Jan 26 (Reuters) – Billionaire Bill Ackman donated $10,000 to a fundraiser for the family of Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by immigration agents in Minneapolis over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a spokesman for Ackman.
The GoFundMe page that intended to support Pretti’s “loved ones” raised over $1 million as of Monday morning and listed Ackman’s donation.
Ackman’s Pershing Square declined a Reuters request for comment.
Pretti is the second American to be fatally shot by federal immigration officers this month in Minneapolis, where Trump, a Republican, has deployed thousands of armed and masked agents in a deportation effort with little precedent.
Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Sunday that his administration was “reviewing everything and will come out with a determination” about the shooting, as officials in his administration defended it even as video evidence contradicted their version of events.
Ackman previously donated $10,000 to a GoFundMe for Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot Renee Good, the first Minneapolis shooting victim this month.
The billionaire, however, wrote at the time that he also aimed to support Good’s family, “but it was already closed as it had achieved its $1.5 million fundraising objective.”
“I was simply continuing my longstanding commitment to assisting those accused of crimes of providing for their defense,” Ackman wrote earlier in January.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia and Devika Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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