He watched a movie while Americans rose up in horror against his terror campaign in Minnesota.
This morning, Alex Pretti was filming Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis with approximately 15 other observers. A witness said she saw him motioning street traffic away from the scene. A number of observers were pepper-sprayed by Border Patrol agents, and Pretti moved to help them away from the scene. The witness describes what happened next this way:
Pretti was legally carrying a handgun, which remained holstered until a Border Patrol agent removed it and carried it away from the scene. Agents then opened fire on Pretti after he had been disarmed. Video of the killing recorded by several different observers can be seen here. Agents can be seen beating Pretti over the head or face with an object, possibly one of their guns, before ten shots can be heard.
Analysis of video taken of his killing clearly confirms that Pretti was fully disarmed, restrained, and lying supine on the ground when still-unnamed Border Patrol officers began shooting him.
A physician who lived near the scene and tried to treat Pretti describes what happened next. Immigration agents were refusing to give Pretti medical attention, but instead counting the bullet holes they had made in him.
The delay in allowing medical attention to the victim is one of a number of parallels with the murder of Renee Good earlier this month. As with Good's killing, local and state law enforcement officials were denied access to the crime scene while federal officials disposed of evidence. And like Good, Pretti was immediately smeared by top-level Trump administration officials as a "domestic terrorist" and "would-be assassin" who had put agents in fear for their lives—apparently by doing this:
Pretti's parents were forced to put out a statement today condemning the "sickening lies" spread about him by the Trump administration:
We are heartbroken but also very angry.
Alex
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 at the
Minneapolis VA hospital.
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.
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. Thank you.
Demonstrators are once again out in force in American cities tonight, and not just Minneapolis, which yesterday saw a general strke and tens of thousands of people protesting Trump's deliberate terror campaign against the city and its citizen and immigrant residents alike. Dozens of vigils were held in the Twin Cities alone tonight.
Washington, DC
New York, NY
Minneapolis (MLK Park vigil)
Minneapolis (Loring Park vigil)
Minneapolis (Whittier Park vigil)
Minneapolis (North Loop vigil)
Minneapolis (at the scene of Pretti's death)
Trump spent the evening in the White House watching a private screening of Melania, a vanity film project about his wife underwritten to the tune of $75 million by billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. It is expected to gross perhaps $5 million at the box office, which would make it a catastrophic flop by normal Hollywood standards, but giving money to Trump's pet projects is an effective way of buying access and favorable treatment.
Melania Trump worked illegally in the United States before gaining citizenship and would be subject to denaturalization and deportation to Slovenia—or possibly a third country like Sierra Leone or South Sudan or Nicaragua—under Trump's policy if she weren't his wife.
Why does this matter?
Highly visible murders of anyone who shows any resistance to the ruling regime is how authoritarianism works.
Defaming a dead man and his grieving family for propaganda purposes is evil.
Deliberately
telling obvious lies and demanding that people ignore what they can see
with their own eyes is so basic to fascism that it's a plot point in 1984.
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