On January 24, the “pink coat lady” was on her way to a Minneapolis church when she unexpectedly found herself filming what she called the “murder” of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse who was brutally killed by ICE agents.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Stella Carlson – now known as the “pink coat lady” – shared her first-hand account of what she saw the morning of Jan. 24 when Alex Pretti was shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol officers.

‘Our civil rights are a joke’
Carslon’s neighborhood, already strained under a heavy federal immigration presence, had been on edge for weeks. The death of Renee Good – killed by ICE officers in early January – had made clear that simply witnessing these encounters could carry risks.

“I think because of the protections that have been given to them, I don’t think (ICE agents) have a reason to feel anything but confident about what they’re doing,” Carlson told CNN’s Anderson Cooper of law enforcement’s aggressive posturing. “It feels like we are a joke that our civil rights are a joke that our constitution is something to be laughed at. That is how they behaved.”

Whistles
Now, every time she leaves her home, Carlson wears a whistle around her neck.

“I know every time I leave my vehicle or leave my house, and I put that whistle around my neck, I know because of Renee Good, the risk,” Carlson, who runs a kid’s entertainment company, told Cooper. “I think we all knew after that happened, it is now at that point, and it could be any of us.”

The whistles, worn now by Minneapolis residents, are a warning system developed to “protect” people after ICE started swarming the streets.

“We know we can’t do much, but what we do know is that we can let our community at large know when we’re walking around – like, I see you, and if you’re stuck in your apartment, I want you to see me,” she explained of the alarm system. “I’m another person walking around who is here to protect you as best I can with my whistle and my phone, which really feels not great.”

Picked up her phone to film Alex Pretti
On the morning of Jan. 24, Carlson was on her way to paint the faces of children at a local church. As she drove down Nicollet Avenue – less than two miles from where Good was shot and killed Jan. 7 – she heard the sound of those whistles pierce through traffic.

What she saw next pulled her off her route.

“A caravan of vehicles, ICE agents,” she said, “were moving in.”

And in front of her car, one person was “on the ground being tackled by agents” while another agent was “punching the windows” of a vehicle trying to drive in the other direction.

“At that moment, I was like ‘I need to not go forward.’”

Then she made eye contact with a man directing traffic, someone she would later identify as Alex Pretti.

“I looked at Alex, he looked at me, and he pointed to the parking spot, and I was like “okay, just park,’” she said, explaining she then she got out of her car to film Pretti, who was filming the “abuse.”

“I was his backup,” she said, adding that at the time, she didn’t know who he was, or that he was carrying a licensed concealed weapon. She only saw someone trying to help.

Pretti ‘was calm’
“What I did know at the time is that [Pretti] was calm and was handling it with grace and consistency, and definitely without threat,” Carlson said.

“It felt like somebody in my opinion, in my background, who was doing a risk assessment and found his place in this moment to be useful,” she recalled of Pretti.

Moments after she started recording, from about five to 10 feet away, Pretti was seen helping a woman who had been pushed down. Seconds later, officers surrounded him and knocked him to the ground. One agent removed a gun from his holster, then Pretti was shot – multiple times, including in the back.

Agents counted bullet wounds – ‘like he’s a deer’
“I watched him die,” said Carlson, fighting back her tears. “I mean I watched him die. I remember him arching his back and his head rolling back, and it was so fast-moving – but not for me.”

As someone who had previously witnessed death in hospice settings, she explained that she knew instantly that he wouldn’t survive.

“I knew he was gone because I watched it,” she said. “And then [agents] come over to try to perform some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors and then maneuvering his body around like a rag doll, only to discover that it could be because they wanted to count the bullet wounds to see how many they got, like he’s a deer.”

‘It was an assassination’
Carlson’s footage would soon directly contradict statements made by officials in Washington. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem initially claimed that Pretti had “brandished” a weapon, and White House Advisor Stephen Miller called the veterans affairs ICU nurse a “would-be assassin.”

But Carlson’s video, recorded from just feet away, captured no such threats – Pretti never drew his firearm, and Carlson didn’t even realize he had one.

In fact, she says that Pretti was the one who was “assassinated.”

“It was an assassination, in full view, in the middle of the streets, of somebody who has served our country and continued to at the Veterans hospital” she told Cooper. “Nobody should have to worry about being assassinated in their streets, especially in America.”

“Did I think I was going to be filming a murder? No. An assassination? No,” she added.

‘We all have to be brave’
As her video went viral, it ignited a public outcry that challenged claims made by Trump’s administration and led to the removal of Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who oversaw militarized immigration operations across Minneapolis.

“I knew that this was a moment, and we all have to be brave, and we all have to take risks, and we’re all going to be given moments to make that decision,” Carlson told Cooper of her decision to record, despite the risk involved.

She added, “And I’m grateful to myself and I’m grateful to anybody who was supportive to me after, to make sure I could get to safety and get that video uploaded to the right people.”

Her decision to record, and to stay, ensured that one of the most consequential moments in recent memory wasn’t left to interpretation – it was seen, and it was heard.

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