Our ox has been gored. The killing of Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis was our nation’s ox, reflecting the biblical principle from Genesis that people don’t take action or reflect on what is occurring until it directly affects them. Tip O’Neil knew this, as did Saul Alinsky, the legendary labor organizer who said that people should enlist their neighbors in political issues over local events directly affecting them, such as a child getting injured at a dangerous intersection because of the lack of a traffic light.
Humans are human, and the world is complex and difficult, but as every journalist knows, occasionally the actions or horror of one event affecting one person or small group can galvanize public opinion. Putting a human face on a problem or an issue can move a population to action and revulsion over what is occurring.
I remember years ago when police departments around the country started to install body cameras on their officers. There was a harsh outcry by many police unions, but many officers I knew were all in favor of them, believing that they would be protected from claims that they acted improperly. That has generally been the case, since the great majority of police-civilian interactions are within the bounds of acceptable conduct.
Then came cellphones, and the street-level law enforcement world changed. Most of the most contentious interactions we have with law enforcement take place during demonstrations or their aftermath. Those were often not fully documented by body cameras, but now there is an abundance of visual evidence. One thing is sure: Litigants in cases now have an ability to get documentation from both sides.
Judges often used to have to take evidence in misconduct cases on a one-to-one, “he-said, she-said” basis. Since they regularly interacted with police officers, there was often a tacit or even subtle bias to believe them over a single complainant. That can no longer be the case if there is cellphone evidence of the event for an appellate court to review.
Why is it that this event has captured the imagination and the horror of the nation? I have heard the same question asked when people are appalled at the homicidal death of a white woman and ignore similar murders of indigenous women and women of color. We are a complex population, and perhaps the news coverage and the composition of our nation dictate the concerns of our various demographics—which may just be a lame excuse for a national preoccupation with race and other gender and sociological biases. Alex Pretti could have been any of us, a citizen exercising his rights and cruelly killed by an occupying, untrained, and vindictive private army directed by a president with no concern for the rights of this country’s citizens or those of legal or illegal immigrants.
It is interesting to see the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) on the same ideological side. There is a right in Minnesota to own a licensed handgun and to carry it openly or concealed. The NRA is rightly outraged at the death of Pretti for complying with a law and doing nothing to threaten ICE and the other officers. I may disagree with the lax gun control laws in Minnesota, but the legal possession of the weapon and the consequences of such possession only bring new allies to the fight over the rampant illegal actions of the occupation force.
Alex Pretti was a good man, whose actions the administration lied about when they had access to the same videos we all saw showing him helpless on the ground held down by six officers. Let’s be clear: The video shows this was an assassination—one that was immediately lied about, then justified through a campaign of mistruths designed to destroy Pretti’s reputation. Perhaps our national outrage will finally inspire all of us—Republican, Democrat, and independent—to hold to account an administration that will say and do anything to advance its national and international agenda.
