On Saturday January 24th, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse ,was shot and killed by two ICE agents, according to Grace Eliza Goodwin, a journalist from BBC. After the killing ICE agents reported that Alex Pretti “brandished” (waved) his gun at the officers.
Before the killing of Alex Pretti, Federal agents and Alex had an altercation 10 days before. In footage taken by News Movement that was given to BBC news he was seen shouting and kicking the taillight of a car. This led to him being tackled by the federal agents that were in the car, and a gun was visible in his waistband in this video. After the killing, an interview with the Pretti family lawyer he stated, “Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.”
After, the killing of Alex Pretti many protests have been had over the U.S. to get justice for Alex Pretti. During this time, according to the BBC the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has said that “the agents have been placed on administrative leave”, but US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Commander Gregory Bovino has said that “they were just moved to a different city and were still on the job.”
After the public outcry, According to Jared Perlo, Marin Scott and Bruna Horvath from NBC news, said that many people have released AI images, where most of them are being upscaled and unblurred giving viewers false information. One of these images that was upscaled and unblurred was the picture of an ICE agent pointing a gun at Alex Pretti before his death. This picture was posted on social media such as facebook and twitter. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill also showed this picture during a speech without realizing that it could have been an AI enhanced photo. The spread of these AI photos and videos have given more confusion in the public eye as people are now believing real photos could be AI generated videos.
