Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital was shot and killed by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents Saturday as he attempted to assist two women being abused by federal agents. This is the second killing of a U.S. citizen by government agents this month. On Jan. 7, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old wife and mother, was killed in Minneapolis after dropping her 6-year-old son at school. A masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, Jonathan Ross, fired into her car, shooting her in the face. Instead of investigating these murders, federal officials, including President Trump, rushed to justify the shootings, contradicting video evidence and labeling both individuals as “domestic terrorists.” Our government’s first responsibility is to keep people safe — not to kill its own citizens and obscure the truth. Full transparency and independent account- ability are the minimum standards for any democracy. These incidents are not isolated. In just four months, federal immigration officers have shot at least nine additional people across multiple states and Washington, D.C. How many thousands of other people have ICE and CBP brutalized, sprayed with chemical agents, indiscriminately grabbed off the streets or out of their homes, shoved into unmarked vans, held in detention centers without access to lawyers or deported without due process? Across the country, Americans are protesting because this pattern of behavior is wrong. We deserve a government we can trust, not one that deploys masked agents, uses deadly force with impunity and then attempts to rewrite reality and tells us our eyes and ears are lying to us. Congress has both the power and the obligation to act before ICE turns our country into a police state. Every American who believes in justice and the rule of law must demand a full investigation into this abuse of power.
David Kyle (New Columbia)