The Bully

This morning, Alex Jeffery Pretti was murdered by ICE agents on Eat Street in south Minneapolis.  He was trying to help some women when an ICE agent pepper-sprayed him.  Then a bunch of agents bum rushed him and gang tackled him.  The firearm he was carrying, legally, with a permit, was removed from his waistband, and then, as Alex's hands were flat on Nicollet Avenue, an ICE agent shot him. Then, other ICE agents, panicking, unloaded their clips into the man. 

He died.

The brutal nature of this execution has made this city numb. As we are trying to process this new hell, DHS and ICE spouted laughable lies that were easily contradicted. Republicans and their media mouthpieces blamed the victim, bad language, Democrats, peaceful protesting, ANYTHING but the men who pulled their triggers and killed Alex Pretti. But as they frantically tried to lay blame at the feet of their political enemies with their curated talking points, the cell phone videos from every direction showed the world the truth. 

The Federal Government executed ANOTHER Minnesotan, just because they were Minnesotan.

After the doom scrolling weighed on me, I took a break and spent the afternoon trying to find something else to think about, but the weight of the occupation of Minnesota was hard to offset.  I served in Nuremberg, Germany, in the Army, and our rules of engagement with the German people were to be polite, courteous, and respectful.  ICE looks at Minnesotans as evil people who need to be controlled, herded, screamed at, pushed, beaten, and shot. I'd say ICE is treating us like we're a war zone, but the rules of engagement in war zones seem FAR more dignified and humane than anything we are seeing in Minnesota today.

Our usual Saturday evening plans involve me going to get some food and my wife and I watching something on television while we eat. This evening, I went to a restaurant in St. Louis Park, made my order, and waited, listening to the conversations going on around me.

"ICE raided the building my offices are in."

"They murdered him in cold blood."

"I guess Democrats with guns need to be murdered, but Republicans with guns are heroes."

"There was an ICE raid across the street from my kids' school."

"They kept cancelling their reservation because with ICE agents in their neighborhood, they were too scared to come out of their house."

And one teenager talking to his dad said, "It's like they want to kill us all."

These are surreal times.  I've never seen anything like this.  I was born in this city, and have lived here most of my life.  I've never been afraid of this city, until ICE got here.  Now I, like most Twin Cities residents, wonder if I'll be the next victim.  Considering the belligerence and lies the people who perpetrated this crime have displayed throughout the day, I see no signs of it stopping soon.

I'm convinced the murder of Alex Jeffery Pretti was intentional.  The day after Minneapolis stood up to the bully and said, YOU DO NOT CONTROL US(!), ICE was looking for retribution, for a way to exert militarized control over Minneapolis. They intentionally escalated the conflict, they attacked a peaceful protester, they ganged up on him like a prison ambush, they disarmed him, THEN they shot him, with other agents emptying their clips into Pretti's body, then one agent applauded, then another agented taunted the crowd by yelling "boo hoo," then ICE (who is an immigration force) had an armed-to-the-teeth riot control force ready to go almost instantly after the murder, then they marched even more troops into the city, while ICE themseves shut down the crime scene, forbidding any local law enforcement from even seeing the site, scouring the crime scene clean, before fleeing back to their lair.

This was intentional.  The bully wanted to threaten us into believing they were still in control. What they really did was show the world they're the undeniable villain.

Minneapolis and Minnesota will never bow to your Nazi-esque tyranny. Trump's forces of evil will NEVER win here.

Minnesotans are far better humans than they'll ever be.