Did the parents of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse shot to death by ICE agents in Minneapolis, say their son quit his hospital job months earlier and showed "unusual behavior"? No, that's not true: A statement released by Pretti's parents referenced his work as an ICU nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital, but it did not say that he had quit or that his recent behavior was unusual. The website making the claim is associated with a spam factory based in Vietnam that uses AI tools to target Americans and Europeans with fake clickbait.
The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published by btuatu.com on January 26, 2026. The article headlined "SHOCK: The Parents of Alex Pretti Reveal Their Son Quit His Hospital Job Months Ago and Exhibited "Unusual Behavior" Recently - 'He Seemed to Have Joined Some Kind of Group'" opened:
In a heartbreaking and revealing interview, the parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti--the 37-year-old ICU nurse fatally shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on January 24, 2026--have shared new details that paint a far more complicated picture of their son's final months. Michael Pretti, speaking to reporters from his home in Wisconsin, described how Alex had quietly left his position at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center several months earlier, a move that surprised his family and colleagues who knew him as a dedicated caregiver for veterans.
This is what the top of the article looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of btuatu.com)
This is a Facebook post (archived here) that copied the article:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Jan 27 17:18:48 2026 UTC)
The article continued:
"He seemed to have joined some kind of group," Michael Pretti told reporters, his voice heavy with grief and concern. "We warned him two weeks ago--protest if you want, but don't engage, don't do anything stupid. He said he understood." The father emphasized that while Alex had always been passionate about helping others, his recent behavior had shifted in ways that worried them. "He was pulling away from his routine, talking more about 'standing up' and 'making a difference' in ways that felt different. We thought it was just stress, but now... we don't know."
Nothing in this article or the social media post is true. At the time of writing there is no video of Pretti's parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, speaking to reporters in his home or anywhere. The family released this written statement about 12 hours after he was killed:
We are heartbroken but also very angry.
Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However his last thought and act was to protect a woman.
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.
Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.
Lead Stories uploaded the text of the article to the GPTZero AI Detection tool for analysis, which concluded "We are highly confident this text was AI generated." The certainty score was 100%.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of gptzero.me)
The source of this fake AI-generated claim is in Vietnam, which is actually included in the article's URL:
The same website feeds a non-stop stream of AI-generated stories to a series of fake Facebook fan pages targeted at American and European audiences. For example, the Kelce Fan Club Family page (archived here) is managed from Vietnam, according to the Meta transparency data (archived here.)
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
Each fake post points to btuatu.com.
This is part of an operation that Lead Stories and other fact checkers have identified as a major source of AI-generated false stories we call Viet Spam. You can see recent reporting and fact checks related to Vietnam-based spam operations here.
A deeper dive into this can be found in our article Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam'.
