I have spent the day trying to process the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by Border Patrol. What happened today isn’t something you just process. It’s something that hollows you out. Frankly, I’m not doing a very good job of processing it at all. Mostly I am angry, saddened, and disgusted.
Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, a man who dedicated his life to caring for others, and he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent as federal immigration enforcement operations swarmed Minneapolis.
I have watched every available video I can find. So far, there is no evidence supporting the government’s repeated contention that Pretti was “impeding ICE” or attacking agents. What is clear from the footage is this: he was recording what was happening, trying to help people around him, and then a group of agents tackled him, pepper-sprayed him, and ultimately shot him multiple times while he was on the ground.
The official story from DHS and Border Patrol leans heavily on the claim that Pretti had a gun and that agents feared for their lives. But video evidence and witness accounts show that he was filming, not threatening, when this all began, and that the weapon was only recovered after he was restrained.
I am angriest not just at what happened, but at the grotesquely asinine responses from people supporting it.
“Stay off the streets and let ICE do their job.”
What job is that?
Arresting legal immigrants with no criminal records?
Detaining people because of the color of their skin or because they have an accent?
Going door to door and interrogating neighbors about who might be “here illegally”?
Asking detained people for the names of their family members?
Withholding medical attention from pregnant women or people with serious health conditions?
This isn’t law enforcement. This is intimidation. This is terror. This is the kind of thing that makes normal people, people like a nurse who cared about his community, step in and document what is happening.
Thank God for the brave people filming these encounters. Without their phones and their courage, how many people would have been disappeared, including American citizens, with no record and no accountability?
There is no humane justification for what ICE and Border Patrol are doing in Minneapolis or anywhere else. The only purpose it serves is to prop up a wannabe dictator in the White House and a cabinet full of cronies with no integrity, no compassion, and no respect for human life. Not a single one of them has earned the benefit of the doubt.
I am so over this Nazi crap.
I am so over people pretending that violence against civilians is acceptable as long as it is done in the name of enforcement.
I am so over watching the government watch its own citizens be shot in the streets and call it something other than murder.
If this makes you uncomfortable, it should. Silence is part of how this keeps happening. Pay attention. Watch the videos. Support journalists and everyday people who are documenting what they see. Call your representatives and demand accountability. Refuse to normalize this.
Because once we accept that filming the government can get you killed, we are no longer pretending to be a free country.
Too much of this violence to process but I guess that is the point. It’s not normal and whatever else we do, we cannot accept it as normal.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right, we cannot accept this as normal. I pray that every Republican and Libertarian will contact their elected Republican representatives and tell then this is not acceptable and that they will not vote Republican if they continue to support forty-sevens illegal acts.
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