“‘HE WAS TRYING TO HELP HER’: THE PINK-HOODED WITNESS BREAKS DOWN AS ANDERSON COOPER PRESSES FOR THE TRUTH — AND DESCRIBES THE FINAL SECONDS BEFORE ALEX PRETTI WAS SHOT”

In a tense, emotional interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night, the woman who filmed the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, finally spoke publicly about what she says she witnessed on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis — and her account sharply contradicts the official version of events.

Known online as “the woman in the pink hoodie,” she recalled lifting her phone instinctively as chaos erupted around her, her voice shaking as she shouted into the camera, “They’re hitting him! They’re pulling him down!” The footage would later spread across social media, becoming one of the most disturbing records of the encounter.

When Cooper asked her what she saw in the seconds just before the gunfire, she paused, visibly overwhelmed.

“Pretti wasn’t fighting anyone,” she said. “He was trying to help a woman who had just been shoved to the ground. That’s all he was doing.”

According to her account, Pretti still had his phone in his hand, filming like many others nearby. She described him stepping toward a woman who appeared disoriented after being pushed, placing a hand on her back as if to help her stand.

“He didn’t charge them. He didn’t threaten them,” she told Cooper. “People were coughing from the spray. Everyone was yelling. And then suddenly they were on him.”

She says officers forced Pretti to the ground, pinning him as bystanders screamed for them to stop. Then came the gunshots — rapid, deafening, and final.

“I remember screaming that they were police, that this didn’t make sense,” she said. “And then it was over. He was just lying there.”

The witness also revealed that reliving the moment has been haunting her ever since. She said she still replays the video in her mind, wondering how a situation that began with someone trying to help another person spiraled into a deadly shooting in seconds.

“I keep thinking — if he hadn’t stepped forward, if he’d just stayed back like everyone else… would he still be alive?”

Her testimony has intensified public outrage and fueled renewed calls for accountability, as critics question whether lethal force was justified against a man multiple witnesses describe as unarmed and non-aggressive.

For the woman in the pink hoodie, the memory is inescapable.

“People keep calling him a threat,” she said quietly. “But what I saw was a man trying to do the right thing — and paying for it with his life.”