An American Murder
Two weeks ago, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Nicole Good in cold blood. I said then that we had to abolish ICE and impeach Trump & Noem before they incited another murder.
As more details have emerged, it’s only looked worse. Multiple angles of video showed Good was trying to avoid hitting anyone. Ross, stupidly, stepped in front of her vehicle to film her license plate. The video shows her backing up and turning away from him.
Now the gunshot evidence reveals it was even worse than we knew. Of the three shots Ross fired, only one was fatal: one fired well after her car was clear of him, shooting through the side window. He executed her as she drove away.
The administration lied. They claimed she was aiming to harm ICE agents when she was doing no such thing. They called her a domestic terrorist.
Then Tom Homan made a promise. He claimed that if people didn’t stop calling ICE and CBP murderers, they were just going to have to murder again.
Now they have. In cold blood, they murdered Alex Pretti.
It was an American murder.
Let’s be clear about what Pretti did and did not do. He was not protesting. He was not brandishing a weapon. He had a legal, holstered gun, which he never touched and never sought to grab. His “crime” was helping direct traffic, videotaping what immigration officers were doing, and then moving to help a woman who had been pepper sprayed and knocked down on the ice — even as Pretti himself had been pepper sprayed.
He was helping. That’s all.
And yet, once again, the worst of the Trump administration rushed to blatantly lie. They claimed he was a terrorist. That he came to murder federal officers. That he brandished a weapon. None of that is true.
By all accounts Pretti was a good person — an ICU nurse at the VA hospital, someone about whom there has been an outpouring of stories describing a kind, gentle, helping man. But none of that should matter. If he wasn’t an ICU nurse. If he wasn’t a nice guy. Even if he wasn’t an American citizen. Nothing he did would justify being shot multiple times in the middle of the street.
Incredibly, the party that made the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” the most consequential and central plank of their entire identity is now trying to claim that merely possessing a legal, holstered gun justifies being murdered by federal agents.
It was an American murder.
Kash Patel went on Fox News and claimed, falsely, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law and incite violence.”
Except that’s bullshit. The MAGA right has a long history of proudly showing up at protests brandishing loaded weapons. Sarah Longwell compiled some examples that make the hypocrisy unavoidable. MAGA doesn’t care. They know they’re lying and they get a thrill from it. It’s a game to them to lie because it “triggers the libs.”
They will justify and celebrate murder so long as they can meme it and parade around how mad it makes empathetic people to see their friends and neighbors murdered.
Hell, Kyle Rittenhouse became a hero of the MAGA right not just for showing up to a protest brandishing a loaded weapon, but for killing people. Kash Patel publicly berated “the left” for not giving Rittenhouse “due process” (which he did, in fact, receive), and now claims that Pretti deserved to be murdered for doing far less.
JD Vance, who has been blaming Minnesota officials because he knows he has to make shit up, once praised Kyle Rittenhouse:
He saw a bunch of thugs and rioters destroying his community, and no one was doing anything about it. You know one of the values that represent my community, if not honor and loyalty and devotion to your community. This 17-year-old boy saw no one protecting the businesses, the people, the community. So he went down there and did it.
It wasn’t even Rittenhouse’s community. He lived in a different state entirely.
Pretti did live in Minneapolis. And he, too, saw thugs and rioters destroying his community. They just happened to be federal agents. And he got murdered for trying to help.
The MAGA world rushed to blame him.
It was an American murder.
A man, a helper, shows up to help. Yes, he’s carrying a gun. But it’s legal to do so. He had it legally. He could carry it legally. He never once sought to use it. Instead, he sought to help people. Help them navigate a crowded street. Help witness the actions of federal agents who were kidnapping and attacking people. Help the woman near him who was pepper sprayed and knocked over.
And he got murdered for it.
Every bit of it is obscene. Every bit of it is unnecessary.
And the rush by Trump officials and their cult-like followers to justify it? That’s American too. The lies, so blatant, so obvious. These people have learned that truth doesn’t matter anymore, so long as they can repeat the lies enough on enough friendly TV networks. They will always have pathetic cult members who will repeat and pass them on.
Nicole Good’s final words were “Dude, we’re not mad at you.”
The agent who murdered her responded “fucking bitch” after shooting her through the head.
Alex Pretti’s final words were “Are you okay?” — spoken to someone who needed help.
Some of the agents involved in his murder mock cried “boo hoo” at the people screaming at them for killing a man in the street who did nothing wrong.
Where else but America could you have a helper murdered by federal officials in broad daylight for doing nothing but helping, while carrying a gun he did not brandish?
Where else but America would you see federal officials mock those who were shocked and upset by the murder?
Where else but America would you see federal officials immediately blame the victim for exercising his Second Amendment rights — the same rights those officials claimed to hold sacred?
Where else but America?
This was an American murder.