Denver, Colorado - Alex Pretti's parents sat down for an emotional and wide-ranging interview about their son's life and his eventual broad daylight shooting by a Customs and Border Protection officer in January.

When the New York Times sat down with Pretti's parents for their first interview since his killing at the hands of CBP agents in January, they revealed a box stuffed full of letters and cards expressing admiration for their son.

"He's my firstborn," Pretti's mother, Susan, said on Tuesday. "He's the one that made me a mother. There was no reason he should have died that day."

While neither had ever talked much politics with their son, they expressed admiration for the way that he had cherished the community he found himself serving as an ICU nurse in Minneapolis.

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"He said, 'Mom, they're kidnapping kids,'" Pretti's father recalled. "'Why would anybody do that? Why would people treat each other like that? That just doesn't make any sense. There's no reason to.'"

"The truth is, he was an exceptionally kind, caring man," he said.

While neither of Pretti's parents wanted to turn the conversation political, instead opting to remember and commemorate their son, they expressed shock about what they called the "sickening lies" that were circulated after his death.

They said that the videos of his shooting prove that their son did not deserve to die and make the reality of what happened "so clear."

"His last act on this earth, his last thought, was to help this woman," his father said, referencing the woman that Pretti checked on mere moments before his death.

"It's who he was, every day," Pretti's mother responded. "He's the same Alex he always was."