The Killing of Alex Pretti Should Be the Breaking Point

Last week, I wrote an article at CounterPunch about the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis. When I wrote that piece, my goal was to stay measured and make the case that the shooting was unjustified in a way that might actually get certain people to listen. I reviewed the video evidence and told a story from my Army days about a moment when we were able to avoid killing civilians in a split-second situation far more dangerous than the one the officer was in who shot Renee Good. The point was to stay calm, professional, unemotional, and deliberate, to keep the anger out of my voice and focus on facts.

But after seeing the videos of federal agents killing Alex Pretti, I’m not interested in putting on that pretense anymore. Because I am fucking angry. And every American, regardless of political belief or background, should be angry too.

Watching Kristi Noem and other Republicans once again deny reality and twist the shooting into something it plainly is not would almost be impressive if it weren’t so preposterous. The level of mental gymnastics they are demanding of the public is staggering. When regime propagandists like Noem and Gregory Bovino go on television and tell the American people to accept the “official” version of events, even when it directly contradicts what anyone with eyes and a functioning brain can clearly see across multiple videos from multiple angles, we’ve crossed into classic Orwellian territory, textbook doublespeak straight out of 1984.

“War is peace.”
“Freedom is slavery.”
“Ignorance is strength.”
“He intended to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement.”

That last claim from the administration is such complete and obvious bullshit that you should be insulted they think you’re dumb enough to believe it, despite the overwhelming, high-definition evidence you can watch for yourself.

The videos, which if you’re reading this you’ve almost certainly seen multiple times by now, leave very little room for doubt about what actually happened. And the official statement from Pretti’s grieving parents says out loud what we can all already see: “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. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”

But much like in the case of Renee Good, as soon as the last shot was fired into his prone, beaten, defenseless body, Kristi Noem and other officials were already scrambling for the nearest microphone to label Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist before they even knew his name or background, let alone before any serious investigation had taken place. They moved immediately to control the narrative and plant seeds in people’s minds, knowing full well that video would surface that would contradict the official story.

This time, they went too far.

Alex Pretti was anything but a domestic terrorist. He was an ICU nurse who worked at the VA hospital caring for veterans at the end of their lives. He had no criminal record. He was a responsible gun owner with a legal concealed carry license. He was a model citizen by any reasonable standard.

The kind of person I recognize from my time in the Army, someone who spent his life serving and helping people who needed it. The kind of neighbor, friend, or relative most Americans would be grateful to have. And he was the kind of guy who, when he saw an amped-up thug in tactical gear violently assault a woman, rushed to her aid without thinking about his own safety.

And for that, he was violently beaten and executed in the street by masked state enforcers operating with impunity, after their leaders made it clear that ICE and other federal immigration agents are now functionally above the law. Because the Trump administration knows it cannot let the truth come out without Americans turning on them, they immediately ramped up a smear campaign, attempting to paint Pretti as a violent criminal and inventing a story that never existed.

One thing we have always known about Donald Trump is that he never accepts responsibility and never admits mistakes. There appear to be no lengths Noem, Trump, and other regime officials won’t go to in order to blame the victim, the people of Minneapolis, Tim Walz, Democrats, literally anyone and everyone except the people who actually pulled the trigger or the administration that put them there.

Speaking of triggers, let’s talk about guns for a minute. Specifically, the gun Alex Pretti was carrying, and gun culture more broadly.

One of the points the administration keeps hammering home is that the victim was armed, as if that alone somehow justifies federal agents shooting him. But he was a law-abiding citizen with a legal concealed carry permit. He never brandished his weapon. He never threatened anyone. Multiple videos from different angles clearly show Pretti holding only a phone before he’s wrestled to the ground. After several agents had him pinned and beaten, a Border Patrol officer is seen retrieving a handgun from near his waistband and walking away with it, before another agent unholsters his own weapon and begins firing into Pretti’s body.

They also keep pointing out that he had “multiple magazines,” meaning one in the weapon and a backup, as if that automatically means he intended to murder as many people as possible. If carrying extra mags is the standard for intent to do harm, then the agents who killed him also qualify.

And so do I. So does every lawful gun owner I personally know. And because I’m a veteran who lives in Texas and tends to spend time around other Texas veterans, I know a lot of them. Carrying a backup magazine is normal and prudent. Pretti was exactly the kind of person gun-rights groups claim to support.

And in fact, the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun organizations have called for a full investigation, explicitly rejecting the idea that lawful gun ownership justifies lethal force. When groups that routinely move in lockstep with Trump publicly say the government has gone too far, it’s probably worth paying attention. In my view, they should have gone much further than calling for an investigation, but at this point I suppose I should be relieved they found the nerve to say anything at all.

And yet, plenty of right-wing commenters on social media continue repeating the regime’s line. “Well, he had a gun.” As if that settles the matter. It’s hard to ignore the irony that many of these same people decorate their profiles with “Don’t Tread on Me” flags or “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” while simultaneously arguing that the mere presence of a legally carried firearm makes someone expendable when the state decides to pull the trigger. You can’t posture as fearless defenders of freedom while bending over backward to excuse state violence the moment it’s politically convenient. You can’t have it both ways.

And where, exactly, are all the right-wing militias who have been warning about this scenario for decades? For years, they’ve insisted that Americans need guns to prevent a tyrannical government from turning on its own people. Well, that tyrannical government you’ve been warning us about for decades is here. It’s on 4K video, streaming across every network in the country right now. It’s actively treading on people’s constitutional rights and literally killing Americans in broad daylight, including lawful gun owners, and their response has been mostly deafening silence. I’m sorry if you really wanted that government to be led by a Democrat, but we don’t get to pick the party colors tyrants wear.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that a bunch of dudes in camo pants and face paint should storm out of the woods and start attacking ICE facilities. I’ve long advocated for peaceful, non-violent resistance. We have to hold the moral high ground at all costs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi were right: if we resort to violence, even in the face of violence, we lose. We lose the narrative.

There’s a principle known as the 3.5 percent rule that shows this isn’t wishful thinking. Political scientists studying major resistance movements found that nonviolent campaigns are about twice as successful as violent ones, and that when roughly 3.5 percent of a population engages in sustained, disciplined, nonviolent protest, those movements succeed. In the U.S., that’s about 12 million people.

That number isn’t unachievable. Every time the Trump administration pushes policies most people don’t want, every time a citizen is killed by masked federal agents in public, and every time the regime follows it up by spinning a narrative we can all see is false and demanding that we accept it anyway, the anger grows. So does the recognition that we’re being gaslit and that silence only invites more of the same. And with that recognition, more people show up in the streets.

It may very well be wishful thinking, but as I talk to friends and acquaintances, it feels like the old party lines are starting to blur and fall away. I’m not talking about the hardline white nationalists and fascists who genuinely believe in the kind of governance Trump is trying to impose on this country. I’m talking about the moderate Republicans, fiscal conservatives, and independents I know who voted for him because of the economy, or because they were angry at the DNC, frustrated by the way Biden’s decline was handled, or felt alienated by a nomination process that was closed off and predetermined. I’m also talking about the people who’ve spent years sitting on the fence, playing the familiar “both sides are at fault” game. More and more of them are starting to realize that the divide doesn’t have much to do with the affiliation on your voter registration card.

This isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat: It’s about where you land when the state uses force to silence dissent. It’s really that simple. Either you believe the American people retain the protected right to assemble and protest, even when you don’t agree politically with what they’re protesting, or you accept a system where a small group of powerful people gets to decide whose rights matter and whose don’t, and backs that decision with force, violence, and lies.

You don’t have to agree with every protest. You don’t have to like the people in the streets. But once you accept that the government gets to decide who is allowed to assemble, who is allowed to resist, and who can be killed with impunity for stepping out of line, the rest of your political beliefs stop mattering.

The reality, though, is that right now the party largely toeing the line and defending the indefensible is the Republican Party. There have been a few outliers calling for a full and independent investigation, but not nearly enough. Most are still cowering behind empty rhetoric and blatant lies told by the increasingly unhinged maniac they allowed to hijack their party a decade ago.

When I wrote my last piece about the Renee Good shooting, the response was mostly positive. The negative emails and DMs were predictable—mostly derogatory comments about “fucking liberals” or “Democrats,” usually misspelled and sometimes vaguely threatening. I’m used to that by now and don’t lose sleep over it. I’m not a registered Democrat or Republican, and I don’t write to defend a party. I’m an independent who has voted across the spectrum, sometimes out of agreement, sometimes out of harm reduction in the face of open authoritarianism, and I believe opposing state violence, due-process violations, and unaccountable power shouldn’t be a partisan position. If that somehow earns me a label in some corners, that’s fine.

But this article isn’t about me. It’s about an administration with a clear and consistent allergy to staying within constitutional limits. No matter where you land politically, most people aren’t in favor of a regime that tries to overturn elections, calls the free press the enemy of the people, attacks judges who don’t rule in its favor, ignores due process, or treats constitutional rights as optional. And most people aren’t in favor of unleashing an unaccountable, masked, poorly trained federal force into American cities as a political intimidation tactic.

Trump likes to say he has a mandate from the American people. In reality, he won about 34% of eligible voters. Harris won roughly 33%, and another 34% stayed home. When two-thirds of the country either votes against you or can’t be bothered to show up for you, that’s not a mandate. It’s a narrow plurality. And for all of the swagger and chest-thumping, the Trump administration knows it, which is why they govern like they’re afraid. Because they are.

Like most desperate authoritarian governments, this one is operating from a place of fear. They know that losing the House and Senate would begin to strip away their ability to control the narrative. They know that losing the presidency in 2028 would likely mean legal accountability for the damage they’ve inflicted on the country and the Constitution. And so they are doing what fearful regimes always do: provoking, threatening, coercing, and using violence to cling to power while insisting you disbelieve what you know to be true.

That same pattern shows up in their response to the killings in Minneapolis. They demand that we believe obvious lies rather than trust our own eyes. They insist they know what’s best, that we are too ignorant or stupid to understand what is plainly in front of us, that what we saw didn’t actually happen, that we should accept the official story, shut the fuck up, and fall in line like good, loyal subjects. And then they escalate.

This escalation is intentional.

They see the crowds growing. They see Americans showing up in the streets despite subzero temperatures, despite the real risk of being shot and labeled a domestic terrorist. They see that, for more than a year now, these protesters have remained peaceful and have held the moral high ground, and because of that, they are trying to provoke a violent response. They want an excuse: an excuse for martial law, an excuse to justify real repression, an excuse to suppress elections and consolidate power.

This movement has understood something fundamental from the start: nonviolent resistance is how we win. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this deeply when he said, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.”

But King, a brilliant man who understood human nature, also said that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” He recognized that if even a peaceful people are ignored, beaten, and terrorized long enough, survival instinct will eventually override restraint. That is precisely what authoritarian regimes rely on. They provoke, escalate, and wait for restraint to break so they can bring the full force of the state down on dissent. We must avoid giving them what they want.

***

We shouldn’t even know the names Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We know them only because federal agents, operating with flimsy administrative warrants and political cover from a corrupt administration, were turned loose on the public and did exactly what anyone paying attention could have predicted. They killed American citizens in the street. And we are going to know more names before this is over.

I ended my CounterPunch piece on the Renee Good killing by saying that if federal agents are treated as if they’re above the law, we shouldn’t expect it to be the last time an unarmed civilian dies at their hands. That unfortunately, but predictably, proved true less than five days after I hit submit. And it will happen again.

It doesn’t take special insight or a crystal ball to see where this is headed: the killing of Alex Pretti is what happens when armed federal agents are given free rein, political cover, and explicit permission to operate as if they are above the law, and Pretti will not be the last peaceful American citizen gunned down by a reckless, poorly trained force operating in American cities as if it has been granted a blanket pardon by the President of the United States for whatever harm it causes.

So no, we shouldn’t be surprised when it happens again. But we should be angry when it does. We should be angry now.

Anger isn’t the problem. What matters is what we do with it.

Regardless of party affiliation or how you voted, the murder of Alex Pretti should be the breaking point. Not only because it’s shocking in isolation, but because it fits a pattern we can no longer pretend not to see. Masked agents. No accountability. Dead civilians. And the demand that we doubt our own eyes.

This is the moment where the abstractions fall away. No one is asking you to agree with every protester or adopt anyone else’s politics. You do, however, have to decide whether you’re willing to accept a country where the state kills its own people in public and lies about it afterward, confident that nothing will happen.

In the end, this won’t be remembered as a dispute between left and right. It will be remembered as a choice between standing on the right side of history or standing by while the state dismantled the limits on its power.

The American experiment is unusual not just because of who we are—a nation shaped by immigrants and refugees, and the children and grandchildren of immigrants and refugees—but because of what we built: a system that deliberately limits state power and gives ordinary people the right to say no. But the protections of the Constitution only exist if the people are willing to defend them. And once they’re gone, they aren’t coming back.

Don’t give up the ship.

The post The Killing of Alex Pretti Should Be the Breaking Point appeared first on CounterPunch.org.