I would like to begin this section by briefly channeling the collective spirit of our Fascist friends. Don’t be alarmed if your vision starts to blur or you suddenly smell brimstone. I have been assured that’s normal:
On Saturday, January 24th, an armed assassin approached federal border patrol agents in Minneapolis with the intent to massacre law enforcement. Though the agents attempted to disarm the individual, he violently resisted. Fearing for their lives, the agents fired defensive shots, killing the assailant. This is the truth. This is clearly seen by anyone who looks at the video footage. This is the truth.
Well, I can’t speak for anyone else. But I have looked at the video footage. I have done my own research, which I know the Right is always telling people to do. The conclusion I have come to is that the story the DHS is trying to tell of Alex and his interaction with those federal agents that day, is inaccurate. More than inaccurate, it is a picture I am not convinced any curious, reasonable, honest observer could or would ever come to. I know cognitive bias is a factor here and that two people can feasibly look at the exact same image from the same angle and then describe it differently. I’ve seen a football game and I’ve seen people who are watching a football game. But this isn’t instant replay on ESPN and murder isn’t a sport. Anyone who is willing to overlook it just because it makes their team look bad should just admit they never valued the victim’s life in the first place and spare everyone else’s time. Therefore, doing my best to take my own A-C-A-Biases into account, the conclusion I am forced to come to is that the government is actively lying to us. I know, as socialists, this is very hard to believe.
But I also don’t only want to talk about what they want us to see. I think I’m more of an authority on what I personally saw than I am on whatever happens inside of Greg Bovino’s fetid skull. What I saw was a young man- it feels so weird writing that, since I’m younger than him still, but it’s what he was- who had dedicated his whole life to helping people. He spent his career treating the sick, the injured, and people in incredible amounts of pain. He devoted his personal life to opposing injustice, protecting the victims of fascism from their persecutors, and trying- desperately, furiously- to remind this country of what it aspires to be, despite what it almost always shows itself to actually be. I’m not trying to canonize him. I’m sure that Alex had bad days and fuck ups or maybe he once tweeted some super-not-woke stuff in the early 2000s or something- it doesn’t matter, because his sins are nothing worse than what most of us are guilty of. Just like all the other victims before him, he was one of us.
Nevertheless, ICE and its masters want us to see him as a violent extremist. They want us to see a wild-eyed Antifa foot soldier, hoped up on liberal propaganda, divisive DEI CTR multi-culty ideology, and- I don’t know- maybe some secret strain of pot that makes you racist against white people. In their atrophied minds, no matter what his background may be, no matter who he might have been before the insidious woke mind virus got to him, in that moment he chose to approach those officers- who of course were only doing their jobs- with the intent to pick a fight, raise hell, and… step three: profit? Naturally, these brave agents had to shoot him over ten times. I mean it’s regrettable, sure. Maybe. I guess. But that’s just the consequences of not following the law. If you commit a crime, like failing to respect an agent by recording them, or by being in the same place at the same time as an agent, or by not wearing the right color of official Trump underwear on the third Tuesday of the month you encounter an agent, of course you’re going to be executed in the street without trial, any good citizen knows that.
Utter. Bullshit. Alex Pretti was not a criminal. He was not a violent extremist or a domestic terrorist. I could not find any mention of a criminal record anywhere I looked. Neither could major news outlets, and neither apparently could any right-wing organizations because you know if they had anything they would be plastering it on billboards and buying ad space during the Super Bowl.[1] No, Alex was a law-abiding American who wanted to express his Constitutional right to freedom of assembly, to peaceful protest, and to bear legally-obtained arms in self-defense, for which he had a valid license. My inner conservative boot connoisseur may ask “well why would he bring a firearm to a peaceful protest?” Well why do people open carry to the grocery store? Why do people bring katanas onto the subway? Why do some people walk around their house buck naked? Whatever we may think or feel about their decisions, it’s their right and they don’t owe us an explanation before they exercise it. Even if I’d really like one in the third case.
The part of what we all saw that we should be paying attention to is not that this person showed up with a weapon. It is that this person took every reasonable measure to follow federal law and the laws of his state, jumped through every hoop that you are supposed to jump through to be allowed to be where he was, doing what he was doing, and they still shot him for it. He was observing and filming ICE from a distance, directing traffic away from the agents- not an unreasonable precaution given their recent track record with citizens driving away from them- and they still shot him for it. Even as things started to spin out of control, as an ICE agent approached and assaulted the woman with Alex, he did not draw his gun. He did not threaten the agent or rush toward him. Instead, he placed his own body between his fellow American and the masked man trying to- we can infer from past incidents- beat and abduct her on a whim, as they both tried to move away from their attacker. And they shot him for it. Later, while Alex was surrounded on every side by these glorified toll booth attendants, who beat him to his knees and were trying to wrestle him to the ground, we still do not see him draw his weapon. Every decision he makes on that footage, right up until the moment his brain is shredded, is in the name of deescalation and preventing further harm- either to himself or to others.
And they still.
Shot him.
For.
It.
Only after Alex had been forced to the ground, restrained, disarmed, pepper sprayed, and made incapable of posing any real threat to anyone, did these brave patriots, these defenders of the real America, fire a bullet into the back of their fellow American’s head. And then once the other agents cleared out of the surprise field of fire, that same patriot fired almost a dozen more times into Alex’s now-corpse.
The administration tells us that these agents perceived Alex as a threat and defended themselves, and I actually believe them. I believe that these men, these children in adult bodies and tac gear, perceived a threat in Alex Pretti. But the threat wasn’t from his gun or his body, it was from his defiance. You have to understand that these agents, their fellow officers, and their blind idiot god-king, are, at their core, bullies. Bullies fear repercussions and accountability, sure, but those things don’t threaten their sense of self. If you’re in fourth grade and you beat up Scott Malkinson, and your teacher or your parents find out and punish you- well yeah it sucks, but that’s just the adults exercising power over you. That power imbalance is baked into your world; you’re used to it. But you can still beat up Scott Malkinson whenever you want, hell you did beat up Scott Malkinson- he has diabetes. Although what if you couldn’t even beat up Scott Malkinson? What if Scott Malkinson, that worm, that cuck, that blood sugar deficient asshole, what if he beats you up? Oh god oh fuck, and what if people at school see him beat you up? Who even are you if even Scott Malkinson can kick your ass? You might as well not even exist! You might as well be dead! It’s that idea that makes even the smallest hint of Scott Malkinson defying you terrifying and enraging. Because Scott Malkinson standing up to you is the shadow of him folding you like a sheet of paper.
I believe that, in this sense, the fact that Alex chose to defy this senior troop of the Hitler Youth while also following all the rules for doing so only made him more threatening in their eyes, not less. If Alex Pretti had charged border control, guns akimbo, screaming whatever ISIS has for a national anthem, that’s just a weird day at the office. Nobody on the news is going to object to a shooting in that context, so the logic of the Fash goes. But a bystander with a phone camera? A legal gun owner? A nurse? Well shucks, that makes them look like a bunch of despotic assholes. And it’s all Alex’s fault to! Why couldn’t he just have been what they needed him to be? Why did he have to get his blood on the narrative?
I don’t know what our answer should be to the constantly growing landfill of crimes, injustices, and humiliations our beloved orange king and his merry pack of slave catchers seem intent on dumping on we the people. I don’t know what future historians will say we obviously should have done with the benefit of hindsight. But I do know three things: 1. The pigs hated Alex because he was an antifacist out antifacisting. 2. They feared him because he wasn’t what they had been told he would be, over and over again, by their high priests and grand wizards. 3. We cannot allow this one sick horrifying moment- or any of the other sick horrifying moments- to drive us into silence or apathy. Fascists need a constant stream of fear and dead brain cells to keep their world alive. As socialists, all we need to maintain ours is hope, and for people to keep being people. What Alex Pretti endured on that footage was a prelude to something greater. Let’s make sure that something is a greater good and not a greater evil.
In solidarity,
Walrider.
[1]I have since checked my newsfeed and found that Alex was seen kicking out these orcs’ car lights several days earlier. I retract everything. Thank you to the border patrol for their incredible restraint in only using small arms fire and not the high-yield munitions this animal clearly deserved.