In the chaotic streets of Minneapolis on January 24, 2026, during President Trump’s Operation Metro Surge, Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez “greeted” Alex Pretti with the kind of swift, overwhelming force that has long characterized high-stakes confrontations in places like Mexico City. The two Hispanic agents, both with deep roots in border enforcement—Ochoa joining CBP in 2018 and Gutierrez in 2014—encountered Pretti as he filmed their pursuit of an undocumented immigrant and stepped in to assist a woman allegedly shoved by agents. What began as an intervention quickly turned brutal: pepper spray to the face, repeated strikes to the head and body, a takedown to the pavement, disarming of Pretti’s legally carried pistol, and then a barrage of shots—10 in total from their Glock pistols—while he lay pinned and unarmed on the ground. Video analyses from multiple angles show the escalation happening in under a minute, with agents firing even after the threat appeared neutralized, echoing the rapid, no-holds-barred tactics Mexican police often employ against perceived threats in cartel-influenced urban zones where hesitation can be deadly.

Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, embody the significant Latino presence in U.S. Border Patrol, where bilingual agents from Hispanic backgrounds are heavily recruited to navigate cultural and linguistic nuances along the border. Deployed far from their usual southern frontier duties, they brought an intensity honed in environments of constant cartel pressure and high-risk pursuits, much like Mexico City’s law enforcement, where officers frequently use masked operations, overwhelming physical force, and immediate lethal options to assert control amid chaos and threats from organized crime. In this Minneapolis encounter, their actions—tackling, beating with a canister, and firing repeatedly—mirrored the aggressive crowd suppression and suspect handling seen in Mexican urban policing, where agents prioritize dominance over de-escalation to survive volatile situations. Placed on administrative leave pending DHS and DOJ investigations, including a civil rights probe, the agents’ methods have drawn sharp criticism for importing border-zone aggression into a Midwestern protest scene.

In pro-enforcement and conservative online spaces, these “based” Hispanic agents have been celebrated for their unapologetic loyalty to strict immigration enforcement, bucking any assumption of ethnic solidarity by decisively handling what officials initially framed as an armed threat. Supporters view their “greeting” of Pretti—subduing him with overwhelming force and eliminating the perceived danger—as a no-nonsense approach straight out of Mexico City’s playbook, where police operate under existential cartel threats and rarely hesitate to use maximum force to maintain order. This irony fuels praise for Ochoa and Gutierrez as exemplars of assimilation and duty, prioritizing American law over heritage ties. Critics, however, condemn the incident as excessive brutality against a U.S. citizen and VA nurse who was filming and aiding others, sparking massive protests, calls for federal withdrawal from Minneapolis, and broader scrutiny of how border-style tactics are reshaping domestic policing in non-border cities.