It doesn’t matter if Alex Pretti had a gun

Shortly after federal agents killed Alex Pretti Saturday morning, the Department of Homeland Security began spreading the story that the dead man was armed and dangerous. He had a gun, DHS said. (A Bellingcat analysis of the video concludes that Pretti was unarmed when he was shot.) He had approached the officers holding the gun, DHS said. (He was holding a phone, The New York Times reports.) Pretti died on his knees, surrounded by armed Border Patrol agents, shot after shot fired in his direction.

The American Second Amendment is popular with conservatives. Minnesota allows open carry with a permit. Pretti lived in a town where people were routinely attacked and even killed by the masked, armed men he observed. So why has so much ink been spilled over the smallest details of her behavior? Why is it so normal for law enforcement – ​​those who are supposed to ensure public order – to kill Americans? And why is the only question in the end how much their victims deserved to die?

In July 2020, DHS sent more than a hundred federal agents from various agencies to my city of Portland, Oregon. They invaded the city center with a thick fog of brownish tear gas. It didn’t incapacitate the crowds – it just hurt and angered them. The city realized it was being intentionally tormented by sadists and chose to tear gas out of spite.

Throughout the protests, politicians and media figures questioned whether Portland and other cities were the scene of “protests” or “riots.” The distinction was drawn solely on the basis of the behavior of the protesters, whose actions were treated as if they were taking place in a vacuum. But on the ground in Portland, it seemed as if the main thing had been missed.

The actions of the protesters have blurred the definition of nonviolence. They came with gas masks and shields. People brought leaf blowers and intentionally fired tear gas directly at the officers who threw the canisters. They threw plastic water bottles at the feds because they hated them and thought it might be funny to screw them over their militarized helmets. No one was trying to assassinate the Feds, but still, it wasn’t the same as waving arms and marching through the streets of Selma singing.

But if a riot was taking place in Portland, the feds had provoked it—preemptively escalating the situation with rubber bullets, pepper balls, and gas canisters, weapons that not only blur the definition of “nonlethal” but literally contradict it.

These unequal expectations were unfair to civilians. And they are being applied again, with greater force and brutality, to the residents of Minneapolis.

It is clear that ICE’s presence in Minnesota is a source of conflict and anxiety. As federal authorities leave mayhem and fear in their wake, Minnesotans without training or state-issued protective equipment are being asked to behave with more restraint than the armed officers who are supposed to enforce the law.

Initial reports suggest Pretti was violently killed while nonviolently engaging with federal law enforcement. Videos show he was holding a phone and moving to help a protester when officers grabbed him by the legs and slammed him to the ground. The officers shout that he has a gun only after they tackle him to the ground.

But whatever happens, the physical coordinates of Pretti’s alleged weapon in the seconds before his assassination are far less relevant than the ongoing siege of the Twin Cities. Faced with this attack, what is so relevant in his behavior, his attitude or the way in which he approached the agents just before his death? Why should victims of state violence be entrusted with the task of not making the situation worse, when they receive no salary, health insurance, or pension at taxpayers’ expense?

The people are responsible for maintaining the peace, invited to stand firm in the face of federal agents who disrupt it. This is an unhealthy form of double taxation: your salary is reduced so that a masked man can beat you up while you try to calm him down. “It’s okay, man, I’m not mad at you,” Renee Good told ICE agents moments before they shot him through the side window of his car. Did she deserve to die because she failed to temper their feelings?

What’s the point of tackling someone to the ground before pouring pepper spray in their face? What’s the point of all this other than to anger the public, and then respond to that anger with even more force? ICE, CBP, and Border Patrol have proven incapable of obeying the law, much less enforcing it for others; incapable of calming down, let alone maintaining peace. ICE and its ilk are not an answer to a problem, but a problem with only one solution. They’re smart, they’re worthless, and they shouldn’t exist.