Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old man killed by federal immigration agents Saturday, worked as a nurse treating sick veterans, according to family, friends and colleagues – a reflection of his deep desire to help others, they said.

Pretti worked as an Intensive Care Unit nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center for around five years, according to a co-worker who asked to speak anonymously.

“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world,” his parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, said in a statement. “Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.”

Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, Chief of Infectious Diseases Section at the Minneapolis VA, wrote on Bluesky that he was “a good, kind person who lived to help.” Drekonja said Pretti supported critically ill veterans at the hospital. The co-worker said Pretti researched how to prevent veterans from dying from colon cancer.

Pretti was fatally shot while immigration agents wrestled him on the ground in Minneapolis; the Department of Homeland Security said officers took a handgun from Pretti at the scene and fired in self-defense. CNN analysis of video shows a federal agent removed the gun just before the shooting. “The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted,” the agency said in a statement.

Minneapolis police have said Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit, and court records show he had no charges in the state, only traffic and parking infractions.

His parents, in their statement, disputed DHS claims that he was a threat to agents when he was killed. They said he was seeking to protect a woman near the agents at the time.

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” the parents said, adding that “he was a good man.”

Pretti began participating in protests against immigration enforcement in Minneapolis after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good earlier this month, family members told the Associated Press.

“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father.

Pretti graduated from high school in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 2006, according to CNN affiliate Spectrum News. Pretti put himself through nursing school by working at the VA hospital and joined its staff after graduating, Pretti’s co-worker said.

Pretti’s neighbor Jeannie Wiener said she was shocked to hear Pretti had been killed Saturday. She said she often engaged in small talk with Pretti when he was out walking his dog, and estimated that he’d lived in the neighborhood for five years.

Wiener, who serves on the crime and safety committee of the Lyndale Neighborhood Association, said she did not think Pretti was a threat to anybody, describing him as “very pleasant, very cordial.”

Pretti’s father told the AP that they had discussed how he should be careful while protesting against ICE.

“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti told the AP. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”

CNN’s Curt Devine contributed to this report.