Within minutes of Alex Pretti being shot and killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Trump administration, backed by right-wing influencers, launched a smear campaign against the victim, labeling him a “terrorist” and a “lunatic.”

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Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said during a press conference on Saturday that information about what had led up to Pretti’s fatal confrontation was limited, but at a separate press conference, Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander overseeing federal operations in Minneapolis, claimed to have a full assessment of what had taken place.

Bovino claimed Pretti had approached officers with a 9mm handgun, resisted disarmament, and was shot in what he described as a clear act of self-defense. He claimed the man had two loaded magazines and lacked identification, and alleged that Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement,” while the Border Patrol agent who killed Pretti, he said, had extensive training.

The Department of Homeland Security reiterated Bovino’s claims in a post on X that has been viewed over 17 million times at the time of publication, and the narrative was carried unquestioningly by right-wing outlets, like the Post Millenial, which published a story headlined: “Armed agitator Alex Pretti appeared to want ‘maximum damage’ and to ‘massacre’ law enforcement when shot by BP in Minnesota.”

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Multiple videos shared on social media in the moments after the shooting show no indication that Pretti’s gun was visible when he was approached by the officers. Analyses by The New York Times and Bellingcat found that Pretti was clearly holding a phone, not a gun, when the federal officers approached him and forced him to the ground.

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Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, went further in a pair of posts, labelling Pretti an “assassin” and a “terrorist.”

The Trump administration’s smear campaign against the victim was quickly repeated by supporters on social media. Nick Sortor, one of a group of right-wing influencers camped out in Minneapolis to cover ICE’s campaign there, falsely referred to Pretti as an “illegal alien” and added that he “was armed with a gun and attempted to PULL IT on agents as he was being apprehended.”