The Minneapolis woman who confronted federal immigration officers alongside Alex Pretti in January told a news conference Thursday that she watched agents shoot and kill him and described what she said she endured afterward during the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.
Savageford, who introduced herself as Wynnie, said she was inside an officer’s vehicle when she saw federal agents shoot Pretti. “That day has changed me forever,” she said. “The trauma will haunt me for the rest of my life, and I will never be the same.”
Savageford said she had been legally observing federal officers in Minneapolis since the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. She said she was doing so again on the morning of Jan. 24 when she saw what she described as an escalation involving agents and Pretti.
She said an agent pushed her twice and caused her to fall. “As I was going down, three agents proceeded to tackle me and drag me face-down into the middle of the street. They knelt on my back, twisted my arms and my legs to the ground, and handcuffed me,” Savageford said, adding that she believed the cuffs were so tight that she lost feeling in her hands, which she said resulted in temporary nerve damage.
Savageford said she told agents to leave her alone and that Pretti recorded video of her arrest. She said officers put her in the back of a vehicle, from which she saw agents shoot and kill Pretti on the other side of the street. She said she believed Pretti had been recording her interaction with agents and that, at the moment of the shooting, she thought she also would be killed.
She said she pleaded with the agents not to take another life. “At that moment, I thought I was going to die too. I pleaded with the agents to understand why another life was taken, and to not take mine,” Savageford said. She said the officers told her to shut up and stop being hysterical, and then took her to an ICE holding facility where she was held for 12 hours in a cold cell without ready access to food, water or the bathroom until she was released without being charged.
Savageford said she did not know Pretti personally but described the man as someone who protected her. “I did not know him, but I knew he had my back,” she said. “I know the kind of heart he had. One that loves and protects without limits.”
At the same news conference, civil rights attorney John Burris said he and other lawyers are working on potential class-action litigation tied to what they allege was excessive force used against protesters or people monitoring the enforcement surge. Burris said they filed complaints with federal agencies involved on behalf of 10 people, including Savageford, as an initial step that he said could lead to a larger class-action lawsuit.
Burris, who has previously helped win a civil settlement with the Oakland Police Department in 2003 and helped win a civil jury verdict for the late motorist Rodney King in a case that followed a 1991 beating by Los Angeles police officers, said the group has “many others that are under investigation” that have not completed the process. “But I thought it was important for us to start this process now. Put the government on notice that we’re here,” Burris said.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond Thursday to emails seeking comment. Separately, Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for access to evidence they say they need to independently investigate the killings.