Social media users spread AI-manipulated image of Alex Pretti holding gun

Despite video evidence that Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti was holding his phone before immigration officers shot and killed him, an image spreading on social media appears to show him wielding a handgun.

The Department of Homeland Security said Border Patrol officers shot the 37 year old in self-defense after Pretti approached them with "a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun." 

Retired U.S. Gen. Raymond A. "Tony" Thomas III, shared the purported image of Pretti holding a gun on X. The image shows Pretti holding something resembling a handgun in his right hand. The account shared the photo without a caption in response to Jan. 25 statements about the incident from Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

Facebook, Instagram and Threads users also shared the image.

But it’s AI-generated. 

(Screenshot of the AI-generated image)

Video evidence of the shooting shows Pretti holding his phone, not his handgun, before agents tackled him and removed his weapon. Multiple videos show different angles of the incident where Pretti is holding a phone. 

The AI version is similar to footage showing Pretti held by agents; the manipulated version may have stemmed from a user asking an AI tool to "enhance" a screenshot of the footage. (Users also enhanced images after a federal immigration agent shot Renee Good. Users asked X’s artificial intelligence, Grok, to reveal the face of the agent, creating the image of a completely different person. ) AI often distorts images in response to user requests to enhance them. 

PolitiFact uploaded the image to Gemini, Google’s AI tool. It found the image contains the SynthID watermark for images created or edited by the tool. It's not visible looking at the image, but Google's technology can detect it.

Oren Etzioni, founder of TrueMedia, an organization that focuses on detecting false or manipulated AI content, said the image has many signs of AI manipulation.

They include:

• The kneeling officer is missing a head.

• The hands and fingers of the people in the image are distorted and disproportionate.

• Knees, arms and torsos appear dislocated.

• The clothing textures and shadows don’t fully align with the lighting direction.

• The rifle on the kneeling officer appears partially embedded into the ground.

• The granular asphalt doesn’t match videos of the scene that show a paved road layered with dirt and snow.

The New York Times and other news outlets reported that authenticated footage shows an agent removed Pretti’s gun from his belt holster. The Times also said witnesses corroborated the details in the videos. 

We rate claims the image shared on X is a real photo of Pretti False.