It doesn’t matter if Alex Pretti had a gun

Immediately after Alex Pretty was murdered by federal agents on Saturday morning, the Department of Homeland Security began running the story that the dead man was armed and dangerous. He had a gun, DHS said. (BellingCat analysis of the video concludes that Preeti was unarmed when he was shot.) He approached agents with a gun, DHS said. (He had a phone in his hand, the new York Times Report.) Surrounded by armed Border Patrol agents, he died on his knees after being shot one after another in Preeti’s direction.

America’s Second Amendment is beloved by conservatives. Minnesota allows open carry with a permit. Preeti lived in a city where people were regularly attacked and even killed by masked and armed men, which she was busy watching. So why was so much ink spilled on small things? His Behaviour? Why is it so common for law enforcement – ​​who are supposed to be the keepers of law and order – to kill Americans? And why is the only question at the end of the day how worthy their victims were of dying?

In July 2020, DHS sent over a hundred federal officials from various agencies to my hometown of Portland, Oregon. They filled the city with a thick fog of brown tear gas. This did not neutralize the crowd – it only hurt and angered them. The city understood that it was being deliberately harassed by sadists and decided to use tear gas out of spite.

Throughout the protests, politicians and media figures remained at odds over whether Portland and other cities were the sites of “protests” or “riots”. This distinction was made solely on the basis of the behavior of the protesters, whose actions were treated as if they occurred in a vacuum. But on the ground in Portland it seemed as if the matter had been forgotten.

The actions of the protesters blurred the definition of nonviolence. They came wearing gas masks and carrying shields. People brought leaf blowers and fired tear gas directly at the agents who deliberately threw the canisters. They threw plastic water bottles at the Feds because they hated them and thought strapping them on their militarized helmets would be funny. No one was trying to assassinate the Feds, but still, it wasn’t the same as marching down the streets of Selma linking arms and singing.

But if rioting was happening in Portland, the federal government instigated it — having already escalated the situation with rubber bullets and pepper balls and gas canisters, weapons that not only blur the definition of “non-lethal” but literally refute it.

These unequal expectations were unfair to citizens. And they are being re-imposed on the people of Minneapolis with greater weight and cruelty.

It is clear that ICE’s presence in Minnesota is a source of conflict and concern. As the feds unleash chaos and fear, Minnesotans without training or state-issued protective gear are being asked to behave with more restraint than the armed agents who are expected to maintain the law.

Initial reports suggest that Preeti was killed violently while non-violently engaging federal law enforcement. The video shows him holding a phone and moving to help a protester when agents grabbed him by the legs and threw him to the ground. The agents knock him to the ground before yelling that he has a gun.

But whatever happened, the physical coordinates of Pretty’s alleged gun in the seconds leading up to her murder are much less relevant than the ongoing siege of the Twin Cities. What is so relevant about his conduct or attitude, in the face of this aggression, or how he contacted the agents just before his death? Why should victims of state violence be tasked with preventing the situation from worsening when they are not drawing a salary or health insurance or pension on the taxpayer’s dime?

The people being charged with keeping the peace are being asked to stand firm against the federal agents who are disrupting it. This is a sick form of double taxation – your paycheck is deducted so that the masked man can beat you up while you’re trying to calm him down. “It’s OK, buddy, I’m not mad at you,” Renee Good said moments before ICE agents shot her through the side window of her car. Did she deserve to die because she did an inadequate job of assuaging their feelings?

What does it mean to throw pepper spray in someone’s face before throwing them to the ground? What’s the point of all this, other than angering the public and then responding to that anger with even more force? ICE, CBP, and Border Patrol have proven themselves incapable of enforcing the law, let alone enforcing it on others; Unable to calm oneself, let alone maintain peace. ICE and its ilk are not the answer to a problem, but a problem with only one solution. They are deadly, they are useless, and they should not exist.