"President Trump, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials quickly issued unsubstantiated claims that the Minnesotan who died Saturday-a man identified as Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse who worked with the Veterans Administration and was an active member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3669-was an armed "domestic terrorist" who "tried to assassinate federal law enforcement," and that the federal agent fired in self-defense."
"But the immediate responses from the administration, with their propagandistic and contradictory language (including an unwarranted DHS claim that Pretti, who was reportedly a 37-year-old licensed gun owner with no known criminal history beyond traffic citations, intended to "massacre law enforcement"), mirrored discredited and widely condemned statements made by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials following the Good shooting."
Tens of thousands of Minnesotans marched in sub-zero weather to demand an end to the violent presence of federal forces on Minneapolis streets. A Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse and union member, in the same city where ICE agent Renee Nicole Good was killed on January 7. Administration officials quickly issued unsubstantiated claims labeling Pretti an armed domestic terrorist and asserting the agent acted in self-defense. Those claims echoed earlier discredited statements after the Good killing. Minnesota leaders expressed skepticism, called for calm, and demanded thorough investigations and restrictions on federal enforcement surges.
Read at The Nation
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