[This post first appeared at Common Dreams on January 27, 2026.]
I was born and raised in Minnesota. One of my childhood homes in south Minneapolis is less than a mile from the scene of Saturday’s brutal Border Patrol killing. The victim was 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a US citizen born in Illinois and a registered ICU nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital.
Pretti’s crime: He was “Minnesota nice.”
Before proceeding further, please watch this New York Times video. But be warned – IT IS VIOLENT, GRAPHIC, AND DISTURBING: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/us/minneapolis-shooting-federal-agents-video.html
1:02
A CNN compilation of bystander videos confirms that Border Patrol officers took Pretti’s gun before shooting him 10 times:·
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/24/us/invs-videos-show-federal-officer-recovered-gun
And USA Today offers a second-by-second analysis: https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/01/24/minneapolis-shooting-video-analysis-alex-pretti/88338183007/
Now contrast what you just observed with the Trump administration’s four-step playbook for avoiding accountability: Lie, double-down, deflect, and cover-up.
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