They're killing us
2026-01-24, 5:20 PM PST.
Alex Pretti was a person, an American citizen, an ICU nurse with the US Department of Veterans Affairs, a cyclist, a concerned citizen. He was guiding traffic in icy conditions this morning. He then saw a woman who had been pepper-sprayed, and he tried to help her. Someone is shoved. Things escalate quickly. About six masked men covered him, beat him, and pepper-sprayed him. A gunshot is heard, unclear from where. Some agents back away. Then two of them shoot him 10 times in 5 seconds while he’s lying on the ground. They do nothing for a bit, according to the video. Then, apparently, they tried chest compressions.
Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents today.
Trump administration officials have not said anything negative about any officers involved. They’ve described one of the agents who shot Pretti as “extensively trained.”
They’re killing us.
Renée Good was a bit different: what was she doing there? Would a reasonable agent have feared for his life in that moment, seeing through his eyes? Cars are a lot more dangerous than people lying prone and covered by armed and armored federal agents.
To be clear, Renée Good did not deserve to die. Decades of training for law enforcement officers have been extremely clear that agents should never stand in front of a vehicle. Use of deadly force is a last resort, and only when someone’s life is in danger or extreme harm is imminent and unavoidable. The agent that shot Good was out of the way when he fired his second and third shots into Renée’s head through her side window.
But the Trump administration is flooding the zone with so many lies so quickly that they’re actually convincing some people that “actions have consequences” and they’re working quite diligently to make sure that as few investigations as possible are carried out: the DOJ is not opening a civil rights investigation into Good’s death, and the FBI is not cooperating with Minnesota law enforcement.
Alex Pretti had a gun. He had two magazines and no ID. His intentions are unclear.
Except we have eyewitness accounts saying he was basically just a guy trying to direct traffic, and we know he was registered to carry a firearm. We also, of course, have the Trump administration saying he was trying to kill ICE. They have brought forth no evidence other than vague hand-waves at his legally-registered firearm.
And, of course, he was being clobbered by agents when the first gunshot rang out. If the agents feared for their lives, this was a mess of their own making. If they’re so extensively trained, how could all six of them not restrain this one man? He was not a body-builder, though he was a cyclist and worked on his feet as a nurse. He was healthy, but normal, not extremely intimidating or putting up any apparent fight. The footage is as clear as it gets, but we simply cannot see what Alex Pretti was doing because he is literally covered by agents from all sides at the moment the first gunshot rings out. The extensively trained officers back away. Then one starts shooting. Another joins. It’s unclear why, as Pretti had been maced, beaten, and subdued pretty comprehensively by the “extensively trained” officer and his coworkers at that point.
They’re killing us.
It’s a campaign of intimidation. You’re welcome to disagree with me. But why else announce that you’re coming to a city weeks in advance? The criminals there will see the news and leave. The innocent folks will suffer the consequences. ICE has been deployed to at least one major airport, which makes no sense, because the TSA is already there.
It’s not much of a stretch to imagine ICE deployed to ballot boxes.
For the first time in Trump’s 10+ years in the political spotlight, I genuinely fear for our democracy.
I remember March 2014. Ukraine’s Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia after a “vote” with armed Russian “peacekeepers” at the ballot boxes. They voted 97% in favor of Russian annexation. What a surprise. That was when the war started. The February 2022 invasion was only an escalation.
Trump came into the picture in 2015. I laughed at him, and so did most people I knew. Then he gained popularity. He started talking about Mexico sending rapists into the US. Later, he said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
The protest I attended today was literally overwhelmed by Iranian protestors. Regime change is still a possibility for the Iranian dictatorship that has killed over ten thousand protestors in the past month. Trump was clear when he told them, in all caps, to keep protesting. He also said help is on the way, and, when asked later, said “You’re going to have to figure that one out. I’m sorry.”
I sleep next to a mess of family photos, college memories, old wedding invitations, a third class rosary relic, and a painted wooden board my mom gave me. The board is high-quality, maybe two feet long, one foot tall, and one inch thick. It’s painted white, and it has three Truffula trees on it. It also has some words.
2026-01-24: Corrected the name of US Department of Veterans Affairs and a minor grammar issue.
Update 2026-01-25, 8:28 AM PST: The masked men that restrained and shot Alex Pretti were not ICE agents, but Border Patrol agents, a different federal agency. I’ve updated the article to reflect this.