in law enforcement. As a result, the public has been kept from one of the chief ways it has to hold officers involved in such altercations accountable: their identity.<\/p>\n

Both Democratic and Republican<\/a> lawmakers<\/a> have called for a transparent investigation into the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse working at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must have a transparent, independent investigation into the Minnesota shooting, and those responsible\u2014no matter their title\u2014must be held accountable,\u201d Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah wrote on X<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

The agency sent a notice to some members of Congress on Tuesday acknowledging that two agents fired Glock pistols during the altercation that left Pretti dead. That notice does not include the agents\u2019 names. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, said the agents had been placed on leave after the Jan. 24 shooting. And after a week of protests and calls from lawmakers for a review, the Justice Department said Friday that its Civil Rights Division is investigating the shooting. A DOJ spokesperson did not answer questions, including whether DHS has shared materials, such as body-camera footage, with its investigators.<\/p>\n

Ochoa is a Border Patrol agent who joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014 and works for CBP\u2019s Office of Field Operations. He is assigned to a special response team, which conducts high-risk operations like those of police SWAT units. Records show both men are from South Texas.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the shooting, Gregory Bovino, who has orchestrated high-intensity immigration sweeps and arrests in a string of Democratic-led cities since early 2025, was removed from his role as Border Patrol commander at large and reassigned to his former post in El Centro, California.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for DHS declined to answer questions about the two agents and referred ProPublica to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment. ProPublica made several attempts to call Ochoa and Gutierrez but neither answered.<\/p>\n

Ochoa, who goes by Jesse, graduated from the University of Texas-Pan American with a degree in criminal justice, according to his ex-wife, Angelica Ochoa. A longtime resident of the Rio Grande Valley, Ochoa had for years dreamed of working for the Border Patrol and finally landed a job there, she said. By the time the couple split in 2021, he had become a gun enthusiast with about 25 rifles, pistols and shotguns, Angelica Ochoa said.<\/p>\n

DHS\u2019 disclosure to Congress was drawn from an internal review of the agents\u2019 body-camera footage, which has not been released to the public. State investigators, meanwhile, have accused their federal counterparts of blocking them from investigating the shooting.<\/p>\n

\"AnFBI agents work at the scene of the Pretti shooting. Peter DiCampo\/ProPublica<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any information on the shooters,\u201d a Minneapolis city spokesperson said. A spokesperson for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday that his office also had \u201cnot been given the names, and we don\u2019t have any new information on the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi Monday<\/a>, accused the Justice Department of covering up evidence in both Pretti\u2019s and Good\u2019s killings.<\/p>\n

\u201cDOJ has also blocked prosecutors and agents from cooperating with state law enforcement officials and prevented state officials from accessing evidence,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN on Sunday that immigration agents should not be masked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should not be anonymous. They should be identifiable. And they have to have rules of engagement that don\u2019t allow them to terrorize and intimidate, harass and assault U.S. citizens and other people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The notice to Congress said that the shooting happened when Pretti resisted arrest after officers were unable to get him and a female protester out of the street.<\/p>\n

The CBP officer \u201cattempted to move the woman and Pretti out of the roadway. The woman and Pretti did not move,\u201d the report reads. \u201cCBP personnel attempted to take Pretti into custody. Pretti resisted CBP personnel\u2019s efforts and a struggle ensued.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the report, one agent then yelled \u201cHe\u2019s got a gun!\u201d multiple times, and two others \u201cdischarged\u201d their Glock pistols.<\/p>\n

In videos widely shared online, Pretti can be seen holding up a phone, documenting the movements of federal agents and officers as they roamed the streets of a popular food and arts district. According to news reports, Pretti was concerned about the increasingly volatile siege of the city by federal agents.<\/p>\n

In the videos, a masked agent appears to knock a woman to the ground. Pretti comes to her aid, getting between them, at which point the officer deploys pepper spray at his face. Two agents then grab Pretti and pull him to the ground, while more federal personnel pile on. During the struggle, the agents unleash a series of shots \u2014 approximately 10 \u2014 as onlookers scream.<\/p>\n

Pretti was armed at the time of the encounter with a legally owned handgun, according to state and federal officials. Some analyses of bystander video appear to show a federal agent taking Pretti\u2019s gun<\/a> from his hip before the first shots were fired. The agents\u2019 masks and the chaos of the altercation make it difficult to differentiate one from another.<\/p>\n

Those videos appear to contradict the claims by Bovino and other officials, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, that Pretti had come to attack agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted,\u201d Bovino said in a Jan. 25 news conference. \u201cFearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a Border Patrol agent fired defensive shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the initial aftermath, Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and a leading force behind the immigration enforcement operations, called Pretti \u201ca would-be assassin.\u201d But Miller changed tack later in the week when he said in a statement<\/a> that CBP officers \u201cmay not have been following\u201d protocol related to confronting bystanders.<\/p>\n

Additional video has surfaced showing Pretti in another altercation with federal agents 11 days before he was killed. The video shows Pretti yelling at the agents, who get in an SUV and start to drive away. Pretti then kicks out the taillight of the vehicle and the agents, who wore protective masks, jump out and tackle him to the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is unclear if any of the same agents were involved in both incidents.<\/p>\n

Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, said that many local and state police departments are \u201cmuch more transparent\u201d than CBP when officers shoot people. \u201cMore and more police departments are choosing to release bodycam footage or dashcam footage within a couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gil Kerlikowske, a former CBP commissioner, told ProPublica that it\u2019s difficult to draw conclusions from the chaos in bystander videos. Still, he said, the shooting might have been prevented. Pretti\u2019s attempt to help the woman knocked to the ground could have been seen as interfering with federal law enforcement, he said. But the decision by the officers to immediately use pepper spray created a chaotic scene that likely contributed to Pretti\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other agent could have said \u2018don\u2019t interfere\u2019 or \u2018stand back,\u2019\u201d Kerlikowske said. \u201cRather than move immediately to pepper spray, you can arrest the person.\u201d It\u2019s part of a pattern, he said, of federal officers jumping straight to use of force<\/a> in situations that could have been de-escalated but instead create danger for both agents and their targets.<\/p>\n

Pretti\u2019s death, and the federal government\u2019s characterization of the event, sparked immediate protests, spurring thousands of people to go out into frigid conditions in Minneapolis and other American cities. The shooting has also drawn intense criticism from political leaders, including Walz, who has promised his state\u2019s law enforcement will conduct its own criminal investigation.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople gather at the location where Pretti was shot. Cengiz Yar\/ProPublica<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-443641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}