There are videos at the link below. I was unable to post them here. They wouldn’t link or embed. Also there are pictures that did not transfer. This is a hard read ICE was uncalled for violent and had no respect for the civil rights of the people involved. They laughed at the distress of the people. They are white supremacist gang thugs and bullies. I know Stephen Miller and several others in the administration like that civilians are being abused but does Rump even know what is happening. Do the republicans? Anyone watching Fox or other right wing media they don’t know of these abuses. Even Fox tried to smear Pretti but had to walk it back slight when the videos proved they were wrong. Hugs
The despondent faces and screaming, wailing and pleading from these men, women and children in cells will forever haunt me. But perhaps more haunting still was the sound of agents nearby laughing.
Patty O’Keefe
Opinion contributor
Jan. 26, 2026 Updated Jan. 27, 2026, 9:16 a.m. ET
I live smack dab in the middle of an ordinary block in Minneapolis. I borrow occasional eggs or vanilla from the neighbor on my right when I get caught short baking. My partner shovels our elderly neighbor’s sidewalk; she knit him a hat in gratitude. The folks down the street watch our cats when we’re away. In other words, a pretty typical American neighborhood, perhaps not unlike your own.
Imagine if you heard that heavily armed, masked agents were going door-to-door where you live, violently grabbing people from gardeners to grandparents – no questions asked, no warrants offered. What would you do? Especially if you knew that having more community members as observers decreases the likelihood those masked agents will use violence.
That’s what my friend Brandon and I were doing on Jan. 11. We heard reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pepper spraying the car of an observer blocks from my house and went to warn others. I am a U.S. citizen and resident of Minneapolis for more than 14 years; this is a place where treating others as you wish to be treated is more than a saying.
When we drove to the scene, Brandon and I saw several ICE agents getting back into two unmarked vehicles. They turned down a side street and we followed for about 40 seconds, blowing our whistles and honking our horns – to warn our neighbors that ICE had come.
We did so knowing that monitoring and sounding the alarm about actions undertaken by government agents is our legally protected right. And any government that claims to be of, by and for the people must protect this right, not attack people of good conscience who exercise it.
But attack us is what ICE did. The agents got out of their vehicle, surrounded our car and yelled at us to stop following. On their way back to their vehicles, one of the agents suddenly turned around, as if deciding, “Hey, why not,” and walked back to my car and pepper sprayed into the vents near the front windshield.
‘You guys gotta stop obstructing us – that’s why that lesbian b—- is dead’
Brandon and I were paralyzed with shock, as our eyes and throats started to burn. When we did not immediately turn the car around, the ICE agents returned and, without warning or asking us to exit the vehicle, smashed the front windows of my car, dragged us out and arrested us.
They separated us. I was put in a car alone with three agents. When they got in and shut the doors, the taunting began.
One agent took a photo of me and showed it to the others, laughing. Another called me ugly. His colleague, apparently referring to Renee Good, said, “You guys gotta stop obstructing us – that’s why that lesbian b—- is dead.” In the presence of these masked men with weapons strapped to their bodies – men who claim to be safeguarding our cities – I felt only terrorized and vulnerable.
When we got to the Whipple Federal Building, they shackled my ankles. I asked four times to make a phone call but was denied that legal right. I had to beg for water and to be allowed to relieve myself in another crowded cell with a toilet behind a short wall.
On my way to that cell, I passed holding cells filled with people who appeared to be of Latino and East African descent. The despondent faces and the screaming, wailing and pleading from these men, women and children – reportedly as young as 5 years old – will forever haunt me. But perhaps more haunting still was the sound of agents nearby laughing. Are our lives all just a joke to them?
Eight hours later, I was released without charges because even these agents had no credible claim I had done anything wrong.
ICE is arresting people without cause. We can stand up to tyranny.
President Donald Trump and his administration spread lies about our neighbors based on what they look like or how they speak, all while making us less safe.
In the Twin Cities alone, we’ve seen people arrested without cause while doing their jobs and a grandfather pulled out of the shower and taken into the freezing cold in nothing but his underwear and a blanket. Local schools were forced to cancel classes after ICE tackled staff and tear gassed students, according to the teachers union, while raiding Roosevelt High School.
These actions endanger us. They are designed to terrorize our community with unchecked, unaccountable brutality.
When ICE detained me, the two other people in my cell said they were Marine Corps veterans. These women said they enlisted for the same reason they felt compelled to act as ICE observers – to protect their fellow Americans.
One of those veterans – scraped up and bruised at both wrist and ankle from the ICE agents’ aggression – talked about how ironic and shocking it was that the first time she had a gun pointed at her it was by the very government she swore an oath to serve.
I’m lucky to be back at home; I can return to my job, the people I love and my community. The hundred or so people I saw in that ICE facility may never again see the homes that they’ve built and the families they’ve nurtured. After being killed by Border Patrol and ICE in the past 12 months, Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Keith Porter and dozens of others who died in custody are only memories to their families. And our Twin Cities remain under siege by masked militia answering to a regime that spreads lies and sows fear in order to divide us and distract us while its leaders gut our health care, drive up prices and hand more money to their billionaire backers.
But in the United States of America, people who believe in liberty and justice for all stand up to tyranny. We sound the alarm. We support our neighbors. Now is the time for us to join together. And to tell Congress to protect our freedoms by refusing to fund these assaults against us.
I am posting the meme below because it explains the intrusive thoughts issue I have struggled with for so long and for a while got really overwhelming. But I am NOT suicidal. Again please don’t worry about that, I am not self harming and I am not suicidal. I am just struggling. Links for any that need help below given with love. Hugs
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, TrevorLifeline 1-866-488-7386 the Trevor Project’s crisis counselors are just a text, chat, or phone call away. Completely confidential and free LGBTQ hotline.
I watched them all but I know many don’t have that kind of time or watch the shows on cable TV. But they are of different lengths and around the same theme, which is ICE. Hugs
At Stephen Miller direction the republicans stripped out of the funding bill an amendment that would have made it illegal for ICE to deport US citizens. Think on what that means. Hugs
It seems if you watch this to the end that there is a fight in the upper ranks over who is in control over ICE and the CBP people. Stephen Miller and Noem want Bovino because they love the violence and control, and tRump wants to cool things off and he wants Homan because while Homan is an asshole he doesn’t want the spectacle of violence and arresting mom’s dads, and kids. He wants to prioritize what he has always claimed on news shows, the going after the worst of the worst, rapist, murderers,and violent criminals. From clip of other shows I have watched it is so bad Homan and Noem doing even talk to each anymore. However Homan was the one who implemented Stephen Millers separating the children from their parents at the border. Hugs
I love this. ICE concentration camp prisons no matter for children or adults are rife with abuse and mis treatment. We need to stop these for profit prisons and stop ICE while making the conditions better at existing facilities. They have the money, the big billionaire bailout bill gave them more money than some country’s militaries. Hugs
She has some good ideas that the people are doing to resist ICE including helping the people who are too terrified to leave their homes. Hugs
I am sorry that the corrupted courts are the last resort. We must try to use them, if only to set a record for the future. Hugs
A bunch of democratic politicians / congress critters where on Ms Now talking about ICE. I won’t share all of them but no where have I seen leadership such as Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. Hugs
There are videos at the link that doesn’t appear to embed. In each of these ICE unwarranted shootings we see that the ICE gang thug shooter was putting their fellow gang thugs in danger from the bullets. Also the videos clearly shot that Pretti was shot in the back and the gang thug ICE people were overjoyed and counting the bullet wounds as they made sure to get their stories straight for the bosses who would applaud their courage of ganging up on, beating a man on the ground and then shooting him in the back. Really brave souls. Hugs
Kristi Noem made public statements about Alex Pretti and details surrounding his fatal shooting. But the videos tell a dramatically different — and tragic — story.
Statement #1: “An individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a news conference, adding that the suspect was “brandishing” a firearm.
Video shows Pretti had no visible firearm in his hands or on his body in the minutes before he interacted with immigration officers but was using a cell phone to record immigration raids in the area. This is allowable under the First Amendment, as long as it doesn’t interfere with law enforcement activity, such as an arrest.
The officers do not draw their firearms on Pretti, which would be standard training for how federal law enforcement should react if they see a suspect brandishing a gun.
The federal legal definition of “brandishing” is broad, stating that it doesn’t require the weapon to be directly visible, but that its presence is used to intimidate. There is no evidence from the video that Alex Pretti was using a gun for this purpose.
Statement #2:“This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.”
One of the videos shows Pretti carrying a cell phone in his right hand and appearing to film immigration officers and agents in the area. It’s not yet known if he had had previous interactions with the officers or if this was the first encounter. The officers push him back by his chest to the curb; Pretti continues to keep his phone up, filming the interaction.
In another video, he is seen trying to help up a woman who is steps away and whom a masked officer has pushed down into the ice on a curb. Pretti immediately steps between the two, putting his left hand near the officer, who then pepper sprays him. Pretti raises his left arm and then lowers it as he turns around toward the woman who has been pushed down, the officer now behind him as he knocks Pretti to the ground, joined by several other agents.
Statement #3: “The officers attempted to disarm this individual, but the armed suspect reacted violently.”
Pretti is seen struggling at first when at least three officers knock him to the ground, eventually joined by four more, but appears to be largely held down with his stomach to the ground and his arms in front of his body. Several moments into the officers’ effort to detail and control Pretti, an officer can be heard on video calling out “gun,” apparently to make fellow officers aware. Within a second or two, an agent fires the first shot. Pretti’s body crumples onto the ground.
A source close to the DHS probe told MS NOW that Pretti had a firearm in his holster, which agents retrieved at some point in the interaction. Minneapolis’ police chief said Pretti was a legal owner of a weapon with a permit to carry it.
Statement #4: “Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots.”
Video shows Pretti’s hands pinned in front of him on the ground until he is shot, with no evidence he reached for a weapon. Some video clips appear to show another officer reaching towards Pretti’s waistband, retrieving something with his hand that looks like a gun, and stepping away. At roughly the same moment of the officer’s movement away from the suspect and has retrieved with his hand an object that appears to be a gun, someone can be heard saying “gun.”
The border patrol agent fires within a second or two of the officer retrieving this object. A total of ten shots were fired. In the aftermath of the shooting, however, video shows two officers desperately searching the dead man’s body and one yells emphatically, “Where’s the gun?” One officer over the body — and it’s not clear which — yells, “I need scissors. I need someone to cut this shit,” as he tugs at the dead man’s clothes.
Multiple seasoned law enforcement officers told MS NOW that they have been unable to see the justification for the shooting. Some said the video of the officers searching for a gun on Pretti’s dead body suggests to them that the agent who shot Pretti did so believing he had a weapon on his person that was an imminent threat when a fellow officer said “gun.”
If that is true, the officer may have wrongly believed Pretti posed an active threat to his life and the life of others. Earlier video of the fracas suggests instead that the firearm had been safely retrieved and the threat was removed.
Former FBI agent Rob D’Amico said that simply hearing the word “gun” does not authorize an officer in a scuffle to shoot to kill. “You have to see that gun be in a position for it to be used,” D’Amico said. “Many, many times I’ve been in situations like this, the gun has fallen on the ground and someone yelled ‘gun,’ and we didn’t just blindly shoot the person.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in an interview on Face The Nation on Sunday that the videos make clear Pretti was simply engaging in his legal right to free speech, and did not start the confrontation with officers. He said the volume of shootings by “Operation Surge” officers makes plain that their protocols and methods are flawed and dangerous.
“The Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn’t shoot anyone,” O’Hara said. “And now this is the second American citizen that has been killed. It’s the third shooting within three weeks.”
Oh my the criminal gang thugs with all the weapons and beating up / killing people are the victims because people disrespect them while local government won’t help them hurt more nonwhite people. Cry me a few more tears. WTF reality are we living in! Everything Bovino the Nazi wannabee gets all the facts wrong, but that is the intent. There is no more truth, justice, and the American way. It is gang thugs trying to get their gang to the top of the heap and the public is just canon fodder for them. That a member of the public can be present and video their illegal activity must mean they are a US hating domestic terrorist who failed to instantly obey the lawless gang thugs. Notice the last paragraph, they moved the shooters out of the state just like they did with Jonathan Ross who shot Renee good. It is to protect the thugs from state laws charging them with the crimes they are doing. Hugs
Gregory Bovino applauded his agents’ actions in Minnesota, despite one citizen being killed by agents.
“We respect that Second Amendment right. But those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers,” Gregory Bovino said. | Angelina Katsani/AP
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino on Sunday said his Customs and Border Patrol agents are “the victims” after they shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Dana Bash pointed out that Bovino had repeatedly referred to Pretti as a “suspect” as he defended CBP’s training and de-escalation tactics.
“With respect, it feels as though in some ways you’re blaming the victim here,” Bash said.
Bovino replied, “The victim? The victims are the Border Patrol agents. I’m not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The suspect put himself in that situation.”
Bovino said that Pretti had “injected” himself into a federal law enforcement operation and was “more than likely” on the scene to assault officers.
The federal agents, Bovino added, “prevented any specific shootings of law enforcement. So good job for our law enforcement in taking him down before he was able to do that.”
Pretti was shot and killed Saturday morning as CBP agents continued to patrol Minneapolis streets as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He is the second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis to be killed by immigration officers in recent weeks. Renee Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer earlier this month in the city.
Bovino and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have questioned why Pretti was in an area where agents were on the scene to arrest a “violent” illegal immigrant and accused him of interfering with federal law enforcement operations.
“Let’s look at why he was there in the first place. Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic and stand in the middle of the road, and then assault, delay and obstruct law enforcement? Or was he there for a reason?” Bovino said on Sunday.
Video footage of the moments leading up to the shooting and verified by several media outlets, including the New York Times, shows Pretti filming the scene with his phone. While federal officials assert Pretti was holding a gun, video of the incident does not appear to corroborate the allegations. The analysis from the New York Times concludes that agents did not identify Pretti had a gun until about eight seconds after they had wrestled him to the ground.
While Pretti did hold a concealed carry license, video footage of the shooting from multiple angles appears to show Pretti holding a phone, not a gun, as he approaches a woman who had been shoved to the ground by agents.
“Are you saying it’s not okay for him to exercise his Second Amendment right, not to mention his First Amendment right to be there in the first place, and if you do you can be shot by federal law enforcement?” Bash asked.
“No, I didn’t say that, Dana. I never said that,” Bovino replied. “What I’m saying is we respect that Second Amendment right. But those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers.”
Bovino added he does not know if Pretti was unarmed at the time of the incident but said that agents believed he was in possession of one. “We heard the law enforcement officer say gun, gun, gun. So at some point they knew there was a gun,” he said.
Video footage does not appear to show Pretti holding a gun as he tried to help the woman stand. Still, agents surround Pretti and force him to the ground before opening fire.
Bovino said he doesn’t know how many agents opened fire, but that those involved “will more than likely be on administrative duty” and relocated out of Minneapolis.
While I like the idea of people having integrity, it does seem like the government is being purged of people that want to do the right things, to be decent people. This government is corrupt and is run like a crime syndicate with a mob boss wannabee at the top. I think how fast these people took over the government and turned all the good that government can do upside down so that government has become the very engine of harm in our country. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 