We now know a few things about the man killed by federal agents.
The man fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis this morning has been identified as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Pretti, 37, has an address listed in south Minneapolis.
At a news conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the man who was shot was a 37-year-old white man with no serious criminal history and a record that showed only some parking tickets. Law enforcement sources said Saturday their records show Pretti had no serious criminal history.
O’Hara said the man was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit. Records show that Pretti attended the University of Minnesota. State records show Pretti was issued a nursing license in 2021, and it remains active through March 2026.
So they’re killing law-abiding white people? This isn’t part of the white nationalist agenda, I thought.
Meanwhile, CBP, Republican Tom Emmer, and Donald Trump are blaming “rhetoric” for the death.
Let me be clear about this: it is obvious to anyone who hasn’t murdered their conscience that by voting to fund all this evil, schumer, jeffries and the rest of the cowardly corrupt democraps are as guilty of these blatant murders as are tRUMP, noem, hegseth, rubio and the rest of the evil murderous barbaric narcissistic egomaniacal pile of excrement and his fascist and plutocratic magats.
Trump et al are not entirely wrong in blaming rhetoric but it is THEIR rhetoric. They are trying to increase fear, and I wish the fascists would stop.
Emmer is the MAGA Federal House representative from a suburban Minneapolis district.
Emmer lies like all Republicans.
None of those people are outside paid agitators.
They are local residents defending their neighborhoods from right wing terrorists.
Those Minnosotans he claims agree with him are probably two fascists from his district.
Meanwhile Waltz is making sure Minnesota creates logs of such atrocities for ” future prosecutions.” Hello? Schumer? Jefferies?
Details are slowly coming out about this murder.
The NYTimes in a profoundly insightful observation (this is sarcasm), points out that ICE lied about the murder and contradicted the events seen on videos.
The guy had a phone in his hand, probably photographing or videotaping ICE, they grabbed his phone, threw him on the ground, and shot him at least 10 times at point blank range.
This was murder.
ICE are untrained, low IQ, nearly illiterate terrorists.
I’m sure they were hired for exactly those reasons.
They should.
No Statue of Limitations for murder.
They might not be able to arrest them tomorrow, but they have the rest of their lives to apprehend them.
The other thing they have to do is release the names of the terrorists who killed Pretti. There is no such thing as secret police in the USA.
It is all or should be public knowledge.
Governor Walz just activated the National Guard in response.
He was an ICU nurse at the VA often treating critically ill veterans. As has been stated he had no criminal record and was a legal gun owner.
@Morrison #7: Sure, but against whom?
raven said – ICE are untrained, low IQ, nearly illiterate terrorists.
I’m sure they were hired for exactly those reasons.
For certain.
After the recent murders, I have to wonder how many of them have a criminal history (that was intentionally overlooked). Or maybe even a requirement for hire. One trait they wanted was an affinity for violence. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of them were rejected by the military due to their history. Would love to see the psychological evaluations on these thugs.
Homeland security. ICE, National Guard, Sheriff’s department. Who out ranks who? Before this is all over it will leave long lingering legal issues. How do we control future out of control agencies like ICE wielded as harassing states by a stupid president? Checks and balances!
cheerfulcharlie @11
Ironically the so-called Constitutional Sheriffs think they are the law of the land. I don’t see those MAGAt fascists ever standing up to their addled thug in chief and his knuckledragging armed death squads. At worst they might be mad he’s siphoning off the local psychopathic thugs from their ranks.
Steve Morrison @7
I doubt the guard will be there to protect citizens from ICE thugs.
Here is a link to a Strib story about MN US Rep Emmer’s descent into MAGA madness:
https://www.startribune.com/once-a-defender-of-somali-minnesotans-tom-emmer-stays-silent-amid-trump-garbage-attacks/601511893?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=essential_minnesota&utm_term=Essential%20Minnesota
If you can’t read that story, it mentions a story that NPR’s This American Life program aired in 2016 when Emmer held a town hall meeting where the topic of Somali immigrants was brought up by the locals. Basically Emmer seemed okay (by republican standards) with immigrants back then while the locals (white folks naturally) urged him to stop the immigration because they “needed a breather”
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/600/transcript
I expect all them “its up to us to defend the nayshun against tyranny!” militias that spread around the country and amassed vast stores of weaponsry these past 20 years or so are gonna emerge from the forests any day now and start fighting the tyrants. Any day now… they’re just waiting for…
Actually, I suspect many of them have happily signed up as ICE agents.
While both sides Coyne engages in mental onanism for the benefit of his largely right wing fanbase 🤢🤮 …I mean pick a fucking side dude…we have an actual bona fide neocon with a spine venting hard. The contrast is striking:
https://bsky.app/profile/billkristolbulwark.bsky.social/post/3md6vc4kmfk2r
https://bsky.app/profile/billkristolbulwark.bsky.social/post/3md6lzpyqvk2e
There’s more. Kristol is on fire today.
Coyne can’t even match the backbone of the arch neocon Bill Kristol. Sad!
In the police procedurals I watch on TV, if there is an officer-involved shooting the person responsible is required to surrender their sidearm and is placed on desk duties or administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation, Does ICE have similar requirements as the police? The video of the Good homicide does not show Ross staying at the scene and giving anyone his gun. Do we even know at this point who shot Pretti and what has happened to his gun? They were suspiciously quick to release a picture of the gun Pretti was alleged to be carrying, The BCA and local police are indicating they are being kept out of the investigations by Federal agencies such as the FBI even though they should fall within their jurisdiction.
Through all this Congress is clearly impotent as the Republican majority is still in thrall to the MAGA movement and will not do anything that might anger them. We may have to wait until the midterms until there is any opportunity for change. That’s assuming Trump and his legal team don’t find a creative way to postpone or cancel them, maybe by declaring a national emergency. I’m certain they are looking at all possibilities.
What is worrying is that there enough hotheads around with guns that sooner or later someone is going to start taking pot-shots at ICE or the police and that will give Trump the excuse he needs to deploy the 81st Airborne or whoever, He just loves having the US armed forces as his own private army and they show no signs of being willing to disobey orders, illegal or otherwise.
#16: You made me look. Never again. Coyne is a slimy chickenshit piece of work, and his commentariat are nothing but conservative apologists. Fuck that guy.
More Bill Kristol (yeah that fucking guy):
https://bsky.app/profile/billkristolbulwark.bsky.social/post/3md7d37bj5k2t
JFC! Not that he has any impact on MAGA but to read his tirades today given who he actually used to be kept me from totally losing my shit after ICE executed someone in plain sight. I take solace from former evil fucks seeing the light and not mincing words about current nightmares.
A couple of observations:
a.) Seven democrats were carefully selected as the fall guys to vote to fund ICE a couple of days ago. If it were less politically contentious to do so in another press cycle, the vote would have been similar to the 149 Democrats voting to fund Trump’s war machine that same day. ICE must have felt emboldened — clearly they aren’t suffering any political consequences and they probably won’t suffer legal consequences either.
b.) Hey, hey, NRA. Where were the good guys with the guns today? (Other than the one who was murdered.) This was your chance to oppose tyranny, right? The 2nd amendment is worth something more than the toilet paper it was written on, right?
from the Star Tribune:
January 24, 2026 at 5:10 PM
Brooks Johnson
Alex Pretti’s family releases statement:
The family of Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis man shot and killed by federal immigration agents this morning, released the following statement to several media outlets:
“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.”
You can see him here prior to the murder being hassled by the fascists. He’s brandishing… a phone. To record their behaviour.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/910973098111237/
To only slightly update a line from a classic horror/thriller movie:
“The insurrection is coming from inside the White House!”
As far as ICE et al.’s claims that recording them is illegal, that asking them what they’re doing is illegal, that asking to see a warrant is illegal: See Herndon v. Lowry, 301 US 242 (1937), holding remarkably similar “offenses” in Georgia’s code being applied against a peaceful communist recruiter who was also advocating for racial equality to be unconstitutional. They can’t even be creative in their repression.
@beholder #20, b):
Two reasons for why the gun nuts won’t be up in arms (heh) about this.
1: They won’t hear the truth. They will most likely only listen to the propaganda that tells them he was attacking ICE.
2: It goes against their narrative of guns for protection. They don’t work as well against people that are armed and more willing to use them than you are.
Well, they ain’t actually wrong but the thing is it is their rhetoric and decades of demonising and lying about non-white immigrants and left wing people and esp Shadow POTUS Miller lying (?) that ICE & his other brownshirt thug scum can get away with literal murder and anything and everything else they choose to do that is responsible for the deaths here.
Trump’s rhetoric and Murdoch’s rhetoric and the rhetoric of their many, many shills and suckers Musk’s rhetoric and Tucker’s and tjhe MyPillow Klown’s rhetoric & more
@20. Trump helping troll “beholder”” : An observation – a fact – you helped make this happen.
There is precisely ZERO chance that ICE~stapo would be in Minneapolis empowered and incited to murder & abduct as they please under a President Kamala Harris.
The blood of Alex Jeffrey Pretti is on YOUR hands.
As is the blood of Renee Good
As is so vastly much more metaphorical blood.
Still happy with the POTUS that YOU helped put in power by constantly undermining and attacking the ONLY real alternative to Trump as POTUS?
Stevo, for the millionth time – the onus is not on voters to vote for shit if there’s even worse shit.
The onus is on political parties to not be shit.
The so-called opposition in the US has offered no real opposition at all for many years, and as such are enablers of Trump.
Stop victim blaming.
Wasn’t the 2nd Amendment written for exactly this occasion?
They voted wrong and look what happened, applied to 150 million people, is really not an argument. 54% of Americans can not read or write beyond 6th grade level, maybe that might be worth addressing to improve things. There’s a million politicians in Congress who are frail and over 80, maybe that needs addressing too. It’s hard to stop a technofascist takeover without an opposition.
@ 27. Silentbob :There was a choice between Kamala and Trump
A binary choice.
Seriously dude. Which of those two was better?
For pretty much everyone in pretty much every regard.
Really that hard?
Also Silentbob – don’t like the political choices and reality that you have?
Okay.
What the fuck are YOU doing about it? To change it and make it better?
(& how effective or otherwise are your tactics proving if you are?)
You guys really have to stop comparing these guys to the Gestapo. The Gestapo were the scum torturing, blackmailing and disappearing their victims behind closed doors.
Those ICE guys running around and brutalizing people in broad daylight are much more comparable to the brownshirt thugs of the Sturmabteilung.
I agree with Iasius @32.
Historical comparisons don’t work when they are manifestly incorrect. ICE and Border Patrol are far more akin to the SA – street-fighting expendable goons, rather than the Gestapo who were political secret police spying on, bugging and most of all watching the population (that’s what the FBI are being turned into).
This may be down to my Euro-bias and OCD – but I can’t help wondering how different the US view of history as taught in schools is different to the UK. In school I read the Diary of Anne Franke and 1984 in English Language and the rise of the Nazis was covered in O Level History (I’m guessing the syllabus has changed in the last 50 years mind – also being taught by people who’d actually fought in WWII made it all a bit more real).
Anyway, one thing to watch out for is the whitewashing of the sins of ICE with a “Night of the long knives” (Bovino in the role of Ernst Rohm? He’s dressing the part with the Sam Brown belt.) The calls for the defunding of ICE could trigger that and they could well be replaced by something worse (In Nazi Germany it was the SS).
Calling out Democrats for their lack of power to effect meaningful change, when they don’t have the leverage to do anything meaningful, fomenting outrage that leads to their opposition winning due to apathy and some grand moral stance on a single issue, is simply consigning your fate to those have worse intentions for you. As much as the “both-sides” chanting makes you feel as if you have it all figured out, the reality is more complicated. Let’s be clear here: you’re advocating against incrementalism and for accelerationism whenever you give cover for people who wanted to grandstand a single issue without a hint of nuance or political power dynamic insight. And by advocating for that acceleration, you have to bite the bullet of all the evil that empowers, even if you think there’s a revolutionary silver lining to it.
@34
Bring in the minority didn’t stop the Republicans from obstructing Democratic majorities in congress before. What’s their excuse for not using the same tactics now other than not giving a damn for anything but their own wealth and power?
Because slow, insignificant, performative “change” has worked sooooo well at stopping this.
Oh please, all-wise Sage of Centrism, explain to us childish leftists the nuance of a man being executed by fascist thugs.
Yes, the “evil” that comes with toppling a system of lies and slavery because it might make cozy libs less comfortable.
Some people don’t want justice, they just want quiet.
Coyne is a political moron. I book marked this part a while ago to post it whenever this dumbass gets mentioned: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2016/11/08/hillary-wins/
@Silentbob #27 – Are you seriously saying that Harris was even worse shit than Trump? You may want to reconsider that.
I’m finally getting the joke “Hitler on ICE” in the Mel Brooks’ history of the world movie!!!
rietpluim @37
I interpreted Silentbob’s comment as saying that voters are not morally obligated to vote for the lesser evil (presumably Harris), if both sides are basically bad. I disagree with the comment, but I don’t think Silentbob meant Harris is worse than Trump.
beholder, Silentbob, Akira, and any other wankers out there: It’s not that complicated. Every two years, vote for the lesser evil. The other 728 or so days, work for grassroots change, and hold incumbents’ feet to the fire.
The ‘never Kamala’ crowd were just doing less-than-useless performative bullshit which only served to help Trump. Yeah, you’re special. Now just fuck off.
beholder@20: the NRA put out a statement about how lawfully carrying a gun is no excuse to kill a white man. (They didn’t specify the race, but we can contrast with their response to the Philando Castile case.)
It was tepid, but, you know, baby steps. The 2A movement is, by many reports, deeply shaken by Pretti’s murder.
Rob Grigjanis: just to be clear, it is presently not voting day. Here’s people holding incumbents’ feet to the fire, and you’re angry at them and telling them that instead they should be … holding incumbents’ feet to the fire.
Reminder: beholder’s schtick is to blame Dems for Republican atrocities.
beholder preferred (and prefers) a Trump presidency over a Harris presidency.
Akira:
Well, if the Democratic party condemns the tactics the Republicans are using, to themselves employ them is not the best look. Well, that and the fact they are nasty and pernicious to the body politic.
Basically, you are asking for procedural obstruction, strategic non‑cooperation, manipulation of institutional rules, disinformation and bad‑faith framing, voter‑access restrictions, and norm‑breaking escalation the Democratic party.
(Way to fix things!)
@27. Silentbob : “Stop victim blaming.”
The Trump helping troll “beholder” is NOT a victim. They are a dishonest probly Trumpist troll that has lied here, partocipates in bad faith and made the world a vastly worse place by helping Trump defeat Kamala.
Trumpuist troll “beholder” is the bully and a liar. Why do you keep supporting them and refusing to answer my reasonable questions to you?
Actually it really is If you have two options and one of the them is fascist then, yeah, ethically you ar eobligated to vote for thr non-fascist option tostop the fascist one getting in.
Who make sup and runs olitical parties? How do you get a say in political parties? People, citizens, voters – party members – join up and work to fix them if you don’t like say the Democratic party.
.
False. HRC oppsoed Trump and won the popular vote being denied the presidency by the EC. Kamala won almost 50% of the vote and was denied the presidency by voter suppression, the utterly counter-productivce third party spoilers over Gaza – have they helped that plac eeh? Plus maybe Musk manipulation of things too.
That isn’t enabling Trump.
That is being a pretty effective opposition.
@ ^ Oh &, of course, former President Joe Biden actually did stop Genocide Climate Catastrophes ICE on your streets eveil Don Trump albeit not for long enough sadly. But Biden did defeat him fair and square in an election so clearly the Democratic party under Biden – old as he was & is – was real opposition and NOT “enablers” of Trump. (Like “beholder” and their alleged third party spoiler of choice Stein.)
numerobis @42: There are incumbents in the commentariat? Good to hear!
I’ll bet anyone a beer on this: it will eventually come out that they have orders to kill a few people to try to terroroze the population.
The killing of protestors, especially protestors who belong to the ethnic majority, is not an accident or a byproduct. Overtly, or covertly, directing violence toward the members of the majority who oppose a fascist takeover is an absolute prerequisite for the political change ICE is currently helping to enact. Removing opposition directly, and sowing fear among those remaining, suppresses opposition and more importantly normalises political violence. What they want is a country in which they can murder or threaten to murder anyone who opposes their actions, because they think they have the advantage when violence is in play.
@40
As I have stated many times in the past, I voted for Clinton, Biden, and Harris. I’m sorry that I refuse to be part of your centrist circle jerk, but I reserve the right to point out what’s wrong with liberals and Democrats, especially when they cower in the face of tyranny.
@44
They’re going to call us obstructionists no matter what we do. Complying to “norms” and “decorum” are not ends, they are means and not very useful ones at that. If being obstructive means Trumps fascist agenda is hobbled then so be it. I refuse to let my ideological opponents define morality for me, and adherence to the “the process” is meaningless when it doesn’t serve justice.
https://youtu.be/MAbab8aP4_A?si=Z-zh-esynDpYJWRE
Um, my point was about actually practicing the principles one preaches.
It was not about avoiding Rs calling Ds obstructionists.
More obliquely: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) is a classic American political drama directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart as Jefferson Smith, an idealistic young man appointed to the U.S. Senate who confronts corruption and fights for democratic values.
(Or, doing it because it’s the right thing to do)
—
Ah well, perhaps they will follow your advice, and those who claim both parties are the same will have that much more reason for so doing.