Federal agents in the United States have shot dead another person in Minneapolis amid an immigration crackdown, authorities said, spurring protests and new calls for President Donald Trump to pull heavily armed officers out of the city in Minnesota state immediately.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara told reporters that a 37-year-old man died in hospital on Saturday after being shot multiple times. The Minneapolis resident was a US citizen, O’Hara said.

The man’s parents identified him as Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse.

The incident took place amid a weeks-long deployment of immigration enforcement and other federal agents to Minneapolis, where they have been carrying out raids as part of Trump’s anti-immigration push.

It also happened amid widespread daily protests in Minneapolis since the January 7 shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was killed when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fired into her vehicle.

Federal agents also shot a Venezuelan man in a separate incident last week in the city.

“This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said during a separate news conference in Saint Paul, the state’s capital and Minneapolis’s twin city.

“It’s a campaign of organised brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed another life,” said Walz, pledging that Minnesota would handle the investigation into the killing.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a US Border Patrol agent shot dead a person who had a handgun and resisted attempts to be disarmed.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agent fired “defensive shots” after a man with a handgun approached them and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him.

Federal officials said the officer who shot Pretti is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran.

Trump weighed in on social media by lashing out at Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He shared images of the gun that immigration officials said was recovered and said, “What is that all about? Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Officers?”

The Republican president said the Democratic governor and mayor “are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric”.

‘He was a good man’

But bystander videos from the scene showed the man holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, as he ⁠tries to help other protesters who have been pushed to the ground by agents.

As the videos begin, Pretti can be seen filming as a federal agent pushes away one woman and shoves another woman ​to the ground. Pretti moves between the agent and the women, then raises his left arm to shield himself as the agent pepper sprays him.

Several agents then take ‍hold of Pretti – who struggles with them – and force him onto his hands and knees. As the agents pin down Pretti, someone shouts what sounds like a warning about the presence of a gun.

Video footage then appears to show one of the agents removing a gun from Pretti and stepping away from the group with it.

Moments later, an officer with a handgun pointed at Pretti’s back fires four shots at him in quick succession, footage shows. Several more shots ‍can then be heard ⁠as another agent appears to fire at Pretti.

Pretti’s family released a statement on Saturday evening saying they are “heartbroken but also very angry” and calling him a kind-hearted soul who wanted to make a difference in the world through his work as a nurse.

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed,” the statement said.

“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”

Two witnesses to the shooting also filed sworn statements before the US District Court of Minnesota saying that Pretti did not brandish a gun during the incident, according to media reports.

O’Hara, the police chief, said Pretti was a lawful gun owner with no criminal record other than traffic violations.

Minnesota allows the open carrying of firearms with a permit.

Trump and senior members of his administration have justified the deployment of ICE and other federal officers to Minneapolis as part of the president’s pledge to carry out the largest deportation operation in the country’s history.

But residents and elected officials have condemned the Trump administration for its anti-immigration policies and said the presence of heavily armed officers on their streets is not making people safer.

Speaking during Saturday’s news conference alongside the city’s police chief, Mayor Frey denounced the Trump administration for its continued crackdown.

“I just saw a video of more than six masked agents pummelling one of our constituents and shooting him to death,” Frey said. “How many more residents, how many more Americans, need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?

“How many more lives need to be lost before this administration realises that a political and partisan narrative is not as important as American values? How many times must local and national leaders … plead with you, Donald Trump, to end this operation and recognise that this is not creating safety in our city?”

Several other local and state leaders also called on Trump to end the federal deployment after Saturday’s killing.

“To the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress who have stood silent: Get ICE out of our state NOW,” US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who represents Minnesota, wrote on X.

Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar called the shooting “an execution” and accused Trump of transforming Minneapolis into a “war zone”.

Calls for calm

The shooting drew hundreds of protesters to the neighbourhood to confront the armed and masked agents, who deployed tear gas and flashbang grenades.

The protesters screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home. One officer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them, “Boo hoo”.

The situation calmed after federal agents left the area, though protesters remained on the streets for hours afterwards.

Walz, the governor, said he had been in contact with the White House after the shooting. He said on X that state and local authorities were “doing everything possible to de-escalate” the situation. Meanwhile, the city administration urged residents “to remain calm and avoid the immediate area” of the incident.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Washington, DC, said the incident has further ignited tensions in Minneapolis, which she described as a “tinderbox”.

“It is very much a head-to-head between Trump and his federal authorities, and local and state authorities in Minnesota,” Zhou-Castro explained, noting that the fight has been brewing since mass protests broke out in Minneapolis after the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in 2020.

Amy Koch, a Republican political strategist and a former Republican majority leader of the Minnesota Senate, called for a clear investigation into the shooting.

“It is a very dark time, and it is intolerable. And it is absolutely imperative that leaders, both President Trump and Governor Walz, de-escalate, take a very deep tactical pause on any operations going on, and allow federal and state agencies to work together to investigate this situation, and figure out what went on, before anything else is continued,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I don’t want to see criminals here illegally. I am happy to see them deported. But that’s not what this is today,” she said.

“This is an operation that is not successful, and it needs to stop. It needs a pause, and it needs state and federal officials to work together to determine what happened and how we can move forward safely.”