Marine Detained in Minneapolis Says Feds Copied His Phone Without a Warrant

© THE INTERCEPT

He was observing after Alex Pretti’s killing. He says feds detained him at gunpoint, sampled his DNA, scanned his face, and cloned his phone.

At first, Steven Saari said, federal immigration agents seemed to think he was one of them.

Saari, a Marine Corps combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, went to the scene of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis less than an hour after federal agents fired the fatal shots. He was wearing his Marine camouflage and carrying a lawfully owned 9mm Glock handgun on his right hip, as he does every day, he told The Intercept. Agents on the scene “thought I was undercover,” Saari said. “They kept asking what agency I was with.”

When Saari told them he was not with any agency, their demeanor shifted. Federal immigration agents soon aimed M4-style rifles at his head, footage reviewed by The Intercept shows, their fingers on the trigger less than a minute’s walk away from where Pretti was killed.