They murdered someone again and then immediately lied about what occurred. All the conservatives not speaking up that know better are being complicit. This is the continuing slide to authoritarianism.
What ACTUALLY happened is: You, and the broader Democrat/Left are jumping to make the Pretti shooting fit your narrative, before the facts are known, as you do every single time on a story like this. CNN, MSNOW and the rest of the liberal media are one billion percent in the tank for the Democra/Left and against Trump/Republicans, no matter what the facts. So they can be predicted to support and stoke the Soros/Left's angry narrative,
every single timeIn this particular case, I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, that this might not be a justified shooting. But I'm saying: Wait for the facts at least a week or so, till we have some details, much more than is known now.
I'm waiting for an FBI or other internal Border Patrol / ICE / DHS investigation to determine precisely what the facts are --with far more detachment and neutrality than the Democrat party and the media.
I watched that video about 15 times, and it's really difficult from the video to determine exactly what happened. And on any network (I watched the same story on Fox, Newsmax, CNN and MSNOW) the video is always very tiny and inset, never enlarged to full screen, and it's often hard to tell even who the protesters are, and who the ICE/BP agents are. These protesters in Minneapolis are harassing and harassing, shouting in the faces of these agents for hours, every day. ICE and BP agents have no local Minnesota State police backup or support , no local Minneapolis police to back them up. And they have people screaming at them from all sides and blowing whistles for hours every day, and they never know when one might come at them, physically assault agents, or pull a gun or other weapon on agents.
That wouldn't hypothetically make it right if agents deliberately or accidentally used excessive force, or just made an honest mistake, but that is the reality of agents' situation in Minneapolis every day. They are totally on their own in Minneapolis, and at times if they don't use force, this mob that outnumbers them could severely beat or kill them, run over them with a car (as happened wih Renee Good, and in hundreds of other clashes with ICE, by both protesters, and by criminals they move to capture). Or protesters could disable agents with tear gas or other weapons so the illegal criminals they are arresting could have an opening to injure or kill the agents. Because the mob is emboldened, no one else, not even local police will come to agents' aid. That's just the reality and context for ICE and BP agents in Minneapolis.
In the video shown, what I saw, this male nurse guy who was shot, named
Alex Pretti, age 37, was on the street video-recording agents with his cel phone, while ICE agents pursue illegal criminals. I'll go out on a limb and assume Peretti was not as antagonistic and in agents' faces with smart-alecky insults as Renee Good and her lesbian wife (on video, beyond question) were. But in the Peretti video, agents asked a girl to step out of the way and she wouldn't, and one agent shoved her away and she fell to the ground, and then Alex Pretti jumped in and got between agents and this girl.
He interfered.
And as we all know now, Pretti was carrying a concealed handgun, and had two clips of extra ammunition
. I think both agent Bovino, and DHS secretary Kristi Noem both made presumptuous statements on social media that Pretti was "definitely" there to do violence, or Noem's social media remark that he was a "terrorist".
I wish they used lesser rhetoric, that the fact he was so heavily armed "is suspicious", rather than assuming absolute criminal/terrorist intent. Or that Pretti had "POSSIBLE" bad motives, but they overstated the facts, and should have not jumped the gun before investigators confirmed Pretti's known or possible motives, as will become visible from interviewing friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers and from Pretti's own social media posts.
I think based on the Left and the liberal media's consistent aggressive narrative in each shooing or riot situation, for going on 2 decades, I think Bovino and Noem both tried to get ahead of that forming Leftist narrative, to establish the narrative themselves first, before the Left defined the narrative and public thought before they could. I think that was a mistake, but I understand why they did it. But my advice to them is the same as I have for you: Wait for the facts from investigators, and then gain trust by telling us the facts when you know them. I think off-the-cuff saying Pretti "definitely" had bad intent, or that he's a "terrorist" , lowers credibility of Bovino and Noem, that like the media and the Democrat leadership, Bovino and Noem ried to just selling a narrative, rather than knowing the facts first. And because they did that, they have to re-establish trust that they are from this point forward consistently sticking to only the known facts, if they want to regain the public's trust.
One report I saw said Pretti was carrying no I.D., which is odd, particularly for someone carrying a gun and fully loaded with 2 extra clips of ammunition. Hypothetically to law enforcement (DEFINITELY not proven or in evidence at this point) is that he could have wanted to hide his identity even if arrested, or could have been on a suicide mission, or a Luigi Mangione type of plan, and not carrying I.D. would prevent him from being identified quickly. Those are the kind of scenarios law enforcement could be looking at.
But back to the video of what happened:
A female protester was clashing with the BP agents, the agents yell at her to get out of the way, when she would not, they pushed her away and she fell to the ground. At that point Pretti got involved, trying to help her, and tried to block agents from getting to her. Then it looks to me like agents restrained Pretti for interfering with their work, and pushed him down on the ground to arrest him. Pretti resisted and resisted, and so more officers got involved, and at some point got in a circle around Pretti, attempting to restrain him, and some began kicking him. That could be perceived as excessive force, and maybe it was.
An officer I talked to 30-plus years ago about the Rodney King beating in the L.A. riots was surprisingly against what the L.A. cops did in beating King. He said that it was an embarrassment to cops all over the U.S., that no matter what Rodney King did, even throwing a few punches at the officers (as seen on video) as they tried to cuff King, that their job is only to arrest him, cuff him, put him in the car, and take him to jail, not to administer punishment, no matter what King did to the arresting cops. That punishment should only administered by a judge and prosecutors and a jury, not by police. And he described what the four L.A. officers did as "unprofessional policing."
Another rationalization is that the 4 L.A. officers needed to beat Rodney King because he was so much larger than any of the four officers, and they could not otherwise control him. But this same officer said to me that four officers together can easily arrest and cuff a guy as large as Rodney King, WITHOUT resorting to beating him.
So... maybe if they were arresting Alex Pretti, not a huge guy, these agents kicking him used excessive force.
In the agents' defense, in the moment he was struggling with officers and knocked to the ground, his clothes could have been pulled up so his gun became visible, and that panicked one or several of the officers to fire on him. After Pretti was on the ground being kicked, it's hard to see from that point forward the exact moment he was fired on. One report (unknown if that was accurate, or just "breaking news" and not confirmed) said the agents fired ten shots at Pretti.
I actually think Pretti would have been in less danger if he was only struggling with one agent, but in a group around Peretti, other agents might not have known what was happening that the agent closest to Peretti could see. It's all speculation at this point. One agent could have panicked and fired, and others could have drawn their guns and fired, not fully knowing, but trusting that if one saw enough to fire, the other agents figured they were in danger and fired too. Or Pretti could have attempted to draw his gun and fire on them. We don't know, that's what shooting investigations are for.
I will say that, at the early stage, in the three shootings that occurred, the first two Minneapolis ICE shootings were more clearly self-defense by the agents ( the Renee Good, shooting, and the ICE agent who chased an illegal criminal and then was ambushed by two of his criminal illegal friends who beat him with a shovel and a broom until he drew his gun and shot one in the leg).
The third case wih Alex Pretti is more complicated, because he was surrounded by multiple agents, and multiple agents shot Pretti. It is a least initially unclear what exactly happened. Every agent will have to make a statement, and every witness, and even then it might not be clear what happened. Hopefully each agent had a body camera.
I see a least 3 scanarios :
(1) Pretti could have been a real threat to the agents, intending to fire on them.
(2) The agents could have been justified in shooting in legitimate self-defense, where he may NOT have been about to shoot at the agents, but agents had legitimate reason to believe that he would, and fired on him.
(3) Agents could have made a mistake, and fired on him when they shouldn't have.
Frankly, while the shooting might have been justified, multiple agents kicking him on the ground looks like excessive force. That could be excessive force that led to an excessive shooting.
I'd be inclined to say the gun and two clips of ammo make it look like a justified shooting. Why bring that much firepower to a peaceful demonstration?
But I think the kickings will hurt the case for the agents. I'll be interested to see what Alex Pretti's comments to friends, and social media posts reveal about him. Whether he was a radical Leftist revolutionary, or more of a peaceful pacifist. But I question why a pacifist would carry that much firepower, particularly when he knew was going out where he could be involved in verbal or physical confrontation with police.
From Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandy Hook, the Aurora Colorado movie theatre shooting, and every other case over the last 20 years, there are details we haven' been told yet, that could completely flip our perceptions about how this has been reported. So let's wait for those facts to be revealed.
