The Immigration/Deportation/ICE Thread

[Rev]

 

[Chocolate Lab]

A helpful way to think about the Pretti case and why the 2A argument misses the point:

I mean, there are plenty of vids out there of Antifa types strapped up like Seal-wannabes. So there are definitely people there with all kinds of weapons. But there's no problem there because, of course, they aren't impeding or fighting with the officers.

 

[Irving Cowboy]

I actually agree with probably 98% of what @Smitty has said in his post.

 

[Smitty]

Why the Alex Pretti shooting leans toward justified force - barely
Here's my 24-hour-later analysis. I've listened to all of the arguments. I've watched as much video as I can. I've reread case law.
I believe the shooting was technically justified legally (like 50.5%, just over 50-50), but barely, and there is enough there to rule it as such. But it's a very close call, and I see why people are upset about it. I don't like this shooting. If the gun discharged accidentally as some think, my percent grows for the officer (but that’s unproven.)
It's an ugly, messy shooting. Anyone pretending that this is a clean, clear-cut and obviously justified shooting - including the Trump administration - is being extremely disingenuous, if not outright spinning you. The people on the other side, who claim this is a clear-cut execution, implying ill-intent, are also being very disingenuous, if not outright spinning you. This one falls somewhere in the middle, and the answer likely lies within the fog of war and inside a scrum that we can't all completely see.
I also stipulate that we don't know everything the system does; we don't even know what the officer's statement says. I reserve the right to change my opinion based on new information.
The analysis
Let's start with the law. “The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. ... The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation."
— Graham v. Connor
Officers have a right to use deadly force if they reasonably believe they or another person is in imminent danger of great bodily harm or death. That's the standard. They don't have to be right; just reasonable (and that will be very important here.)
Start there. This officer did not have the benefit of analyzing every single angle in slow-motion. What we are seeing now is NOT what he saw. He had a split-second to react. That's important. We also can't see exactly what he saw, which is also important. We aren't seeing his POV. The people recording videos weren't. We are seeing the struggle from the side; he had a different view. And that matters, because it's what he saw - or thought he saw -- that is determinative here. That's the big black hole in all of these analyses. We haven't yet heard from him.
How it unfolded
Pretti was armed. That's not illegal. He had a permit, and he had a right to have the gun. The Trump administration's comments on the firearm, that possessing the handgun indicates Pretti was a threat to "massacre" people or whatever, etc., are extremely inappropriate. I am sick and tired of the Trump administration giving out information that doesn't quite match the truth. I think it is hurting their cause. Their over-the-top rhetoric implies this is obvious justified force. That's bulls*t, sorry.
They've done this too much. I get why. They are living in an exceptionally compressed news cycle. The "other side" (Walz, Frey, etc.) are just as quick to release insane and reckless statements in the other direction and have. They are dealing with a media that is predisposed against them and law enforcement. They are fighting for the narrative. They are trying to go very hard at the false narratives on the front end before they set. I get this, but I think they are rhetorically taking it too far.
I personally wouldn't bring a firearm to an agitated and tense scene, but I know others who would for that very reason (self-protection). Thus, so far, Pretti has done nothing wrong in this sequence of events.
I don't agree with WHY he was protesting. I personally wouldn't protest law enforcement agents who were trying to arrest an illegal immigrant wanted for assault (as they were that day). But I stipulate he had a right to protest. Let's not sanitize what they are protesting, though.
He started out peacefully. He was recording the agents with his cell phone. He had a right to do that. It's a free country.
Alex Pretti's poor decisions
Pretti's first poor decision, though, came when he entered the street as two women were trying to record an agent near his car. This behavior has been happening all over Minneapolis, and it's now led to two deaths. The Minneapolis police have failed to secure the streets and to protect the agents as they attempt to conduct law enforcement operations. He should have stayed on the sidewalk and out of their way. The women should have, also. He took a step here that helped escalate the situation. You don't have a right to "protest" in the middle of the street.
Totality of the circumstances
The Supreme Court ruled UNANIMOUSLY in May that the totality of circumstances must be considered. The case is Barnes v. Felix, and I believe it's important here.
"An excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment must be evaluated based on the totality of the circumstances, not solely the moment an officer perceives a threat. Justice Elena Kagan authored the unanimous opinion of the Court, which vacated and remanded the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that had applied a narrower 'moment-of-threat' analysis."
"The Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard requires a fact-specific, contextual examination of all relevant circumstances leading up to a law enforcement officer’s use of force. While the moment the officer fires a weapon may often carry significant weight, events occurring before that instant, such as the initiation of a stop or earlier conduct by the parties, may affect how a reasonable officer would have perceived the situation. Prior actions by either the officer or suspect may clarify ambiguous behaviors or shift how threatening a situation reasonably appeared, making a strict focus on only the climactic moment inconsistent with established Fourth Amendment jurisprudence."
This decision helps the firing agent, in my opinion, and it's a key reason that I tilt (barely) toward justified force. There are elements that go against it; in the totality of the circumstances, up to this point, Alex Pretti was just recording (which was his right), he wasn't threatening anyone with the firearm (or even wielding it), and he didn't "attack" officers.
However, federal agents (and these were Border Patrol, not ICE) have been harassed, threatened, harangued, and attacked as a group day in and day out for weeks now. One was attacked by a shovel and broom.
Armchair quarterbacks have NO IDEA the extreme level of abuse these officers are facing all day every day. I am not saying that justifies lethal force in and of itself; I'm told that all cops know to guard against any such instinct.
However, it's relevant to the totality of the circumstances. The media are all painting Alex Pretti as a lovely man who worked as a kindly nurse and loved his dog; fine. But the officers didn't have any way to know that on the scene, and, at this point, they have to perceive that everyone could be a potential threat when it comes to these agitated scenes. I also think they are just done with people impeding their operations, getting in the middle of the street and blowing whistles in their faces, while they try to arrest illegal immigrant child molesters (and, in this case, one with an assault history). That leads me to the next actions.
Escalation by the agents
An agent did escalate things by pushing a woman back off the side of the street, and then when Pretti intervened, pepper-spraying and pushing him. I question whether the pushing was necessary, but I do judge it based on the above totality of the circumstances. I think that agent was trying to get them out of the street. But I think that was an escalating action that could have been avoided. That being said, pepper-spraying someone doesn't give them a right to struggle with cops; it's a de-escalation technique that is far down on the use-of-force continuum.
You have to consider that the agents were involved in other tense and agitated situations a short time before ON THE SAME DAY down the street and had already detained another person. They were trying to clear the street and push the protesters back and out of it before things got more chaotic and out of control. It's street control and crowd control basically. It looks ugly on video.
None of this would have happened if the Minneapolis police were protecting the agents and securing the streets when they do operations, as noted. That they have not done so is unconscionable. And it's leading to deaths. Both deaths have occurred when protesters essentially got in the way of law enforcement operations, leading to agitated and gray-area encounters. This is on Frey, O'Hara and Walz. Walz should have activated the National Guard much sooner.
These agents are left to fend for themselves against hostile crowds who are trying to impede their actions every step of the way. I think the push back and the pepper spray were an attempt to keep control of the scene before it spun out of control. It seems like a bit of a premature overreaction, though, as they weren't surrounded by hundreds of encroaching people or something. But you have to understand that instinct within the context of the abuse these officers have been taking, and the other scenes they've been in that have spun very quickly out of control, imperiling their safety.
Officers and citizens fighting in the streets - in the words of Frey - whatever could go wrong? Lots.
For people to say Pretti had a right to struggle with agents because he was pepper sprayed is an insane take. Pepper spray means back off.
If officers tell you to back off, back off.
But he didn't.
Was he "helping a woman"?
Pretti inserted himself into a situation where he didn't belong, helping escalate it. He should have stayed on the sidewalk, and there wouldn't have been a problem. To pretend these are just protests is ridiculous. Some people are peacefully protesting, but when you impede law enforcement, struggle with them, or generally commit crimes, you are, minimally, an agitator, not a protester.
Pretti then went over to the woman who fell, and there was another chaotic moment. The left is trying, as always, to read this moment as negatively for the agents as possible. They say Pretti was "trying to help the woman." Was he? Maybe.
But it's hard to tell what he was doing from the video. Some people think he was trying to get her water bottle due to the pepper spraying. On video, it looks like the beginning of a chaotic scrum. Whatever he was doing, he went physically hands-on the woman. And the agent, distracted by the need to control the rest of the scene, sees them on the ground chaotically struggling or rolling around. He sees Pretti making physical contact with her. He wasn't calmly helping her. They were stumbling or rolling around.
Pretti should have backed off. At this point, the agents appear to be pulling Pretti off the woman. They drag him away from her. I don't find this to be inappropriate behavior. They probably thought they were protecting the woman or, alternatively, just trying to restore order in the streets. You can't have people rolling around the streets. Remember again that they were there to arrest an illegal immigrant with an assaultive history. Every second people are rolling around with them in the streets, that person could be getting away.
The main struggle
That's when the struggle started. It's possible Pretti didn't have a chance to extricate himself from the struggle. I get that. But he also appears to have engaged in it. He is now struggling with agents while armed. This is an exceptionally dangerous decision.
More than an intentionally reckless choice, it appears to be the predictable result of a cascading scene of chaos that just kept getting more chaotic. And this all happened in seconds.
But he is struggling with the agents while armed.
Now comes the critical juncture. He had his cell phone in one hand. It doesn't appear he withdrew his gun. That hurts the agent's case.
Disarming Pretti
The officer in the gray jacket appears to have disarmed Pretti. He comes into the scrum and removes the g*n from Pretti's waistband. I think that's clear. So, yes, Pretti was unarmed when the officer fired. That hurts the agent's case. That makes this ugly and messy.
The agents seemed surprised. They were looking for the gun later. But that helps his case, because other agents weren't aware that gray jacket man got it either, apparently. Another agent also drew his firearm, indicating more than one perceived a threat.
The critical moment
At the critical moment, you can see the firing agent pause and then fire. That motion indicates he saw something, paused to make sure what he was seeing, and then was concerned enough to fire. What did he see? The gray jacket man had the gun.
That's unclear. We don't know HIS version of events. Always remember that the system has evidence and information (and possibly more video) that we haven't seen. That can change things.
Here's where the legal analysis comes in. The agent doesn't have to be right under the law. He just needs to be reasonable, as assessed by what other officers would perceive as reasonable, juxtaposed against the totality of the circumstances. It's worth repeating that here.
If he thought Pretti had a gun or was drawing a gun, that makes this a likely justified shooting. Because we can't see what he saw, there is no way to know that for sure. But screenshots make it look like Pretti either had something in his hand or something fell nearby (maybe a magazine, gear from an agent?) Some people online believe he was reaching for his holster, but others don't. People see what they want to see in the videos, but all that matters is what the officer saw, and he was at a different angle. I think it's likely that he thought Pretti had a gun or was reaching for a gun. I think it's likely that he believed that, if he waited, Pretti might use that gun on his partners.
I think this belief was wrong. But the law doesn't mandate that it be correct, just reasonable.
To me this is a very close call, but what gets me over the edge to the side of the agent is the totality of the circumstances of what they're dealing with overall and also one key piece of evidence. According to even CNN, an agent shouted, "he's got a gun" right before the agent fired. I suspect that this utterance combined by some movement by Pretti in the scrum led the officer to believe his partners were in imminent danger. It’s important to hear the agent’s side. It could change my stance, which is preliminary.
If you watch the video closely, I doubt that the agent knew that the gray jacket man had already disarmed Pretti. The disarming and firing happened very close together (we're talking a second), and the agent was not looking in that direction and appeared focused on drawing his own gun, tunnel vision, etc. I also think it's possible that PRETTI didn't realize that he had been disarmed. Did the officer think his cell phone was the gun? Did he see the gun being pulled from his waistband by the gray jacket officer and mistakenly think Pretti had drawn it? Did Pretti make a motion. This was a CHAOTIC scrum, and it happened in seconds. The number of shots is usually not legally relevant when they are so tightly bunched together due to adrenaline and muscle memory.
Rob Doar, president of the MN Gun Owners Law Center has put forth an (unproven) theory that Pretti’s gun accidentally discharged when Gray Jacket Man grabbed it. And that this was the first shot and the agent reacted to it. But DHS has not said that.
I am unclear what fell in the video.
That's fog of war stuff, and the law accounts for it, but it is NEVER pretty. Years ago, in Milwaukee, an officer shot a man who was holding a small black cassette tape. He mistakenly thought it was a gun. He was exonerated.
I don't like it, though. I question why he couldn't just grab Pretti from behind and pull him away. I question why that many officers couldn't get control of one struggling guy without taking his life. Alex Pretti doesn't get his life back. That is a really big deal.
I think this shooting is dicier than the Good case (she hit the officer with her car). I am concerned that the agents have taken so much abuse that they are now too quick to react or to escalate things themselves. They have been placed in an impossible situation, and, again, that is the fault of the Democratic and police leadership in Minneapolis, which is not protecting them or controlling the streets during their operations.
I think a truly independent investigation may be warranted.
It's a mess. Let's not pretend it isn't one.
When there's a tie in these cases, I give it to the person who was there to uphold the laws during endless scenes of agitation and lawbreaking.
These officers don't wake up in the morning wanting to take a life. That matters. They want to go home at night. They are working under incredible, almost combat-like circumstances, completely abandoned by the leadership and Police Department of the city they're operating in.
This officer didn't intend to "murder" Alex Pretti, and any rhetoric to that regard is extremely unfair and agitating. Politicians, including the Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic candidates and the mayor of Milwaukee, have released inciting, unhelpful statements, rather than responsible analyses. Writing things like he was killed on his knees, he was "murdered," etc., is not a helpful response from leaders.
The law requires an assessment of the totality of the circumstances, and that is what I have tried to do here. These situations are ALL case specific.
Final conclusion
I don't like this shooting. I wish this had not happened. I think the officers escalated the situation in some ways. I think Alex Pretti made some bad decisions. I think Democratic and police leadership are not protecting officers OR protestors/agitators. I think this is a close call. I think it's a messy, ugly, gray-area, fog-of-war, shooting.
But that's where I come down. I lean toward there being enough there to not justify sending this officer to prison, basically. But it's a slim margin.
I am writing all of this because you won't get this take in many other places, and someone needs to say it. I recognize some reasonable people will come down on the other side, and I get how they get there. I just don't respect the people whose argumentation revolves around sending me death threats (we have gotten multiple), calling people N*zis, arguing that immigration laws should not be enforced even against criminals ("get out of Minnesota"), or smearing all law enforcement. Fundamentally, I believe what is happening in Minnesota is about preserving and upholding the rule of law, but these situations are not helping. And I am fairly shocked an officer would be this quick to shoot, knowing what would result. No officer wants to be in this position. Frankly, this situation is every officer's worst nightmare.
The way forward
I have also proposed a solution in a previous post, so I will end on that. I think BOTH sides should stop the incendiary rhetoric and sit down at a table. They should agree (Trump, Noem, Bovino, Walz, Ellison, and Frey) on a joint plan to focus on the illegal immigrants who committed crimes (felonies, misdemeanors and OWIS).
The state should agree to honor all detainers in jails and to allow ICE in courthouses and to help them identify such. Those are safer environments. For the operations on the street, the Minneapolis police and/or National Guard should protect the agents and control the streets. Worry about the rest later. Both sides should agree to stop the incendiary rhetoric.
Trump can't and shouldn't withdraw ICE completely. There is an organized element within these "protests" likely. Antifa took a microphone and said that Minneapolis will be the rock that breaks ICE, and they will replicate this strategy everywhere if it works. I don't think they care about the lives lost; they think it's helping their cause, and that cause is preventing the federal government from enforcing immigration laws at all. The government can not allow the tail to wag the dog. So they have to stay the course.
That's how I would do it.
But that won't happen. And I recognize that.
#BreakingNews #ice #BREAKING

To sum up a long article: It's close, but officers were reasonable, reasonable, reasonable (most likely, pending new information).

Pretti was patently unreasonable at every step after he decided to insert himself into the situation.

He's dead.

Democrats are to blame for encouraging this idiocy and likening very legal deportation to fascism, nazism, or oppression whatsoever as this is all perfectly fine, legally mandated, electorally mandated, and conducted by Saint Obama when he was in office.

This is disgusting partisan politics being weaponized, the left is offering up it's own voters to get killed to make points because they won't discuss the matter rationally on the airwaves, podcasts, or Reddit.

Fucking disgusting performance by the left, not by the right.

These deaths are on them. Any ICE overreach is completely fixable with the legal system afterwards. The deaths are purely the left's fault only.

 

[Bipo]

 

[Cujo]

Why the Alex Pretti shooting leans toward justified force - barely

Here's my 24-hour-later analysis. I've listened to all of the arguments. I've watched as much video as I can. I've reread case law.
I believe the shooting was technically justified legally (like 50.5%, just over 50-50), but barely, and there is enough there to rule it as such. But it's a very close call, and I see why people are upset about it. I don't like this shooting. If the gun discharged accidentally as some think, my percent grows for the officer (but that’s unproven.)

It's an ugly, messy shooting. Anyone pretending that this is a clean, clear-cut and obviously justified shooting - including the Trump administration - is being extremely disingenuous, if not outright spinning you. The people on the other side, who claim this is a clear-cut execution, implying ill-intent, are also being very disingenuous, if not outright spinning you. This one falls somewhere in the middle, and the answer likely lies within the fog of war and inside a scrum that we can't all completely see.

I also stipulate that we don't know everything the system does; we don't even know what the officer's statement says. I reserve the right to change my opinion based on new information.

The analysis

Let's start with the law. “The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. ... The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation."
— Graham v. Connor

Officers have a right to use deadly force if they reasonably believe they or another person is in imminent danger of great bodily harm or death. That's the standard. They don't have to be right; just reasonable (and that will be very important here.)

Start there. This officer did not have the benefit of analyzing every single angle in slow-motion. What we are seeing now is NOT what he saw. He had a split-second to react. That's important. We also can't see exactly what he saw, which is also important. We aren't seeing his POV. The people recording videos weren't. We are seeing the struggle from the side; he had a different view. And that matters, because it's what he saw - or thought he saw -- that is determinative here. That's the big black hole in all of these analyses. We haven't yet heard from him.

How it unfolded

Pretti was armed. That's not illegal. He had a permit, and he had a right to have the gun. The Trump administration's comments on the firearm, that possessing the handgun indicates Pretti was a threat to "massacre" people or whatever, etc., are extremely inappropriate. I am sick and tired of the Trump administration giving out information that doesn't quite match the truth. I think it is hurting their cause. Their over-the-top rhetoric implies this is obvious justified force. That's bulls*t, sorry.

They've done this too much. I get why. They are living in an exceptionally compressed news cycle. The "other side" (Walz, Frey, etc.) are just as quick to release insane and reckless statements in the other direction and have. They are dealing with a media that is predisposed against them and law enforcement. They are fighting for the narrative. They are trying to go very hard at the false narratives on the front end before they set. I get this, but I think they are rhetorically taking it too far.

I personally wouldn't bring a firearm to an agitated and tense scene, but I know others who would for that very reason (self-protection). Thus, so far, Pretti has done nothing wrong in this sequence of events.

I don't agree with WHY he was protesting. I personally wouldn't protest law enforcement agents who were trying to arrest an illegal immigrant wanted for assault (as they were that day). But I stipulate he had a right to protest. Let's not sanitize what they are protesting, though.

He started out peacefully. He was recording the agents with his cell phone. He had a right to do that. It's a free country.

Alex Pretti's poor decisions

Pretti's first poor decision, though, came when he entered the street as two women were trying to record an agent near his car. This behavior has been happening all over Minneapolis, and it's now led to two deaths. The Minneapolis police have failed to secure the streets and to protect the agents as they attempt to conduct law enforcement operations. He should have stayed on the sidewalk and out of their way. The women should have, also. He took a step here that helped escalate the situation. You don't have a right to "protest" in the middle of the street.

Totality of the circumstances

The Supreme Court ruled UNANIMOUSLY in May that the totality of circumstances must be considered. The case is Barnes v. Felix, and I believe it's important here.

"An excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment must be evaluated based on the totality of the circumstances, not solely the moment an officer perceives a threat. Justice Elena Kagan authored the unanimous opinion of the Court, which vacated and remanded the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that had applied a narrower 'moment-of-threat' analysis."

"The Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard requires a fact-specific, contextual examination of all relevant circumstances leading up to a law enforcement officer’s use of force. While the moment the officer fires a weapon may often carry significant weight, events occurring before that instant, such as the initiation of a stop or earlier conduct by the parties, may affect how a reasonable officer would have perceived the situation. Prior actions by either the officer or suspect may clarify ambiguous behaviors or shift how threatening a situation reasonably appeared, making a strict focus on only the climactic moment inconsistent with established Fourth Amendment jurisprudence."

This decision helps the firing agent, in my opinion, and it's a key reason that I tilt (barely) toward justified force. There are elements that go against it; in the totality of the circumstances, up to this point, Alex Pretti was just recording (which was his right), he wasn't threatening anyone with the firearm (or even wielding it), and he didn't "attack" officers.

However, federal agents (and these were Border Patrol, not ICE) have been harassed, threatened, harangued, and attacked as a group day in and day out for weeks now. One was attacked by a shovel and broom.

Armchair quarterbacks have NO IDEA the extreme level of abuse these officers are facing all day every day. I am not saying that justifies lethal force in and of itself; I'm told that all cops know to guard against any such instinct.

However, it's relevant to the totality of the circumstances. The media are all painting Alex Pretti as a lovely man who worked as a kindly nurse and loved his dog; fine. But the officers didn't have any way to know that on the scene, and, at this point, they have to perceive that everyone could be a potential threat when it comes to these agitated scenes. I also think they are just done with people impeding their operations, getting in the middle of the street and blowing whistles in their faces, while they try to arrest illegal immigrant child molesters (and, in this case, one with an assault history). That leads me to the next actions.

Escalation by the agents

An agent did escalate things by pushing a woman back off the side of the street, and then when Pretti intervened, pepper-spraying and pushing him. I question whether the pushing was necessary, but I do judge it based on the above totality of the circumstances. I think that agent was trying to get them out of the street. But I think that was an escalating action that could have been avoided. That being said, pepper-spraying someone doesn't give them a right to struggle with cops; it's a de-escalation technique that is far down on the use-of-force continuum.

You have to consider that the agents were involved in other tense and agitated situations a short time before ON THE SAME DAY down the street and had already detained another person. They were trying to clear the street and push the protesters back and out of it before things got more chaotic and out of control. It's street control and crowd control basically. It looks ugly on video.

None of this would have happened if the Minneapolis police were protecting the agents and securing the streets when they do operations, as noted. That they have not done so is unconscionable. And it's leading to deaths. Both deaths have occurred when protesters essentially got in the way of law enforcement operations, leading to agitated and gray-area encounters. This is on Frey, O'Hara and Walz. Walz should have activated the National Guard much sooner.

These agents are left to fend for themselves against hostile crowds who are trying to impede their actions every step of the way. I think the push back and the pepper spray were an attempt to keep control of the scene before it spun out of control. It seems like a bit of a premature overreaction, though, as they weren't surrounded by hundreds of encroaching people or something. But you have to understand that instinct within the context of the abuse these officers have been taking, and the other scenes they've been in that have spun very quickly out of control, imperiling their safety.

Officers and citizens fighting in the streets - in the words of Frey - whatever could go wrong? Lots.

For people to say Pretti had a right to struggle with agents because he was pepper sprayed is an insane take. Pepper spray means back off.
If officers tell you to back off, back off.

But he didn't.

Was he "helping a woman"?

Pretti inserted himself into a situation where he didn't belong, helping escalate it. He should have stayed on the sidewalk, and there wouldn't have been a problem. To pretend these are just protests is ridiculous. Some people are peacefully protesting, but when you impede law enforcement, struggle with them, or generally commit crimes, you are, minimally, an agitator, not a protester.

Pretti then went over to the woman who fell, and there was another chaotic moment. The left is trying, as always, to read this moment as negatively for the agents as possible. They say Pretti was "trying to help the woman." Was he? Maybe.

But it's hard to tell what he was doing from the video. Some people think he was trying to get her water bottle due to the pepper spraying. On video, it looks like the beginning of a chaotic scrum. Whatever he was doing, he went physically hands-on the woman. And the agent, distracted by the need to control the rest of the scene, sees them on the ground chaotically struggling or rolling around. He sees Pretti making physical contact with her. He wasn't calmly helping her. They were stumbling or rolling around.

Pretti should have backed off. At this point, the agents appear to be pulling Pretti off the woman. They drag him away from her. I don't find this to be inappropriate behavior. They probably thought they were protecting the woman or, alternatively, just trying to restore order in the streets. You can't have people rolling around the streets. Remember again that they were there to arrest an illegal immigrant with an assaultive history. Every second people are rolling around with them in the streets, that person could be getting away.

The main struggle

That's when the struggle started. It's possible Pretti didn't have a chance to extricate himself from the struggle. I get that. But he also appears to have engaged in it. He is now struggling with agents while armed. This is an exceptionally dangerous decision.
More than an intentionally reckless choice, it appears to be the predictable result of a cascading scene of chaos that just kept getting more chaotic. And this all happened in seconds.

But he is struggling with the agents while armed.

Now comes the critical juncture. He had his cell phone in one hand. It doesn't appear he withdrew his gun. That hurts the agent's case.

Disarming Pretti

The officer in the gray jacket appears to have disarmed Pretti. He comes into the scrum and removes the g*n from Pretti's waistband. I think that's clear. So, yes, Pretti was unarmed when the officer fired. That hurts the agent's case. That makes this ugly and messy.

The agents seemed surprised. They were looking for the gun later. But that helps his case, because other agents weren't aware that gray jacket man got it either, apparently. Another agent also drew his firearm, indicating more than one perceived a threat.

The critical moment

At the critical moment, you can see the firing agent pause and then fire. That motion indicates he saw something, paused to make sure what he was seeing, and then was concerned enough to fire. What did he see? The gray jacket man had the gun.

That's unclear. We don't know HIS version of events. Always remember that the system has evidence and information (and possibly more video) that we haven't seen. That can change things.

Here's where the legal analysis comes in. The agent doesn't have to be right under the law. He just needs to be reasonable, as assessed by what other officers would perceive as reasonable, juxtaposed against the totality of the circumstances. It's worth repeating that here.

If he thought Pretti had a gun or was drawing a gun, that makes this a likely justified shooting. Because we can't see what he saw, there is no way to know that for sure. But screenshots make it look like Pretti either had something in his hand or something fell nearby (maybe a magazine, gear from an agent?) Some people online believe he was reaching for his holster, but others don't. People see what they want to see in the videos, but all that matters is what the officer saw, and he was at a different angle. I think it's likely that he thought Pretti had a gun or was reaching for a gun. I think it's likely that he believed that, if he waited, Pretti might use that gun on his partners.

I think this belief was wrong. But the law doesn't mandate that it be correct, just reasonable.

To me this is a very close call, but what gets me over the edge to the side of the agent is the totality of the circumstances of what they're dealing with overall and also one key piece of evidence. According to even CNN, an agent shouted, "he's got a gun" right before the agent fired. I suspect that this utterance combined by some movement by Pretti in the scrum led the officer to believe his partners were in imminent danger. It’s important to hear the agent’s side. It could change my stance, which is preliminary.

If you watch the video closely, I doubt that the agent knew that the gray jacket man had already disarmed Pretti. The disarming and firing happened very close together (we're talking a second), and the agent was not looking in that direction and appeared focused on drawing his own gun, tunnel vision, etc. I also think it's possible that PRETTI didn't realize that he had been disarmed. Did the officer think his cell phone was the gun? Did he see the gun being pulled from his waistband by the gray jacket officer and mistakenly think Pretti had drawn it? Did Pretti make a motion. This was a CHAOTIC scrum, and it happened in seconds. The number of shots is usually not legally relevant when they are so tightly bunched together due to adrenaline and muscle memory.

Rob Doar, president of the MN Gun Owners Law Center has put forth an (unproven) theory that Pretti’s gun accidentally discharged when Gray Jacket Man grabbed it. And that this was the first shot and the agent reacted to it. But DHS has not said that.

I am unclear what fell in the video.

That's fog of war stuff, and the law accounts for it, but it is NEVER pretty. Years ago, in Milwaukee, an officer shot a man who was holding a small black cassette tape. He mistakenly thought it was a gun. He was exonerated.

I don't like it, though. I question why he couldn't just grab Pretti from behind and pull him away. I question why that many officers couldn't get control of one struggling guy without taking his life. Alex Pretti doesn't get his life back. That is a really big deal.

I think this shooting is dicier than the Good case (she hit the officer with her car). I am concerned that the agents have taken so much abuse that they are now too quick to react or to escalate things themselves. They have been placed in an impossible situation, and, again, that is the fault of the Democratic and police leadership in Minneapolis, which is not protecting them or controlling the streets during their operations.

I think a truly independent investigation may be warranted.

It's a mess. Let's not pretend it isn't one.

When there's a tie in these cases, I give it to the person who was there to uphold the laws during endless scenes of agitation and lawbreaking.

These officers don't wake up in the morning wanting to take a life. That matters. They want to go home at night. They are working under incredible, almost combat-like circumstances, completely abandoned by the leadership and Police Department of the city they're operating in.

This officer didn't intend to "murder" Alex Pretti, and any rhetoric to that regard is extremely unfair and agitating. Politicians, including the Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic candidates and the mayor of Milwaukee, have released inciting, unhelpful statements, rather than responsible analyses. Writing things like he was killed on his knees, he was "murdered," etc., is not a helpful response from leaders.
The law requires an assessment of the totality of the circumstances, and that is what I have tried to do here. These situations are ALL case specific.

Final conclusion

I don't like this shooting. I wish this had not happened. I think the officers escalated the situation in some ways. I think Alex Pretti made some bad decisions. I think Democratic and police leadership are not protecting officers OR protestors/agitators. I think this is a close call. I think it's a messy, ugly, gray-area, fog-of-war, shooting.

But that's where I come down. I lean toward there being enough there to not justify sending this officer to prison, basically. But it's a slim margin.

I am writing all of this because you won't get this take in many other places, and someone needs to say it. I recognize some reasonable people will come down on the other side, and I get how they get there. I just don't respect the people whose argumentation revolves around sending me death threats (we have gotten multiple), calling people N*zis, arguing that immigration laws should not be enforced even against criminals ("get out of Minnesota"), or smearing all law enforcement. Fundamentally, I believe what is happening in Minnesota is about preserving and upholding the rule of law, but these situations are not helping. And I am fairly shocked an officer would be this quick to shoot, knowing what would result. No officer wants to be in this position. Frankly, this situation is every officer's worst nightmare.

The way forward

I have also proposed a solution in a previous post, so I will end on that. I think BOTH sides should stop the incendiary rhetoric and sit down at a table. They should agree (Trump, Noem, Bovino, Walz, Ellison, and Frey) on a joint plan to focus on the illegal immigrants who committed crimes (felonies, misdemeanors and OWIS).

The state should agree to honor all detainers in jails and to allow ICE in courthouses and to help them identify such. Those are safer environments. For the operations on the street, the Minneapolis police and/or National Guard should protect the agents and control the streets. Worry about the rest later. Both sides should agree to stop the incendiary rhetoric.

Trump can't and shouldn't withdraw ICE completely. There is an organized element within these "protests" likely. Antifa took a microphone and said that Minneapolis will be the rock that breaks ICE, and they will replicate this strategy everywhere if it works. I don't think they care about the lives lost; they think it's helping their cause, and that cause is preventing the federal government from enforcing immigration laws at all. The government can not allow the tail to wag the dog. So they have to stay the course.

That's how I would do it.

But that won't happen. And I recognize that.

#BreakingNews #ice #BREAKING

A very objective, reasonable analysis. Unfortunately, the agitators are not reasonable and none of this will change their minds or sway them from “ORANGE MAN BAD.”

 

[Cujo]

I mean, there are plenty of vids out there of Antifa types strapped up like Seal-wannabes. So there are definitely people there with all kinds of weapons. But there's no problem there because, of course, they aren't impeding or fighting with the officers.

Yeah, they look ridiculous but that in and of itself is not really the problem.

 

[Bipo]

 

[bbgun]

 

[Irving Cowboy]

Veterans react to killing of VA nurse Alex Pretti by federal agent

The killing of VA nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by U.S. Border Patrol personnel has drawn a strong response from veterans.

www.militarytimes.com

Veterans react to killing of VA nurse Alex Pretti by federal agent
By Patricia Kime
Jan 26, 2026, 04:52 PM

The killing of Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by U.S. Border Patrol personnel has drawn a strong response from veterans, with many denouncing the slaying and others calling for a political audit of personnel working at the VA.

A statement on X on Sunday from VA Secretary Doug Collins drew more than 2.7 million views and 6,000 responses by mid-day Monday.

In his message, Collins confirmed that Pretti was a nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center and sent the VA’s condolences. He also weighed in, however, on the turmoil facing Minneapolis as a result of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.

“As President Trump has said, nobody wants to see chaos and death in American cities. … Such tragedies are unfortunately happening in Minnesota because of state and local officials’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government to enforce the law and deport dangerous illegal criminals,” wrote Collins, an Air Force colonel and chaplain.

The statement sparked outrage from followers and calls from progressive advocacy groups, such as VoteVets, for Collins’s resignation.

“This happened because some fake, wannabe soldiers marched down the street looking to intimidate and rough up people. If you can’t stand up for your employees who serve us veterans, resign,” wrote VoteVets on X.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Independent Veterans of America, noted that Collins took more than a day to issue a statement about a VA employee’s death, and when it arrived, it was “disgraceful,” he said.

“[Collins] always and clearly cares more about loyalty to Trump than loyalty to veterans. Every one can see what this is. And what Collins is. Especially veterans. Alex Pretti, veterans and America — all deserve so much better,” Reickhoff wrote in a post on X.

Pretti was killed Saturday by a law enforcement officer as he participated in a protest over immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota. Shortly after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security said Pretti had been shot after he “approached” officers with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

Pretti was a gun owner with a concealed carry permit; law enforcement officials said he was armed at the time. Videos later emerged that showed Pretti had a phone in his hand but no visible weapon and he was trying to help another protester who had been pepper sprayed.

Pretti began working for the VA as a research assistant in 2014. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, he had a bachelor’s degree in biology, society and the environment, and later returned to school to become a registered nurse.

Numerous lawmakers, including a growing number of Republicans, have called for a thorough investigation and a deescalation of the violence in Minneapolis, which saw another protester and American citizen, Renee Good, shot earlier this month by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

Shortly after Pretti’s death, House Veterans Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., issued a statement condemning the killing of the VA employee.

“In that role, he served the brave men and women who fought to defend his rights and the rights of all Americans, including the rights to free speech and assembly. The heartwarming tributes from his coworkers sharing that he was someone who ‘lived to help’ make this senseless killing even more heartbreaking,” Takano said in a statement. “What is happening across America is not normal and should not be accepted as such.”

Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, chairman of Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement Monday to Military Times that he was “deeply troubled by the shootings.” He called for an “investigation to the fullest extent to ensure transparency and accountability.”

“Our Constitution provides citizens protection from the government. We have a right to free speech, to peaceably assemble and to bear arms. We also expect government to protect us from lawless behavior. Enforcing immigration laws that remove dangerous criminals from our streets and neighborhoods makes us safer and increases our national security. This can only be accomplished if local, state and federal officials work together to uphold the law. Law enforcement must reflect our nation’s values, and citizens should obey the law,” Moran said.

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said that President Donald Trump needed to decide what the ultimate goal was for immigration enforcement.

“Nobody likes the feds coming to their states,” Stitt said in an interview Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “And so what is the goal right now? Is it to deport every single non-U.S. citizen? I don’t think that’s what Americans want.”

And Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., who served in the Army for 25 years, called for Americans to rise up in protest after the killings.

“An ICU nurse that works at a VA hospital was killed by thugs … three people have been killed by untrained thugs,” Vindman said in a video posted on X. “If you love freedom, if you love America, we need massive resistance.”

Some veterans have voiced support for the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, and in response to Collins said the VA should not employee people who protest against the government.

Jay Ellingson said as a conservative, he now “fears” going to the Minneapolis VA.

“How many of these evil freaks are working there. They are federal employees and should be fired if they participate in the protests,” Ellingson wrote in a post on X.

“The entire VA needs an audit,” wrote Air Force veteran Michael McCleary on X.

Pretti was a member of the American Federation of Government Employees. In a statement Saturday, AFGE President Everett Kelley said the union was “heartbroken.”

“While details of the incident are still emerging, one fact is already clear: this tragedy did not happen in a vacuum. It is the direct result of an administration that has chosen reckless policy, inflammatory rhetoric, and manufactured crisis over responsible leadership and de-escalation,” Kelley said.

Pretti’s family issued a strongly worded statement Saturday saying the administration told “sickening lies” about their son and that he was “a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse.”

“Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman,” his parents wrote.

“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you,” they added.

 

[Smitty]

“While details of the incident are still emerging, one fact is already clear: this tragedy did not happen in a vacuum. It is the direct result of an administration that has chosen reckless policy, inflammatory rhetoric, and manufactured crisis over responsible leadership and de-escalation,” Kelley said.

This quote is the problem. This is a tragedy, but it's not a result of "reckless policy." The policy is sound. Use federal agents to deport illegal immigrants en masse.

The "inflammatory rhetoric," is probably true to a small degree, but ultimately relatively meaningless, as the "inflammatory rhetoric" is being doled out to professional, self-controlled agents and military personnel who know how to follow orders and follow the law. Yes, there are always exceptions, and poorly behaving agents and officers should be removed, but we are talking about an industry that was trained on discipline, discipline, discipline.

On the flip side, who the fuck is taking responsibility for the "inflammatory rhetoric," of all the protestors? These are idiots being raised in a cottage industry designed to promote irresponsible, emotional, heat-of-the-moment responses and behavior. And it's largely comprised of college aged idiots who have never been told no in their lives, people who do not answer to any authority at all because they barely have jobs, have no idea of self control as their entire existence is usually about serving their own desires, these people are only involved in protest because it makes them feel good about their pointless lives.

I'm so fucking tired of hearing about the "inflammatory rhetoric" of the Trump administration, which, granted, I don't love, while the media and Democratic politicians take it as an excuse to outright incite their voters to violence with no limit. Where is their disdain for "inflammatory rhetoric" then?

The Trump administration could be better, no one has ever argued otherwise.

But they have to govern in the face of unprecedented temper tantrums, immature behavior, incitement to riot, that we have not seen in our lifetimes from the left.

Someone posted a twitter link the other day, this is not organic protesting. This is funded and researched guerilla opposition that barely remains non-violent even in it's published and stated guidelines (ie, look at Reddit, all their threads encourage blowing whistles in agents faces, confrontation, it's not just peaceful protest). Beneath the surface the opposition is not designed to just protest to change hearts and minds but actively obstruct and prevent the officers from carrying out their duties.

At what point do we admit that this IS an insurrection that requires force to cull these assholes?

 

[Irving Cowboy]

I would consider designating Renee Good and Alex Pretti as "domestic terrorists", along with provably false stories about the events surrounding their deaths as inflammatory rhetoric for starters.

I would also consider the Trump administration designating undocumented people as "animals" and "vermin" who serve no purpose for society as inflammatory rhetoric. It gins up his followers into thinking that they are the cause of most of their problems, taking away their jobs, etc when for the most part, Americans have no desire to do what they do.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

It gins up his followers into thinking that they are the cause of most of their problems, taking away their jobs, etc when for the most part, Americans have no desire to do what they do.

We're back on that again? "Who will pick our crops and do my landscaping if people are deported?"

There's a reason why it wasn't that many years ago that people like Bernie and Obama were saying you can't have open borders. Why is that?

The bottom line is, no, you aren't allowed to pipeline in tens of millions of voters for your party and then shriek foul when those people are removed. It's not going to be a one-way street.

 

[Smitty]

I would consider designating Renee Good and Alex Pretti as "domestic terrorists", along with provably false stories about the events surrounding their deaths as inflammatory rhetoric for starters.

I would also consider the Trump administration designating undocumented people as "animals" and "vermin" who serve no purpose for society as inflammatory rhetoric. It gins up his followers into thinking that they are the cause of most of their problems, taking away their jobs, etc when for the most part, Americans have no desire to do what they do.

I didn't say there was no inflammatory rhetoric coming from the Trump administration. I said I wish they were better on that. No one has ever loved some of the ridiculous things he says.

But it's also relatively minor as a problem - mostly, it's just annoying to have to hear eye-roll inducing statements. The inflammatory rhetoric coming from the Trump administration is not causing these officers to be trigger-happy. Police officers and military personnel are drilled, drilled, drilled to be disciplined, follow orders, follow the law, etc. These individuals who are the recipients of the Trump "inflammatory rhetoric," on this subject, are not prone to be being whipped up into a frenzy of misbehavior. They already receive tons and tons of quality training. That isn't to say it couldn't be changed or tweaked or improved, but the stuff Trump says is by and large not affecting these people.

It's the exact opposite with undisciplined, self-absorbed, entitled, self-righteous, petulant 20 and 30-somethings who are all up in their feelings about Trump being a bad guy. They have no perspective, no sense of reasonable responses, everything is a 5 alarm fire with these people. They are absolutely susceptible to all the fear mongering and inflammatory rhetoric that the left is pumping into their echo chambers. It's a far, far bigger problem that the left refuses to take any responsibility for this situation. It's like 90-10 a left problem, not a Trump admin problem.

There's almost no conversation worth having on the subject because the problem is almost entirely on the one side. None of these shootings happen if the protestors behave with any modicum of responsibility or proportionality in their actions.

And that's not to say only leftists can get whipped up into a frenzy by inflammatory rhetoric, but, police officers and military personnel generally won't be.

And in the current environment, none of Trump's rank and file citizen supporters are getting whipped into frenzies. We don't see conservatives out in the street at large, getting into scuffles with police, for example. It's the lefties. You don't see conservatives attacking illegal immigrants with violence in the street (anecdotally it certainly has happened, I'm talking about at scale to match the left's rioting).

The fear that "they will take our jobs," or "ruin our economy" or "destroy our democracy," as you cited, are maybe fear-induced concerns, (though I would contend, valid fears), and Trump is, perhaps, stoking those fears with inflammatory rhetoric, but we take out these fears at the ballot box. The right isn't rioting.

The left are the ones who need to get their rhetoric and behavior under control.

 

[Irving Cowboy]

The open borders policy of the Biden admin were a huge problem, and I'm glad Trump shut it down.

The issue is with the guy who came here 20-30 years ago and busts his ass in a field all day, no criminal record, being treated like they are Venezuelan gang members. They are not one in the same. Get the bad fuckers out, I doubt you will find anyone with a functioning brain who says they contribute to society. But for the ones who are here that are contributing to society, WTF ever happened to "path to citizenship"?

 

[Cotton]

WTF ever happened to "path to citizenship"?

It disappeared under Obama.

 

[Smitty]

The open borders policy of the Biden admin were a huge problem, and I'm glad Trump shut it down.

The issue is with the guy who came here 20-30 years ago and busts his ass in a field all day, no criminal record, being treated like they are Venezuelan gang members. They are not one in the same. Get the bad fuckers out, I doubt you will find anyone with a functioning brain who says they contribute to society. But for the ones who are here that are contributing to society, WTF ever happened to "path to citizenship"?

No, I don't agree that people who came here illegally 20 years ago are exempt from the law. They are harming actual American citizens nonetheless, and they harmed all the people who tried to do it legally when they jumped the line in contradiction to the law.

Not only that, but because the left is committed to allowing these people to remain here illegally, and in fact bringing in more, there is an absolute urgency to do this quickly during the administration's term.

You could argue that "we don't need to be cuffing these non-criminals face down on the pavement," but I challenge you to demonstrate how often that has occurred?

And anecdotes are meaningless, because mistakes happen. I'm saying, if you are arguing for a widespread change in how we search for and detain these individuals, to be worth changing, you have to give data, not headlines. I'm not gonna stop getting rid of 10,000,000 illegal immigrants because three of them got face-planted on the sidewalk by an over-exuberant officer.

Your argument against the Trump admin by and large sounds like opposition to deporting people who have been here illegally for 20 years and are "now contributing." But citing a couple of high-profile incidents doesn't make a compelling argument for letting those millions of people stay here.

The "path to citizenship," was never a massive scale proposal by Trump. It was offered by his admin in 2018 in exchange for funding a border wall, and only offered in relation to the children brought here without a say, not adults. It was like 1.8m people.

The offer was turned down by Democrats, by the way, because they didn't want a wall, and they didn't want just 1.8m people being legalized, they wanted tens or scores of millions.

So once again, this is a left problem.

 

[Bipo]

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I this is the first time many MSDNC viewers ever heard that people like this were being arrested.

 

[Bipo]