All the Shock, with Zero Awe
It’s the day after the murder of ICU nurse Alex Pretti who worked at the VA in Minneapolis. I presume most Americans who were watching TV or were online viewing news events yesterday have seen at least one video of the murder.
In the past few months, several things have become important to note since the President and/or his hirelings started sending quasi-military federal troops into US cities, purportedly to extract and deport undocumented immigrants back to their home countries. Defining the immigrants as the ‘worst of the worst’ criminals who have committed violent crimes, administration officials have promoted the idea that they’d first remove members of three or four street gangs guilty of murder, sex trafficking and other violent crimes.
The reality hasn’t come close to that promotion.
1) There’s no evidence that any of the tenants in the Chicago apartment building where a staged helicopter drop of agents were members of any gang or that any were subsequently deported. Although the building had problems with crime, with squatters and - per the tenants - a landlord failing to maintain the place in a habitable condition, it’s recently been reported by a whistleblower that the landlord falsely reported to DHS that gang members were there because they wanted the building emptied of its tenants quickly and the landlord then had employees steal and toss the belongings of numerous tenants while they were detained.
2) When claims emerged that other deportees were wrongfully sent to foreign prisons as gang members, administration and DHS officials refused to back down, proclaiming that some were terrorists and murderers without providing evidence. They stated that the ones sent to an infamous El Salvadorean torture prison couldn’t be returned because El Salvador’s leader had sole responsibility for them. Eventually, one guy best known was returned and all the guys sent to that prison were released, returned to their home countries. An investigation by ProPublica reporters who contacted many of those returned determined that roughly 70% had no crminal records here or in their home countries.
The best known guy was returned to the US and was then charged with trafficking immigrants into the US, based on the claim of a convicted trafficker who was promised leniency for saying so.
It took repeated efforts by lawyers to gain his release after several more months imprisoned and he still will face trial if they don’t change tactics again.
3) Numerous claims have emerged from every questionable act of detention or shootings done by ICE or Border Patrol agents. The most common is that the immigrant or citizen had rammed a federal agent’s vehicle. In almost every case, bystander videos have demonstrated that no ramming occurred and in some cases, the agent vehicles did the ramming.
That, and claims that someone tried to attack an agent are the go-to claims in every instance. Claims made by Secretary Noem, Stephen Miller, and other White House officials. Instantly, before any investigation has occurred, contrary to standard practices of law enforcement at any level of government, under any previous president.
It’s become a new standard that when it comes to immigrant deportations or detainment of citizens, even some as young as two, that DHS and White House officials are in lockstep, operating from the same script authored by one of them. The script includes rejections of investigations by state or local officials or the FBI. They’re pretty strong indicators that every instance of rough and/or wrongful detainment and every use of force by federal agents will continue to be covered up.
Yesterday, from the violent white supremacist running this death show, Stephen Miller posted on X that “an assassin tried to murder federal agents.” Bullshit.
4) After yesterday’s murder, Governor Walz of Minnesota contacted the White House to make the case that federal agents should leave the state. He was offered a deal: they would be withdrawn if Walz would agree to release Minnesota’s voter database to the feds. He refused for the justified concern that it would violate the privacy of all Minnesota voters. The offer suggests that Trump officials have an ulterior motive, to disrupt and challenge next November’s elections, a goal that supersedes their concerns about any risks caused by undocumented immigrants.
I could go much farther in defining the actions demonstrating the mandated lies of the administration and DHS but it’s too big a distraction from the main points about the specific events that took place that resulted in the unprovoked murder of another US citizen. DHS initially claimed Alex approached them with a gun, resisted attempts to disarm him and agents fired at him defensively.
The first video I saw raised more questions than answers. Did the victim possess a gun or attack agents, as DHS initially claimed? Why were 10 shots necessary since every shot posed ricochet risks to other agents and bystanders, which trained law enforcement officials rarely do?
Based on previous releases of controversial videos, I was pretty certain more would emerge that might add better evidence before conclusions could be drawn. Patience and research are hallmarks of normal law enforcement and investigative journalism.
I’ve seen half a dozen and will post the most illuminating ones that provide most answers.
First, here’s Alex Pretti 13 months ago, honoring a 77 year old recently deceased military veteran.
A former CIA analyst who writes a Substack newsletter went over the initial video of the shooting frame by frame. He determined that 10 shots were fired, 5 of them after the victim was motionless on his back on the ground. He saw one agent depart with something in his hand just before the first shot was fired. And he mentioned ‘the Pink Lady’ in the background using her phone, suggesting her photos or videos could provide better answers.
He was correct, the woman in the pink coat had a much better vantage point. The CIA retiree would post more about that but I found other instructive videos. Here’s the footage from the Pink Lady’s phone.
1) A judge granted a quickly filed restraining order to prevent the destruction or alteration of evidence at the scene. But no one secured the crime scene.
2) Another long distance view shows agents pushing 2 demonstrators to the curb. Alex, holding his phone, steps between to protect one woman and gets his face pepper sprayed. He fumbled around for a second or two, likely partly blinded by the spray, before agents grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground. One agent can be seen hitting him in the head with something he was holding.
Notice the tall wide back of the agent in a gray coat. Around 27-28 seconds, he kicks a teargas cannister out of the way and dives into the dogpile. At 39 seconds, he pulls up and runs away, holding a gun (possibly the weapon from Alex’s holster, as he had a license to carry a concealed weapon.) At no point in any video did Alex brandish his gun or make a move to unholster it. It’s unlikely the holster was even seen till he was on the ground with 6 or 7 agents restraining him. The gunfire begins just after the agent runs off with the gun..
3) From AP and YahooNews: “The officer who shot Pretti is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said.
The Minnesota National Guard has been activated by Gov. Tim Walz and is assisting local police amid growing protests. Guard troops are going to both to the shooting site and to a federal building where officials have squared off with protesters daily.”
Also:
Pretti’s family released a statement Saturday evening saying they are “heartbroken but also very angry” and calling him a kindhearted soul who wanted to make a difference in the world through his work as a nurse.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed,” the statement said.
“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.”
4) Historian Heather Cox Richardson made a second appearance yesterday due to the alarm bells going off in readers’ minds everywhere. Normally a calm, dispassionate voice adding historical perspectives to news events, it became clear early on, and in her own words, she was extremely angry. She made a quick point others had missed, that based on their outfits, the agents involved were not ICE and were likely from Border Patrol.
Her points: Alex Pretti was initially directing traffic at the scene where the agents and a small crowd of protesters were. She details the on scene events in the video’s first six minutes. Then till 14 minutes in, she describes the federal response and the Minnesota officials response and a gun rights group’s response. No longer sugarcoating the federal response like many media outlets do, she brands their response as outright lies.
You can watch the entire 36 minute video or read my summary of it in less time. From 14 minutes till 23 minutes - one of the most important segments of her talk - she describes Stephen Miller’s warped views, how they were formed and why he and others in Trump’s circle view human rights advocates, Constitution analysts, teachers and professors as assistants to immigrants trying to destroy America. And why they’re trying to justify all these violent acts as necessary. I do recommend you watch that section… and the rest of the video.
She throws down the gauntlet, calling this 'THE’ moment that we have to choose where we stand. She defines current attempts to defund these lawless agencies as relatively ineffective. At 26 minutes, she makes it clear that it’s us, the people, who wield the ultimate power here and that this is the moment to contact and demand from elected Republicans, to defend the Constitution and the rule of law that they swore an oath to defend. That last 11 minutes is deeply moving. Take the time to view that much of her video at least. It’s the most important part of this edition of this newsletter. AND HEED HER WORDS.
I mean, I’m among those who regularly question the effectiveness of street protests. But historians have noted something they call the 3.5% rule. For over a century, when 3.5% of the public get out on the streets to demonstrate PEACEFULLY against a fascist or totalitarian government, that government falls.
5) Here you can see Pretti kneeling while the gray coated agent reaches the gun in Pretti’s holster.
And here, you can see the gray coated agent pulling away from the dogpile.
And this is where, as gray coat backs away, in the center of the video an agent pulls his gun and starts killing Pretti. (Let your stomach determine whether to watch this one.) Or the longer version of her video, beginning with Pretti directing traffic, through agents initiating contact, through the murder and her emotional responses after.
Or you can skip most of the videos and watch this one, as the narrator fully describes the encounter. This is the easiest to share, while Heather’s video emphasizes the motivations and important choices we have to make going forward.
That should provide everything for your own eyes, ears and rational thought to consider. Will you add to the 3.5% that can change the direction the Trump government is trying to force upon us?
The emotions can overwhelm. I know. But it’s time. We have to show up.
So many violations of normal law enforcement practices and some would-be war crimes if we did it to POWs. I refuse to call Border Patrol or ICE ‘law enforcement’ at all, because they’re not. But I’ll be calling numerous Republican lawmakers all day Monday and will attend street protests all week. Or longer. As long as it takes.
Another video from Friday, covering a stop in Texas. Proof of the lies and one agent’s theft. The tenth grader's effort to track and recover that phone produced this evidence.
