Tributes and rallies abounded in remembrance of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but social media posts claiming his picture was projected onto a large billboard in Times Square are false. An AFP journalist visited the New York City location and confirmed there was no such homage.
” BREAKING -- Alex Pretti Honored in Times Square,” reads the caption of a January 26, 2026 X post sharing the clip.
The video appears to show Times Square with a massive image of Pretti imposed over one of the buildings. The clip quickly surged across X , Facebook , Threads and Instagram .
Some users appeared to laud the tribute to Pretti with accompanying text “from health care hero to target of violence,” but others, such as comedian Terrence K. Williams, who has repeatedly spread misinformation , questioned the supposed memorial to the Minneapolis nurse.
“So many people have been killed by illegal immigrants and they never made it to a billboard,” Williams wrote on X.
Tensions in Minneapolis over US President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement agents to the city exploded once again on January 24 when federal officers shot Pretti , a US citizen, after having tackled him to the ground.
The Department of Homeland Security initially claimed the nurse intended to harm agents but video analysis by media contradicted that framing. The Trump administration has since changed its tone with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying January 26 that the president was waiting for the results of an investigation into the shooting before speaking further (archived here ).
Immigration agents had already shot and killed another American, Renee Good, on January 7 and Pretti’s death ignited further outrage over the presence of federal forces in Minneapolis. Good’s death prompted several misleading claims fact-checked by AFP and the days following the shooting of Pretti also generated misinformation .
The video supposedly showing the tribute to Pretti in Times Square is similarly misleading.
The visual can be geolocated to the corner of 7th Avenue and West 43rd Street in New York City (archived here ). Photos captured by an AFP journalist in Times Square at that intersection on January 26 show that no such billboard was on display.
Heavy snow struck the eastern United States in the days before, which can be seen on the ground in the authentic photo taken by AFP. No snow is visible in the fake featuring the Pretti homage.
A reverse image search indicates the clip was created by superimposing the picture of Pretti over an advertisement seen in an Instagram video, which appeared to celebrating Indian Independence Day (archived here ).
This original placed the banner ad over other landmarks, with the account describing its content as being generated with artificial intelligence.
Read more of AFP’s reporting on misinformation in Minnesota here .
