As officials disparage Pretti and Good, families of Black people killed by police have déjà vu

The shooting deaths of white protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents in Minneapolis followed a script painfully familiar to black Americans: Authorities quickly denigrated the victims, only to be contradicted as new evidence emerged.

Black families who lost loved ones to police brutality said the killings in Minnesota brought back painful memories of their own fights for justice, as law enforcement fabricated narratives suggesting officers had no choice but to kill their loved ones.

And these law enforcement agencies often make no effort to publicly correct inaccuracies or lies that could impact a fair legal process, experts said.

Timothy Welbeck, director of the Anti-Racism Center at Temple University, said it “sadly” took the deaths of Pretti and Good to once again shine a spotlight on the issue.

“Black people have been critical of law enforcement for as long as there has been policing in America,” said Welbeck, an assistant professor in Temple’s department of Africology and African American Studies.

He also called it “painfully ironic” that Pretti and Good died “in the same place” where other high-profile cases have brought the issue to the forefront: George Floyd, who was murdered in 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer, and Philando Castile, who was fatally shot in 2016 while trying to show a suburban Minneapolis police officer his permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Clarence Castile, an uncle of Philando Castile, said it was strange to hear federal authorities jump to conclusions about the Pretti and Good shootings.

“They immediately stood by their officers and said they fired justifiable shots, that their lives were in danger, that they feared for their lives,” Castile said. “I heard the same thing, (officials) said the same things when that police officer shot my nephew.”

“We’ve known all along that they didn’t take the time to investigate,” he said. “They just post something because they think they have to respond. Sometimes the best response is not to respond.”

Leonard Sipes, who worked for 35 years in public affairs and communications for federal and state law enforcement and is also a former officer, said standard practice in a shooting or other major break-in case is simply to state that “the matter is under investigation.” Sipes said he typically waits 24 hours before releasing information to the public.

“It’s vital to the reputation of the agency to get the story right,” Sipes said. “You also have an obligation to protect the integrity of the investigation. Rush to judgment can violate that.”

The killings of Pretti, an intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital, and Good, who described herself as a poet, mother and wife, quickly became rallying cries for Minnesotans protesting the largest federal law enforcement surge in a U.S. city.

After the deaths of Pretti and Good, administration officials from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to President Donald Trump claimed the two were far-left radicals acting with malicious intent to harm federal agents.

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” Pretti’s family said in a statement this week, noting that videos showed Pretti holding his phone, not a gun, when he was approached by federal agents before being shot multiple times. “Please let the truth be known about our son.”

Her family remembered Good as “the beautiful light of our family and brought joy to everyone she met.”

“She was our protector, our shoulder to cry on and our sparkling source of joy. »

While Justice Department officials declined to open a civil rights investigation into Good’s death, they announced a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s killing on Friday.

Yet officials have not backed down from claims that Pretti and Good were avowed extremists who intended to harm federal agents when they were killed.

Some black activists and police reform supporters have expressed frustration that people outraged by the way the Pretti and Good cases were handled often ignored the same dynamic when the victims were black.

“Ultimately, this demonstrates the insidious nature of racism and how it is embedded in the systems and structures of society,” Welbeck said. “When black people try to point out not only the logical fallacies of this situation, but also its insensitivity, we have often been castigated or told that we are overreacting and should wait for justice.”

Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, said it’s a common misconception that Black racial justice organizers won’t be active when white people die at the hands of law enforcement.

“I want to be very clear that I am grieving and angry over the murder of Alex Pretti and Renée Good,” said Abdullah, a national center organizer for BLM chapters. “What they suffered is what black people suffer every day, and it’s not good for them, but it’s not good for us either. »

Justin Hansford, who participated in Black Lives Matter protests after the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, said the Minneapolis shooting should remind all Americans that the injustice that disproportionately affects black people can also affect them.

“It’s the idea that black people have always been the ones whose experience signaled to the rest of the country what was soon to happen,” said Hansford, a professor at Howard University Law School and executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center.

“It’s because it’s the black experience that you’ve looked at it narrowly and failed to address it. And then the experience is emulated nationally.”

Tiffany Crutcher, the twin sister of Terence Crutcher, a black man killed in 2016 by a Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer, said she could not watch videos showing the murders of Pretti and Good. Just hearing authorities talk about their deaths was traumatic all over again, she said.

She “has been there before,” she said, recalling how law enforcement made snap judgments about her brother.

Crutcher’s family argued Terence needed help after his vehicle broke down on the road. The police officer who shot him said she feared he was looking in his car for a weapon. Terence Crutcher was unarmed.

Video footage from the scene recorded an operator saying Terence “looks like a bad dude” who “could be onto something.” Ultimately, the police officer who shot him was acquitted at trial of manslaughter.

“In our trauma and shock, we had to control the narrative about who Terrence was,” Tiffany said. “While we grieve and grieve, we must at the same time come together and let the world know that our loved one does not deserve to die.”

She said the shootings of Pretti and Good helped people become aware of the problem of unequal justice for people killed by police.

“Naturally, there is a broader affinity with law enforcement and the people who believe them,” Tiffany said. “However, I think that is changing.”

“Our voice is all we have. And we made a conscious decision to use our voice and preempt harmful narratives.”

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AP writer Matt Brown in Washington, D.C., contributed.