Photo of Alex Pretti

Social media users say MSNBC edited Alex Pretti’s photo to “beautify his face.”

Pretti, 37, was fatally shot during a fracas with federal Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Saturday, January 24.

The ICU nurse was pinned down and disarmed by a federal agent who took away his handgun. Two agents then shot Pretti multiple times while he was on the ground.

Critics claim MSNBC aired a digitally altered photo of Pretti in news broadcasts to garner more sympathy from the public.

X user @TRHofficial wrote: “MSNBC gave Pretti a tan, a stronger jawline, better teeth, shorter forehead, and a nose job to make him look hotter…” She also claimed MSNBC “broadened his shoulders, thickened his neck, and gave him biceps.”

The image contains a digital watermark that shows it was generated using Google’s AI image generator tool, Gemini, according to Politifact.

The AI scandal swept the Internet, as critics pummeled MSNBC for trying to shape the public’s perception of federal agents in Minneapolis.

Pretti’s family lashed out at MSNBC‘s AI-generated image as “unacceptable manipulation” of their loved one’s memory.

The family said the digital alteration of his image “distorts the truth of who he was.”

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama pleaded with Black Americans to “get off the sidelines” and join the anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis.

Obama tweeted on Wednesday morning: “More and more Americans are voicing their outrage at the tactics being deployed by federal agents in Minnesota. But it’s important to understand the broader implications of what this administration is doing, and the threat it poses to the basic freedoms of every American.”

Obama re-posted a link to a Black podcast that he says “does a good job of laying out what’s at stake, and why all of us need to get off the sidelines to demand change.”