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 