Video Tells The Tale
And, like with Renee Good, it tells us that the administration is brazenly lying to us.
In the screenshot above, please note that Alex Pretti was holding a phone in his hand moments before he was tackled by ICE operatives. The video shows that he tried to help a woman who had been violently shoved by those operatives before being gang-tackled. The videos clearly show that he was not brandishing a weapon, and claims that he was “an individual [who] wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” as Greg Bovino asserted, are patently absurd (source: The Star-Tribune: Fact check: Video, witnesses contradict some of federal officials’ shooting claims).
Like with the Renee Good shooting, the NYT has provided excellent analysis of the best available video of the summary execution of Alex Pretti: Videos Show Moments in Which Agents Killed a Man in Minneapolis. There is zero in the videos that show anything like “domestic terrorism.”
Bovino and company have done a good job of telling truths that obscure the bigger lies. For example, he stated: “During this operation, an individual approached U.S. Border Patrol agents with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.”
This is technically correct. He had a handgun on his person.* It was concealed, which, as I understand it, comports with the law of the state in question. But he was not brandishing. He did not draw the weapon. He was holding his phone. Pretti “approached…with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun” the same way he “approached” with shirt, pants, and shoes: they were on his person.
Video shows ICE agents taking the gun from him when he was on the ground. Indeed, it seems that they only discovered it while in the act of tackling him. It appears that upon hearing the word “gun” one of the ICE operatives pulled his weapon and started firing. This was not self-defense. Indeed, it looks to me that they shot him in the back.
It appears he was shot ten times.
A man, on the ground, face down.
Shot.
Ten.
Times.
Watch the videos for yourself if you don’t believe me.
What they show is some altercation in which ICE shoves a woman to the ground (we don’t know why), and Pretti helps her up. This quickly degenerates into a scrum and quickly escalates to a sidewalk execution. My guess is that words were exchanged that ICE didn’t like, so they escalated.
And, like with the murder of Renee Good, we have the administration asserting that the killing was self-defense in the face of domestic terrorism.
Even if you are a reader who thinks that protesters should keep their distance from ICE, or maybe you think that they shouldn’t be protesting at all, please stop and consider that none of this is justified, and that we should expect any law enforcement entity to behave professionally and to de-escalate, not as both of these incidents indicate, lash out in anger at US citizens exercizing their constitutional rights.
Ask yourself, upon watching any of these videos: Is there any defensible reason that ICE couldn’t have just walked away?
To go back to the Good killing, it is worth remembering that the man who shot her had driven past Good’s car (despite the claim that she was blocking the road–video clearly shows this) and walked back to Good and placed himself near the front of the vehicle.
Annoying law enforcement is actually a First Amendment right. The notion that instead of being protected speech, it carries the death penalty without trial is the stuff of authoritarian nightmares.
Again, if you haven’t, please watch the video. If there is a plausible counter-explanation that I am missing, feel free to leave a comment.
(BTW, I know that regular readers will have watched the videos and are sympathetic to my position. My general plea is directed either at non-commenters who might have differing views or to folks on social media brought to this post.)
*For what it is worth, I am not a fan of carrying a firearm, but setting aside my personal preferences, I would note that it was almost certainly being legally carried. Moreover, many in the Republican coalition have told us for decades that carrying a weapon is a good thing and makes us all safer. And yet members of that coalition also use it as a justification for law enforcement to shoot and kill you. The contradiction here is just off the charts.
No. Which raises the question of why they don’t.
They dont walk away for multiple reasons. They have minimal training. They are anonymous and unaccountable. They have clearly been encouraged by their leaders to maximize confrontations and told that they will be protected from consequences.
Steve
Thanks for watching this and reporting. I didn’t really feel I had the stomach for it.
All predictable and predicted.
Yet some still want to treat this regime as a normal administration.
I would put good money on that bet.
I’ll also bet that evidence will be buried.
That has a chantable rhythm.
I propose shouting this at every Republican we encounter.
As James notes in his post today, we need to amplify the backlash.
1. By the same token that prison guards are viewed to be people who couldn’t pass the qualifications to be police officers, I strongly suspect that current ICE agents are not qualified to be prison guards.
2. No dissonance here. The fact that Republicans believe that Republicans should be armed, while the rest of us shouldn’t, has been obvious for most if not all of the 70 plus years I have been on the planet. Additionally, it seems the only Republicans who should be armed are those who are melanin deficient.
Proveme wrong. Please.
Fixer Barbie let everyone know what it’s all about. From Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack:
There’s more at Democracy Dockett
Curious Fixer Barbie implies bringing back law an order means removing the Brownshirts (aka ICE).
@steve222:
And thus far, by and large, there have been no attacks on them. They certainly don’t face an organized, armed opposition.
@Scott F.:
Wow. It really does.
@Scott F.:
Wow. It really does.
Violence isn’t the answer here – they’re ready for violence. The economy is the right tool. National strike. Stop the economy for 48 hours. Buy nothing, make nothing. Watch the stock market. Threaten to do it again. If you pick up a gun they can shoot you – see Iran. If you don’t go to work they can’t make you.