Reporting on a leftist network’s use of encrypted messaging found Alex Pretti’s presence before his death “wasn’t accidental. It was organized interference–designed to escalate confrontation.”
Over the weekend, frigid temperatures weren’t enough to deter violent protesters from taking to the streets once more, enflamed by the death of 37-year-old Pretti following his confrontation with federal law enforcement officers. While an investigation into the man’s death remained ongoing, a new report detailed how his presence wasn’t happenstance, and similar coordination had been used in the wake of tragedy for “engineered chaos.”
Fox News Digital senior editor Asra Nomani reported, “ICE and Border Patrol agents were there to arrest an illegal immigrant criminal, and Pretti and others were there, outside a donut shop, to meet them as part of a strategic pattern of organized interference with law enforcement operations.”
According to her report, encrypted Signal messages indicated agitators had been directed to harass federal agents ahead of Pretti’s death before using the incident to stoke protestors. Over the following hours, a national network of socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist cells in the United States leveraged the tragic fatality into a nationwide protest operation. While grief and outrage over Pretti’s death is genuine, the network’s real-time rapid response, using short sensational video clips and emojis as weapons of propaganda, offers a window in the disciplined logistics, messaging and coordination of far-left warriors fomenting insurgency-like confrontation with authorities.”
On X, Nomani shared a timeline of the encrypted chat that included a video from 15 minutes prior to the fatal incident, where federal agents had attempted to enter Glam Doll Donuts. After they departed amid someone saying, “Get out of here!” a Signal user posted, “Backup needed” near the location, “… Multiple vehicles with many agents appear to be staging there.”
Two things can be true at the same time.
🕯️ Alex Pretti’s death is a real and devastating tragedy, and there are several investigations appropriately occurring into the circumstances behind his killing
🎯 A far-left organizing network put Pretti in harm’s way and then turned him… pic.twitter.com/lOSv3bDo6Y— Asra Nomani (@AsraNomani) January 26, 2026
Similarly, moments after Pretti’s death, a red phone emoji was included with a message summoning agitators to the scene, “URGENT: observers urgently requested at glam doll donuts … an observer has been shot by ice, unknown condition … medics requested to join perimeter in case agents start gassing. be aware there are many agents and [Minneapolis Police Department] officers present.”
Nomani added, “According to these messages shared in the encrypted Signal chat, activists were already mobilized BEFORE any shots were fired–tracking, broadcasting and summoning people to Nicollet Avenue with one objective: to obstruct the work of federal agents.”
“This wasn’t accidental,” she asserted. “It was organized interference–designed to escalate confrontation.”
Weighing in likewise on the scenes in Minnesota where protesters had been allowed to take over the area where Pretti had been fatally shot, Vice President J.D. Vance had posted to X, “This level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis. It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”
This level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis. It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 25, 2026
Beyond the messaging, Nomani reported that billionaire Neville Roy Singham, known for his ties to the Chinese Communist Party and previous astroturf uprisings, such as the protests that mobilized after the apprehension of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, is one of the funders of the network operating in Minnesota.
As with earlier in January, leftist protesters were similarly activated in cities across the country in what was described as “an almost instantaneous weekend surge by far-left organizations, including hardened socialist and communist groups operating in an ecosystem that national security experts describe as an insurgent-style operation designed to exploit tragedy to wage a domestic political war.”
This included New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) ally, Hamas-sympathizing activist Linda Sarsour, had called for “general strikes” and to “bring this country to a halt” in the aftermath of Pretti’s death.
Meanwhile, corporate media complicity was alleged as well, with CNN describing a member of Socialist Alternative, an affiliate part of a “global fighting organization of workers, young people, and all those oppressed by capitalism and imperialism,” as simply Pretti’s “next-door neighbor.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
- Federal agent hospitalized in LA after violent attack by anti-ICE mob - February 14, 2026
- ‘Defeated Biden inflation crisis’: CNN reports lowest inflation since March 2021 under Trump - February 14, 2026
- Bessent demands Senate GOP nuke filibuster for voter ID bill: ‘The prisoner’s dilemma…kill or be killed!’ - February 14, 2026
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.