Vigil for Alex Pretti at the Menlo Park VA

On January 29, 2026, we stood across the street from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Menlo Park with candles, a banner, and our hats to honor Alex Pretti. Alex was a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the VA. He was shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol in Minneapolis only days before.

We organized the vigil with Veterans for Peace Chapter 69, the Wolves of Menlo Park, and the Stand Up for Science and Sanity coalition, and AFGE Local 2110 stood with us. It came together in a matter of days. Three VA doctors spoke, as did a former nurse from Veterans for Peace and a Vietnam veteran who gets his Agent Orange care at that very hospital. One VA worker put it plainly: “For me it was seeing a fellow federal worker getting murdered in the street and seeing nothing from the administration.”

Annie and Phil sang a song they wrote for the night, and the Grannies and the Wolves joined in. We sang for Alex, for the nurses and doctors who care for our veterans, and for every federal worker this administration has left undefended.

More of the story and more photos are on Indybay.

Photo: Paul Rosenblum, ProBonoPhoto.