The Killing of Alex Pretti – Heather Cox Richardson

HCR describes what happened to Pretti in the first ten minutes or so of the video, but listen to the whole thing for ancillary information about the lies from DHS and the underlying motivations (seemingly) of Stephen Miller and this current ICE project.

Transcript (by ChatGPT)

Um, people asked me to come on and talk today about the killing of Alex Prey in Minneapolis today, and I wanted, I’m happy to do that. As I always tell you, I’m happy to come on if something big happens. But I wanted to make sure that I had enough of the story that I wasn’t simply screaming, “Oh my God, this happened.”

And so, since it happened, I’ve actually, if you watch me this morning, you will see I’m wearing exactly the same clothes, in including the same coat I had on during this morning’s broadcast. Um, because I, I haven’t really gotten up since then. Um, uh, which is not, of course, how any of us expected to spend a day.

So, um, so let me start in on what we know happened, and then I will tell you a little bit about what the larger story is and perhaps what we can do. And I want to be clear: I am incensed. I am furious beyond articulation. So if I seem very flat today, it is because of that fury.

All right. So, what we know happened today, and I wrote, I’ve written everything down so I would get it right, is that at least seven federal agents this morning, at about 9:00 local time, shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Prey. He was a 37y old man who was an ICU nurse at the local VA hospital.

Now, you will note there that I said federal agents. I did not say ICE. It is not clear right now from what agency they came. And it looks, again, remember everything I’m saying is very new, it looks as if he was not an ICE agent, but the, the shooters were not shooters were not ICE agents, but were rather from Customs and Border Patrol. And that I’ve told you about before. That is a division of another agency that has been infamous for its outofc control violent recklessness. That’s the agency that is headed by Gregory Bevino. And it looks as if they’re the actual shooters, not ICE.

We tend to use ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as a catch-all for all the federal agents. But let me remind you yet again that the Department of Homeland Security actually has a number of pockets of agents that it can use. And while ICE is the biggest, has the most people in it, the most violent currently appear to be those from Customs and Border, uh, patrol.

All right. So, as always these days, there was video of the shooting, a number of different, uh, angles on the shooting, and it is easy, if you see them, to put together what happened. There is, uh, there are a number of videos, as I say, and one of the earliest ones starts with Prey on a street in Minneapolis directing traffic around an area where there are ICE agents. There are not a lot of people there. It’s not a huge crowd, but there are definitely people on the street. Oh, and by the way, there are definitely people on the street.

Um, I don’t, I don’t recommend that you watch these. Uh, these are very, very hard videos.

Um, the agents begin to, uh, harass a person near Prey. And I’m not making any assumptions about names or anything at this point because that’s still a little, at least to me, not clear. She is, uh, pushed to the person is pushed to the ground by an ICE agent, and Prey reaches down to help her back up.

As he does that, an ICE, I’m sorry, an a federal agent shoots pepper spray into his face. He has a a camera in one hand, and with the pepper spray, he lifts up his hand to block the pepper spray. Agents then pull him to the ground from behind him, and they begin to hit him, and there are, uh, it looks to be seven of them.

He doesn’t really appear to be fighting back. You’re seeing people talk about a struggle and so on. To me, it looks like he’s trying to keep his head off the ground. He keeps trying to push himself up, um, to keep his head off the ground, which, of course, is something you would likely want to do if you’re being jumped by seven people.

Um, during that struggle, as Prey is faced downward, um, an agent takes a gun from his waistband, the back of his waistband, or what certainly looks to be a gun and is being identified as a gun. He has not reached for it or anything. His hands are on the ground.

Then the agent turns and leaves. He is starting to walk away with his back to the scene when one shot rings out, and Freddy stops moving. After that, nine more shots ring out as agents, and we don’t know if one agent fired all 10 shots or if there was more than one agent who fired all 10 shots. At least I don’t know that yet.

Um, as they continued to fire into what appeared to be his lifeless body.

Um, people have compared it to an execution. It certainly looks like an execution.

Um, and after the shooting, the agents disperse very quickly. They walk away. Uh, and they apparently made no effort to preserve any kind of a crime scene.

So, that’s what we know happened. But let’s talk about how to make sense of what has happened since then.

Immediately, immediately minutes after this killing, officials from the administration came in front of the TV cameras and called Prey, um, said he was engaged in domestic terrorism. Um, they, uh, they, they claimed that he was violent, that he had attacked the officers, and made a great deal of noise about the fact that he had a gun.

Well, it appears he did have a gun in his waistband, and he was not reaching for it. He also was a a registered gun owner with a legal permit for a concealed weapon in the state of Minnesota. So, he was not reaching for his gun.

You’re going to see that all over, um, social media from people trying to justify this. And the gun was not on his person when, um, well, this the at that point six officers are holding him down and he is shot 10 times.

But the administration jumped right to this person is a domestic terrorist or is engaged in domestic terrorism. There’s actually a little bit of a difference in the wording there, and you’re seeing in a lot of media that the administration is calling people domestic terrorists with a T. I, I’ve been very cognizant of the fact that the quotations always say the person is engaged in domestic terrorism because I suspect of a September 25 memo from the president of the United States essentially saying that anybody who engages in any activity that seeks to stop him from putting in place his policies is engaged in domestic terrorism.

And because there is very specific legal, uh, language that defines a domestic terrorist, they’re actually going with that vague terrorism. I mean, that’s a rabbit hole that maybe you don’t care about. But I think it’s important because I think what you can see, at least what it looks like to me from being in it, which always makes for a bad vantage point, that they are deliberately expanding definitions of things like terrorism in order to criminalize opposition and to justify the killing of somebody like Alex Prey or Renee Good or some of the other people who have been shot, uh, but but so far have survived.

They jump right to the idea that Freddy was engaged in domestic terrorism. But it was very interesting because immediately federal officials refused to let local police officers or a local, not a local, a statewide Minnesota agency called the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which specializes in police shootings, they refused to let them have access to the crime scene.

When that happened, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension went to a judge and got a a warrant to get them access to the crime scene. Nonetheless, the federal officials refused to give them access to the site.

They have also refused to give out any of the names of any of the ICE, I’m sorry, I keep saying ICE, but that’s because it’s a catchall now, um, the federal agents who were engaged in the shooting.

So, they have done everything they can to keep people away from an investigation. And there have been other rumors about what they have done that you may have read. So far, I have not seen them corroborated, so I’m not going to repeat those right now.

If you have heard other things that the feds did, um, they may not be true. I could not verify them with more than one source, and so, so I’m not going to tell you what those were.

Nonetheless, Minnesota police are siding with the people of Min, uh, Minneapolis and of Minnesota. They are trying to, um, investigate. They’re trying to talk to witnesses. They’re trying to find videos and so on.

Um, and that’s the first, I guess the first important thing is that the administration has come out and blamed the victim yet again. They have blamed the victim despite the fact that once again, as in the shooting of Renee Good, there are many videos proving they are lying.

This is not negotiable. There are videos from all different angles proving they are lying, just as there were those videos in the killing of Renee Good. But the administration is doubling down on that. They are.

And, and just as recently as a few minutes before I came over here, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Christy Gnome, once again accused Prey of going there to cause mass destruction, to hurt people, and to kill law enforcement officers.

And that is a complete fantasy. That is not what happened at all.

So that, that’s the first important point here.

The second important point is that law enforcement in Minnesota is standing firmly behind the people of Minnesota. Now, I know a lot of people have wondered about police officers, and, of course, the Minnesota, the Minneapolis police are only one police force and so on, but they, you know, they have made a big point since the killing, um, of George Floyd in 2020 to, to have good relationships with the pe they brought in new people. They’re trying to have a good relationship with the, the, the, the people of the city, and they have come out and stood with the people of Minneapolis.

You know, they’re not siding with the feds. They are siding with the people in Minneapolis. That’s the second point that matters here.

Another interesting point is that in Minnesota, a gun rights organization has come out and expressed extreme concern about this shooting. That’s a gun rights organization which almost always sides with the radical right. They are not doing so. They’re not side they’re not saying this is, you know, we’re dead against you, but even them expressing great concern is a is a is a knowledge point that is worth having.

All right. Um, in addition to the fact that the feds have tried to keep Minneapolis law enforcement and Minnesota law enforcement from investigating what happened, the Department of Homeland Security has also taken over the investigation despite the fact that immediately after the, the shooting, it came out with a statement that said that Prey had approached US Border Patrol officers, that’s where I’m getting the Border Patrol thing, with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, that he had violently resisted as officers attempted to disarm him, that the officer fired defensive shots and said, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Pure straightup lies.

And what they did is that after having said that, they took away the FBI’s ability to investigate that shooting. And they say they’re the ones who are going to investigate it. You know what that means, right?

So, here’s another point to be made here. After this second killing, um, in by by guns, uh, that we know of, I, I, I do want to emphasize that, um, the Department of Homeland Security is killing pe people in the detention camps. Um, and I’m not going to go down that now, but but that’s that is important to remember as well.

But, um, in addition to, uh, to or part of that whole takeover of this investigation is that the administration is now openly killing US citizens, and it is lying to us when we know that’s what they’re doing because thank God for all those people with their cameras on their phones that are recording because we have evidence that they are doing it.

Nonetheless, they are continuing to do it. And that is a really important demonstration of authoritarianism and even totalitarianism.

We know we’re lying. You know we’re lying. We know you know we’re lying, but you have to believe us anyway. They are doubling down on that. I’m going to come back to that in just a second because there is another thing that matters here and that’s that this is all they have got now.

There’s nothing they can do to say, “Oh, well, here’s a little bit of murky ground,” or, “Oh, there was a law for this.” Or, you know, normally when there is something that is, uh, fuzzy that the American people don’t like, there’s an escape hatch. You know, you can, you can muddy the waters somehow. There wasn’t a somebody watching or there was a law that said we could do that written in, I don’t know, 1802 or whatever. This is stark.

This is all they’ve got is to try and force us to believe a lie when our own eyes tell us differently. Why would they do that?

And, and here’s where I want to go with why what what we can take away from this.

It is very clear that the person out in front on this issue is Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. A lot of people have been talking about Miller for a long time now. He came to Trump by way of, um, Jeff Sessions. He was on his, uh, the Trump’s first attorney general who had to step down because, uh, he had had contact with the Russians that he lied about.

Um, Miller came to Trump through Sessions, and Miller is an unabashed white nationalist. But there is more than that. That is Trump. Uh, Miller is a big, big fan of a utopian novel from 1973. I’m not going to give you the title of it. I’m sorry. Dystopian, not utopian, novel from 1973 that posits that Western civilization, and by that they mean white people, although usually white Christian people and usually white Protestant people, there’s some wiggle room on that because of course we know that Miller is Jewish, at least his family was Jewish, posits that that civilization of the book was written about Europe. Miller, of course, is in the United States, is being invaded and taken over by people of color who are going to destroy it. That those people who believe in this are literally at war with invaders coming in from countries where people are people of color.

This is, of course, a pure dystopian fantasy. It is racist beyond belief. But, but in the scheme of American history, it is more than that.

That is this fantasy that somehow there are these hordes of people coming and those of us who adhere to the principles of democracy in the United States of America that say that we are a nation of immigrants, that this is what has made us great, what the economists say and what the politicians say and what people like me say because we understand American history, that we even if we are white are aiding and abetting those hordes coming in if we are defending the rule of law if we’re defending due process for immigrants that we too are the enemies.

This argument should not be seen in isolation either from its racist roots, but also from its, um, sort of application over arguments that Americans made beginning really in the 1980s about the fears of communism taking over the United States with the conniving of people who were already in the United States. And you see that all the way back to the 1950s with Joseph McCarthy, but you really see it in the 1980s with, uh, movies like, um, 1984’s, um, um, come on, uh, the, the one in Colorado, the, um, it’s not Top Gun, which is what comes immediately after that. Red Dawn, uh, with like Red Dawn where the whole idea is communists are taking over America with the conniving of politicians in the United States.

That idea that people of color are destroying the United States with the conniving of politicians and people like me in the United States or people who believe in, uh, democracy are, um, uh, fit they fit right over each other.

And that then suggests that people like Miller, people who believe in this idea of the re of being replaced by people from elsewhere, who believe that somehow their civilization is not being honored and supported by immigrants the way that reality has actually played out, but is actually under siege by what almost seems like a zombie army, that then means that any violence directed at people who are not on on their team can be justified.

And that’s really important because that’s not politics. That’s not business as usual. That is are the fever dreams of a disordered mind.

And that seems to be what is driving this army of federal agents into our streets to kill people who are exercising the rights that have been given to all of us throughout American history in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment, the right to peaceibly assemble, the right to protest, uh, the right of a free press, you know, those rights, the, the rights from the, the Fourth Amendment that you are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures of your home, for example, something this administration has thrown out. The 14th Amendment’s protection of due process.

The idea that they can’t simply throw you on a plane and say weed decided that you’re a member of a gang, which now we know the, the US intelligence did not believe was accurate, and ship you to a prison where you’re going to get tortured.

Those are our birthrights as Americans. Whether you came here and got your citizenship a minute and a half ago or whether your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents all the way back to before the pilgrims stepped off a fishing boat in the late 1500s. That is what they are trying to get rid of.

On the other side of that are those of us who believe in our democracy and who believe in our rights and who believe in our communities.

And that’s what happened today on the streets of Minneapolis is that a man who was an ICU nurse who was trying to help somebody up got sprayed in the face with pepper spray and then got shot 10 times on the sidewalk.

How is this going to play out going forward?

This is a moment. This is the moment at which it becomes too late for people to say after this, “Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

It’s out there now between the shooting of Renee Good and I’m just going to throw in here the, the, the kidnapping of a five-year-old and a two-year-old, but I’m not going to talk about that today. But the shooting of Alex Prey as well, it is no longer possible for people to say, “Oh, I believe in law and order and so I support Donald Trump.”

This is the moment when people have to say regardless of party either I believe in democracy, I believe in our constitution, I believe in the rights that the framers wrote into that constitution, or they have to say no, I am siding with the likes of Steven Miller and believing that my existence is under siege by immigrants and anything it takes to stop that regardless of the constitution, regardless of of, uh, uh, American citizenship, regardless of rights has to has to happen in the wake of this moment of choosing politically.

It seems to me there are important levers moving and that people like me anyway can push.

One of them is that immediately Democrats are of course outraged, but they have also come out and said we there’s no way we are going to fund DHS until ICE is reformed. That’s fine because this thing is coming up next week, but re I’m sorry, the funding bill is coming up next week.

But remember that in what they call their one big beautiful bill act of last July, the Republicans gave a huge sum of money to the Department of Homeland Security. And part of that is a huge pot of money for ICE and Border, uh, Border Patrol. That money is still out there. Defunding, uh, Homeland Security tomorrow doesn’t matter as long as that money is sitting out there. That.

So, so you’re going to hear a lot about that then and them saying we’re not going to go forward with this. That’s great. I mean, that’s that’s the position, the only position the Democrats can take, but don’t think that’s going to change anything tomorrow because I believe the pot of money they’re sitting on, I believe, is $1.7 billion. Of course, a lot of it’s spent now, but I’m not going to go down that that funding thing. Um, although, if you’re interested, I have talked about it in the past. That’s one thing.

But here’s the other, and this is the reason that I am so angry.

You’ve heard me say this a lot. The Republicans could stop this tonight if they wanted to. Elected Republicans could stop this tonight if they wanted to.

And here’s the thing. You know how many Republicans that would take? 16 Republicans. 16 Republicans voting with the Democrats. This is a country of 340 million people. 16 people could stop this.

And you could actually impeach and remove Trump with 23. 23 people could stop this if they wanted to.

And here’s why they might want to, even if they don’t care about what’s happening in the streets, even if they don’t, even if they quite like Trump or anything like that.

The reason they might want to is that Trump is underwater on every issue, uh, across the country, but he’s also underwater, um, in he his his approval rating is negative in 40 states. 10 of those states are states that voted for him in 2024.

And I’m getting my numbers here from G. Elliot Morris at Strengthen Numbers. What that means is if Republicans are hoping to get reelected in 2026 and 2028 and not see the absolute decimation of their party, now is the time for them to push back.

And that’s a place where we have leverage calling your members of Congress, your Republican members of Congress, and saying, “If you ever, ever want to see us vote Republican again, you must stop ICE. You must get rid of Steven Miller.”

And frankly, I think Trump’s on his way out. So I, I worry less about that. But go for that one if you want. Although I think that one’s going to be harder to do because a lot of people like to pledge their loyalty to Trump, but they actually don’t like Steven Miller at all.

This is the time to, to really ratchet up the pressure on Republicans because that’s the only piece of this equation that can do anything right now. You can scream at Democrats all you want, but they don’t have the votes. There, there aren’t enough of them.

Enough Republicans say it’s time we stop this because this can’t go on for another three years. It not and and retain American democracy. We’re going to lose it.

Now is the time for Republicans to understand that they must choose between American democracy and a regime that is destroying it.

It is worth noting that in the demands that Attorney General Pam Bondi has given to Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, is a demand that he hand over the voting lists of voters in Minnesota, and he is refusing to do so. It seems pretty clear Trump is trying to rig the 2026 election, determined to stay in power because these thugs all know now that if the Trump administration loses power, they are going to face the law and none of them want to do that.

So, this is going to get worse before it gets better. But rather than simply tearing your hair out and crying, both of which are legitimate responses to what’s going on in America right now, if you are interested in increasing pressure to make this end, the place to put that pressure now is on elected Republicans to say you could stop this and you are not.

You are choosing not to because we have made it. You know, I’ve been trying to hold that door open for a very long time to for them to say it’s time. You could say something. It’s time.

Trump’s goons are murdering American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights in the streets. And the, the time to stop that was back in 2015 as far as I’m concerned. But it cannot continue.

The thing to remember going forward in all of this is that what people like Steven Miller and the goons in the street and Trump to the degree there’s anything left between his ears, what they are declaring war on is us, is American communities. Is, you know, people digging each other out of the snow, people bringing food to each other, you know, the, the, the very communities that have always made America great, you know, the communities that are bolstered by things like the Bill of Rights.

The fact we can talk to each other without fear of the government coming down and that we can gather however we wish so long as we’re doing it peaceibly, and that, you know, we’re protected from having somebody battering down our door and saying, “We’re going to plant something in your house so that we can send you to jail the way they do in places like Russia.”

And, and the fact that that we can demand that we have the right to have a trial and that we can’t have the government just throw us into jail because it doesn’t like us, which is what happens in countries that do not have those protections.

And one of the things that I think Republican, uh, senators have believed anyway, because I’ve seen this referred to in speeches in the Senate, is they keep thinking that it’s the courts that are the last line of defense for American democracy.

And as I was say, you know, by the time the framers got around to writing about the courts in the third article of the Constitution, they were kind of like, ah, let’s go have lunch. Let’s just have some courts. You know, they’re really specific about Congress. They’re really specific about the executive. They’re not specific about the courts.

Because you know who’s the last defense of American democracy? It’s the people. It’s the people who are protected by the Bill of Rights and who recognize that we have those rights and that we must come together to defend them.

It’s the people who have to make our voices known now because the courts are going to get around to it. They are. They all, you know, they’ve been deciding against Trump, you know, right and left, but it takes time.

The American people demanding an end to this is what is finally going to end it.

And, and I, I want to be very clear when I say that, I mean peaceably. I mean peacefully. There is nothing that that kills a movement faster than violence. Um, we know that throughout our history, uh, especially in America. I can’t speak for other countries, but this is the time peaceibly to push back, not just on the Trump administration, but the people in it like Kristi Noem and Cory Luwendowski and, uh, Steven Miller and all the people who have defined those of us who oppose them as domestic as participating in domestic terrorism when we’re just speaking our minds.

But also to remind the Republicans in office that this is make or break time for them. They can side with the American people. They can side with our communities. They can side with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They can side with, you know, Teddy Roosevelt and Fanny Liu Hamer and Sittingbull and Abraham Lincoln and, you know, uh, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Or they can side with Steven Miller, the neo-Nazis, the KKK, and those people who are trying to turn this country into a fascist state. Now is the time for choosing.

I thank you all for being here and for choosing each other, uh, in this moment.

And, um, and all I can say is we have the numbers, we have the principles, we have humanity and the ultimate goals of self-determination that democracy is designed to put into place. Um, and some of us as we are doing this is, uh, are making the ultimate sacrifice.

I suspect when he woke up this morning, Alex, uh, Prey didn’t expect that he was going to become written into the history books, and I bet he would prefer not to have been.

But those of us who are still here can continue to carry that torch forward.

Looks like ChatGPT isn't the greatest with spoken names in a single audio track (Prey, Steven Miller, Christi Gnome). I suppose it would need other materials for context to get them right, but thanks for the transcript, Tig. 

That is correct.   This is how the transcript captured the info and ChatGPT did not recognize the spelling errors.

This is common.

I suppose I could instruct ChatGPT to not only correct spelling (which I do) but also verify the spelling of names.

No biggie. I just wanted to point it out for people who might not know why.

Watch this disgusting lying sack of shit push outrageous propaganda:

It's like watching evil in action.

It is exactly that.

Did you catch the part where she says they aren't having problems like this in other cities? There's a reason for that – Minneapolis is by far the largest so-called "surge" operation in the country. They aren't having problems like this anywhere else because they aren't doing it like this anywhere else. Minneapolis has been specifically targeted for a big op invasion, so to speak. She conveniently left that little tidbit out.

The level of lying by this administration has already hit the peak.   There really is no way to top the level of dishonesty we have seen.

If there is a hell, Noem will be a high ranking official there.  She sure isnt going to heaven. 

His parents weighing in:

The videos of the shooting show exactly what his family describes. The lies from Noem and others are astonishing. 

What sickens me is watching people carry their water ... even at this point.    What can cause someone to try to defend the killing of Good, Pretti, et. al.?   What goes through their minds?   Do they believe the outrageous crap they are spewing, or is it the case that they will defend the administration no matter what — even the senseless killings of fellow citizens?

Regardless, it is sickening.

And will the Rs in Congress ever wake up and stop this madman?   Where is the line ... what must Trump do before they grow a pair?   His ratings are in the toilet so what are they waiting for?

What sickens me is watching people carry their water ... even at this point.    What can cause someone to try to defend the killing of Good, Pretti, et. al.?   What goes through their minds?   Do they believe the outrageous crap they are spewing, or is it the case that they will defend the administration no matter what — even the senseless killings of fellow citizens?

I'm finding it extremely difficult to be civil to them these days. I've pretty much had it. 

And will the Rs in Congress ever wake up and stop this madman?   Where is the line ... what must Trump do before they grow a pair?   His ratings are in the toilet so what are they waiting for?

They might start pushing back as we get closer to a midterm wipeout.

I agree, this 'useful' rhetoric is not amusing, not clever.   It is sick.   People have been killed, and 'useful' posts are backing the blatant lies of a corrupt administration and following suit in trying to blame the victims despite clear videos showing that these killings were irresponsible, excessive lethal force.

They might start pushing back as we get closer to a midterm wipeout.

IMO, they should already see where this is going for their reelection chances.   Now is the time to act.

following suit in trying to blame the victims

Bovino went one , or ten, times better. He said in an interview this morning that the agents were the victims, not Pretti. 

I just saw a clip of Dana Bash making him look like the sick fool he is.

I know.   

Prior to Trump and his pathological lying, would such blatant lying be tolerated by this nation?

And here’s the thing. You know how many Republicans that would take? 16 Republicans. 16 Republicans voting with the Democrats. This is a country of 340 million people. 16 people could stop this. And you could actually impeach and remove Trump with 23. 23 people could stop this if they wanted to.