In three decades of wearing the badge of a city cop, training the next generation, and leading police, I have seen the best and worst of this profession. For the past 30 years, I have been watching, analyzing and commenting on police practices in America at improvingpolice.blog. But there are no words in the lexicon of policing a free society to describe the horror of what happened to Alex Pretti. This isn’t just a bad shooting by a “bad apple”—it is the worst of the worst. It was a public execution and a desecration of the institution of policing.
Alex Pretti didn’t die in a “confrontation.” He was executed.
The scene in Minneapolis captures every rot that has infested our nation’s federal immigration enforcement tactics:
- The Aggression: Pretti did what any person of conscience would do—he stepped in to tell an agent not to manhandle a woman.
- The Escalation: For this “offense,” while holding a cell phone and speaking up, he was pepper-sprayed in his face, swarmed by five or six masked agents, and wrestled to the ground. But that was not enough for those agents…
- The Punishment: While he lay prostrate and defenseless, multiple agents—untrained, unsupervised—discharged a hail of twelve bullets into his body.
Yes, Alex was legally armed. No, he never presented that weapon. To yell “gun!” after the weapon has been located or while a person is pinned to the pavement is the ultimate act of escalation, cowardice and a gross failure of the agent’s recruitment, selection, training, supervision and mission.
This is murder. Plain and simple. There is no other sane conclusion possible.
These masked agents operate like the gang members they say they are deporting, not the discipline of those among us we choose to be our protectors and constitutional guardians. They hide behind masks, unidentifiable uniforms and a perceived wall of federal immunity from the President. We cannot—and must not—allow this to stand. ICE out of our cities, now!
The Path to Justice: We do not need a federal “internal review” that will result in a whitewash along the lines of the January 6 insurrectionists. We need an immediate, thorough investigation by an independent outside agency. Most importantly, we need STATE charges to be filed. Federal agents who step outside the scope of their authority and commit crimes on our streets must be held accountable to the laws of the state they have bloodied. We must ensure that no one in Washington has the power to pardon these criminals.
The “Thin Blue Line” of local policing was meant to protect every one of us from harm, not to provide a passive shield for federal bullies. If we do not demand justice for Alex Pretti and Renee Good right now, the sacred duty of policing the land we love will be corrupted into something unrecognizable—the “brownshirts” of a dark and distant era, a national force preening and genuflecting to an immature and nefarious tyrant.
When the enforcement of our laws lacks integrity, those in power are left with only two tools: force and fear. They resort to the lash because they have forfeited the trust and support of the people—the very oxygen required for policing to survive in a free and diverse society. Without that trust, the enforcing of our laws is nothing more than a fist and a gun, and we have truly lost the soul of our democracy.
As a man of service and faith, I often return to the opening of Psalm 127, a sober reminder for every one of us: “Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
This was a police killing, not a murder David. To call it murder only further provokes outrage in those who now believe it is righteous to resist, obstruct, and further provoke federal agents. That, of course, will only lead to more violence.
Again, the solution here is to abandon “sanctuary policies” and cooperate with federal law enforcement, allowing local police to assist in de-escalating this situation, but that’s not what the “powers that be” in Minneapolis want, is it.
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No! It was plain, cold murder and you, again, just don’t get it.
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And are we to say that the killing of labor union activists during 19th century and much of the early 20th century by police officers were “police killings” and not murder?
ICE hasn’t allowed the cops to come in to help de-escalate the situation and are doing anything they want like kidnapping American citizens, knocking on doors without a warrant, busting in doors with no warrants, gassing people and/or shooting them in the eyes with non-lethal weapons with no justification, throwing gas bombs into peoples’ cars. The FBI and the DOJ has shut down the murder of Renee Good. Trump just want people to reply with violence so he can implement the Insurrection Act and suspend any and all elections.
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What about the ICE agent telling that female that he was going to put her name in a terrorist database?
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A well reasoned, comprehensive and correct stating of the situation.
Being a retired UK civil service I had much experience in using words and phrases to say one thing while meaning another, or being all things to all folks (including junior staff and senior management )
Cutting through the niceties and fine line definition of those words and phrases is another matter.
Basically what it would come down to is was the act In ‘The Letter or the Spirit of the Law? ‘ and ‘What did I mean by what I did?’
If you work in public service you must accept you are going to have folk sounding off in your faces. You will have some tough calls. You will be called upon to make snap decisions and sometimes your practical resources are powerful. The question then is, can I tone this down? That is when ‘The Spirit of the Law’ comes in. Or can I just shut the person up and get away with it? That is the bad end of ‘The Letter of The Law.’
Whoever shot Alex Pretti did so without much assessment. Now if ICE agents had been on a regular basis shot out, wounded or killed I could, grudgingly understand why it happened – The God Lord knows we in the UK saw enough of it in Northern Ireland between 1969-1999.- This was not the case, ICE agents had been using extreme measures for some time without that response. Was it not possible for out of the number of ICE agents for a few to ‘bundle’ Pretti out of the way, detain him and pass him over to the police. Some might say the ICE agents did not have the time. So, the answer was to shoot him dead???
Not ‘The Spirit of the Law’…..maybe not in the Letter of the Law -Murder but a person was unnecessarily killed in a one sided confrontation.
You can call it what you like to suit your political opinions…….However at the end of the day it was
Avoidable
Unnecessary
and I would state Unconstitutional (I use that word in the American sense for it’s importance)
And therefore Wrong.
End of Observation.
Roger UK
(Sorry that went on so long, I went into Report and Analysis mode…Back from the days when I had to write another report on ‘What Went Wrong’)
Take care.
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Thanks, Roger, always appreciate comments from “across the pond!” Well done.
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Roger
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