Hi everyone-
On Saturday, there was another fatal shooting in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who worked with Veterans Affairs, was shot to death while interfering in immigration enforcement operations. Border Patrol agents were attempting to arrest an illegal immigrant, Jose Huerta-Chuma, who was wanted for violent assault. Huerta-Chuma is still at large.
Protesters, including Pretti, had shown up outside a place called Glam Donuts and sought to prevent the arrest of Huerta-Chuma. They were blowing whistles at agents, and apparently, Pretti was directing traffic, which isn't something a random person just starts to do, and had his cell phone in his hand. Agents removed a woman who was blocking the street, knocking her into the snow.
Pretti got between her and the agents, at which point the two of them were sprayed with chemical agents. Agents wrestled Pretti to the ground. An officer took his gun, yelled "gun," and that gun went off. In under a second, agents fired their guns, and Pretti was killed. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said that Pretti had two loaded magazines and "no accessible ID." He said, "This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damaged and massacre law enforcement." Pretti's parents spoke out after he was killed, saying they'd warned him not to engage with law enforcement and that he was compelled to join the protests after Renee Good was shot. He'd also joined the George Floyd protests in 2020. One of his neighbors said he was part of an ICE Watch Signal chat where people team up and direct each other as to where ICE is conducting operations, so that they can go interfere.
After Bovino's comments, Pretti's parents said "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."
Tim Walz spoke out and said he'd told DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's office to remove federal agents from the city and complained that politicians were "trying to spin a narrative." He said "I asked Americans, this will end? When enough Americans say this will end? Do I have any confidence Donald Trump will do the right thing? No, I don't have a lot of confidence Donald Trump will do the right thing. I do have a lot of confidence that the majority of the American people will do the right thing."
"Quit referring to these people as law enforcement," Walz said. "They are not law enforcement." He may not think ICE or Border Patrol are law enforcement, but it's also confusing as to what he thinks the point of the National Guard is. He deployed them to the Whipple federal building, where protests have been nightly occurrences for weeks, and they were ordered to give out coffee and donuts to protesters.
In a post on Sunday night, Walz said "Damn proud of Minnesota." It turns out Minnesotans were trailing people they believed were ICE agents and demanding their IDs.
Just like with the shooting of Renee Good a few weeks ago, everyone is using this shooting to justify their own political perspective, but what we have here is a really giant case of chicken, where someone is going to have to break first.
Libby