Minneapolis Déjà Vu

The administration’s defamation of Pretti and lying about what had happened immediately recalled the smearing of Renée Good , another innocent murdered by a federal agent from the occupation forces in Minneapolis after dropping her son off at school. In both cases, administration officials immediately attacked the victims, ascribing malevolent intent, declining to investigate the killings, and guaranteeing impunity to the killers. Their supporters online and in aligned media then launched into frame-by-frame “investigations” of the video footage seeking to prove that, in fact, the agents had acted in self-defense—that Good had tried to run over the agent with her car (she didn’t), and that Pretti had threatened agents with a gun (he didn’t). The counternarratives then thrived on social media, amplified by algorithms and armies of bots, giving the administration enough cover to continue its campaign.

U.S. Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis murdered a man on Saturday, according to the ample evidence available so far. The killing was captured by multiple videos from several angles, and they all tell the same story: In the midst of tense street protests, a group of armed, masked federal agents approach a 37-year-old man named Alex Pretti holding a phone to record them. They tackle him to the ground, apparently remove a legally licensed firearm from his pocket, and then shoot him multiple times. Trump administration officials from Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem immediately labeled him a domestic terrorist, claiming that he had approached the agents brandishing a gun intending a mass casualty attack. But the video, as the Minneapolis chief of police pointed out , speaks for itself.

U.S. Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis murdered a man on Saturday, according to the ample evidence available so far. The killing was captured by multiple videos from several angles, and they all tell the same story: In the midst of tense street protests, a group of armed, masked federal agents approach a 37-year-old man named Alex Pretti holding a phone to record them.