Stella Carlson, Witness Whose Video Contradicted Official Pretti Claims, Tells CNN the FBI Has Not Contacted Her

In an interview broadcast January 27, 2026, on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” Stella Carlson — the Minneapolis bystander known as the “pink coat lady” whose video of the January 24 fatal shooting of nurse Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection officers contradicted federal officials’ initial account — spoke publicly for the first time. Carlson’s footage showed that Pretti, who held a permit to carry a concealed pistol, never brandished a gun as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had claimed, and that an officer had removed Pretti’s handgun from its holster seconds before he was pinned and shot. CNN reported Carlson and her attorney said she had given a sworn statement after the shooting but, as of the interview, had not been contacted by the FBI or anyone else from the federal government supposedly investigating the killing. Carlson said she believed federal authorities were delaying contact in order to “protect themselves and to spin stories” about Pretti’s death.

The reported absence of FBI outreach tracks with the federal posture on the case: the Justice Department declined to open a civil-rights probe, leaving the Department of Homeland Security to investigate its own officers — CBP examining whether its agents followed policy and Homeland Security Investigations examining whether Pretti had broken any law. The structural read is that the eyewitness whose recording was most damaging to the official narrative is the one the investigating agencies had not approached, while the inquiry that did proceed was housed inside the agency whose officers fired the shots.

Note on verification: this entry is limited to what CNN and corroborating outlets sourced — Carlson’s CNN appearance, her account of the footage, and her statement (attributed to her and her attorney) that the FBI had not contacted her. A separately circulated claim that Carlson was followed or placed under surveillance after speaking publicly could not be corroborated in available reporting and is therefore NOT asserted here.