US President Donald Trump has regularly written on his Truth Social platform about the deployment of immigration enforcement officers to Minneapolis, Minnesota. But there is no evidence he responded to federal agents shooting an American man by posting “only criminals carry guns on our streets.” The widespread image of the message circulating across social media is fake.
“Hey Maga. Trump says you’re a criminal if you carry firearms,” claims text above an apparent screenshot from the president on his Truth Social platform posted to Instagram on January 25, 2026.
The image makes it appear as if Trump wrote: “HE HAD A GUN, ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS ON OUR STREETS,” in an apparent reference to Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by US federal agents during a protest in Minneapolis.
The same screenshot of Trump’s purported Truth was shared hundreds of thousands of times across Facebook , Instagram , X and Threads by accounts claiming this revealed the president’s true plans to limit the constitutionally protected right to bear arms .
“So much for the good guy with the gun,” said a Facebook post with 14,000 shares.
Other posts juxtaposed the Truth Social image with a photo of Kyle Rittenhouse, an American man acquitted for shooting dead two men during protests and riots against police brutality in Wisconsin in 2020 when he was a teenager. Trump expressed support for Rittenhouse, who claimed he had traveled across state lines with his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to protect private property.
In Minneapolis, Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse , was shot and killed early on January 24, 2026 while scuffling with federal agents on an icy roadway, less than three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fired at Renee Good , also 37, killing her in her car.
Trump administration officials quickly claimed that Pretti had intended to harm the federal agents -- as they did after Good’s death -- pointing to a pistol it said was discovered on him.
However, video verified by US media showed Pretti did not draw his weapon as agents fired around 10 shots at him seconds after he was sprayed in the face with chemical irritant and thrown to the ground.
The deadly actions of immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis have led to misinformation and the purported Truth from Trump is another viral example.
Searches of Trump’s official Truth Social account show no posts making that exact reference to the incident.
Similarly, a website that archives Trump’s Truths https://rollcall.com/factbase/ did not record the post being shared, and specific searches for the post’s keywords yielded no matching results (archived here and here ).
All the examples of the purported screenshot AFP found display the exact same comment, repost and like count --1.29k, 2.87k and 11.5k, respectively. If the post was real, it would be likely that people would have captured images of it at different stages of virality.
Trump did post about Minnesota on January 24. One Truth featured an image of a gun he said belonged to Pretti (archived here ).
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference (archived here ) that Pretti had a permit to legally carry a gun.
Read more of AFP’s reporting on misinformation about Minneapolis here .
