Pretti had an altercation with federal agents 11 days prior to his fatal encounter
And it’s on video:
You might notice some people in the comments saying of course it’s fake. If you don’t like the contents of a video, that’s a common thing to say these days. However, this one is apparently real; Pretti’s parents have said it’s him, and that they already knew about the incident before the video became public. It’s apparently also been authenticated by the BBC, for what that’s worth.
Commenters on the left also seem to think the video shows the brutality of law enforcement. Whereas the rest of us think it shows what an angry aggressive guy Pretti actually was, not the gentle ICU nurse of lore, at least not in these confrontations. He not only yells the F-word over and over with great animus, kicks out the taillight of the car (is it ICE’s or some other law enforcement group’s?), but right before that he appears to spit at the driver. He does all of this (as shown in a video I saw that analyzed the content in slow-motion) while carrying his gun in the waistband area.
He’s guilty of a number of probable misdemeanors and felonies involving damaging the car and spitting at the cop (the saliva doesn’t have to make contact). Supposedly Pretti’s rib was broken in the encounter. If only he’d been arrested, he’d probably be alive today. One thing he did not seem to learn from his experience was to not touch cops; in the fatal encounter he apparently pushed the agent who had pushed a woman who was blocking the way.
You will notice the crowd of people, part of what ICE has to deal with constantly in Minneapolis, as well as the honking of horns and the blowing of the loud whistles. It’s designed to annoy and impede the authorities, and it does. I’ve also read that the whistles could be criminal – impeding – but I’m not sure that’s correct. At any rate, during the fatal encounter I’m convinced the purposeful noise pollution contributed to the confusion among the agents about the removal of Pretti’s gun.
One thing this video doesn’t affect is whether the agents who shot him in the later incident were acting justifiably. Depending on one’s interpretation of that later video, it’s very possible they were acting justifiably because they thought he was armed and had gotten off a shot (instead of the gun misfiring in the agent’s hands). The previous video shows Pretti’s possible state of mind, but that’s actually not especially relevant in the evaluation of the reasonableness of the shooting. It’s the perceptions of the shooters that matter, based on what they saw and heard.
Quite a day
Nothing serious, but …
My car is still not working. Long boring story.
The blog went down just as I had finished writing a post and was in the act of publishing it.
I couldn’t log into the host – that was a first.
I was put on a longish hold when I called the host. But then voila, the customer service person actually fixed the problem. Success!
And then I noticed that comments suddenly weren’t working. Another call to the host, and fortunately another fix. So far.
I think I’m going to take a walk now. It’s actually a beautiful day, although cold.
Tom Homan comes to Minneapolis
And this is what he had to say:
In my meetings with folks so far—and most importantly the governor and the AG to Mayor Fry—we didn’t agree on everything. I didn’t expect to agree on anything. I’ve heard many people want to know why we’re talking to people who they don’t consider friends of the administration. Bottom line is you can’t fix problems if you don’t have discussions. I didn’t come to Minnesota for photo ops or headlines. I came here to seek solutions, and that’s what we’re going to do. …
One thing we all agreed on was [that] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a legitimate law enforcement agency that has a duty to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and keep this community safe.
That right there is already surprising. Sanctuary cities and states ordinarily refuse to cooperate with that endeavor, which indicates that they don’t agree that ICE is legitimate and don’t agree those laws should be enforced. No one is asking local and state governments to deport people, but if ICE is legitimate it follows that a state or city would do its part to neither impede ICE nor to encourage its citizens to do so. That, unfortunately, has not been the case in Minneapolis.
More:
I didn’t ask [Minnesota state and local officials] to be immigration officers. I’m asking them to be cops working with the cops to help us take criminal aliens off the street.
What we did agree upon is not to release public safety threats back into the community and [that] they could be lawfully transferred to ICE.
I’m surprised by that agreement, too. Will it actually occur? Apparently it’s already begun – at least, that’s how I interpret the following:
I will highlight that the Minnesota State Prison System under the Department of Corrections has been honoring ICE detainers, and we appreciate the important collaboration. We’re going to expand upon that. That decision has made Minnesota safer—not only for residents of Minnesota, but for the men and women of law enforcement, not just ICE, all law enforcement. Rather than arresting the same significant public safety threat over and over again, they agreed to work with us to identify those people and remove them.
And this will happen, supposedly:
I’m also pleased to announce I had a very good meeting with Attorney General Ellison, and he has clarified for me that county jails may notify ICE of the release dates of criminal public safety risks so ICE can take custody of them upon release from the jail.
And this makes lots of sense. Again, it should have happened in Minnesota a long time ago, the way it does in cooperating red states:
One agent can arrest one bad guy in the safety and security of a jail where he’s behind the wire. We know he doesn’t have weapons. But when you normally release that public safety threat—illegal alien—back into the community, we have a job to do. We’re going to arrest him. So we’re going to find him. And what happens is now we’ve got to arrest somebody on his turf. He has access to who knows what weapons. Now we’ve got to send the whole team out—cover the back door, cover the front door—for officer safety reasons. Then, because of the hateful rhetoric and the attacks on ICE officers, now we’ve got to send a security team behind the arrest team. So what could have been done with one person in the safety and security of a jail, now we’ve got 15, 16 people out there doing it.
I know that causes stress in the community. So if we get these agreements in place, that means less agents on the street. More agents in the jail means less agents in the street. This is common sense cooperation that allows us to draw down on the number of people we have here.
More [emphasis mine]:
We will conduct targeted enforcement operations. Targeted—what we’ve done for decades. When we hit the streets, we know exactly who we’re looking for [and have a] good idea where we may find them. You have a criminal history. You have their immigration history. A lot of information about this person that we get from numerous databases out there. Targeted, strategic enforcement operations. That’s traditionally been the case, and that’s where we’re going. That’s what we’re going to continue to do and improve upon with the prioritization on public safety threats.
I wonder what really happened behind closed doors. Walz and Frey are currently being investigated and could be charged. Was there, for example, a promise not to charge them if they cooperate?
In other news, Walz has declared he won’t be running for public office again. Big deal; I don’t think he could win a race for dogcatcher right now.
Open thread 1/29/2026
Roundup
We have a news roundup yet again:
(1) Bondi announces the arrest of sixteen people for assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal law officers. I assume this is anti-ICE-related.
It’s about time these arrests have come; long past time, actually. Perhaps they will have a deterrent effect that might save someone such as Alex Pretti, although it’s too late for him. These are not state prosecutions, so there’s actually a chance of convictions.
(2) Trump warns Iran again. He says that “time is running out”:
… [Trump] urged the Islamic Republic to negotiate on nuclear weapons or face the force of a “massive armada” of American ships.
“Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding that the fleet was “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose.”
Trump said the fleet, which is headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, was larger than the one he sent to Venezuela, in a reference to his naval blockade of the South American country to prevent sanctioned oil tankers from leaving.
I don’t get this bit about a nuclear deal. Not only can the mullahs not be trusted, but a future president could soften the deal. But perhaps Trump already knows they won’t be saying “yes” to any deal.
(3) This is supposedly related to the 2020 election in Georgia:
[FBI] [a]gents were seen entering the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, a new facility that state officials opened in 2023 that was designed to streamline their election processes.
It was not immediately clear what the FBI agents were investigating, but Fox News Digital is told the probe is related to the 2020 election.
(4) This is the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. Such an awful event, and almost certainly preventable. RIP.
(5) Ilhan Omar was sprayed with liquid at a speaking event. Suspect Anthony James Kazmierczak has been arrested.
More on Alex Pretti’s death and related happenings in Minnesota
I have been mulling over a long post – or series of posts – on this topic. But once again I have an especially busy day and it probably won’t be appearing until tomorrow or the next day.
But meanwhile, I think the following video is especially good in summarizing what might have been happened as shown in the cellphone video evidence we have so far. The conclusions could change over time; for example, some of the officers were apparently wearing bodycams, and we have yet to hear anything about the content of those videos, which could be very illuminating.
But for now:
Lawfare after Trump’s first term didn’t work as the left had planned. So let’s up the ante!
Here’s a suggestion from a Democrat who’s running for AG in Ohio. I guess the earlier lawfare against Trump didn’t do the trick; after all, the vampire is still alive:
Ohio attorney general candidate Elliot Forhan appears to think that his authority and right, should he win his election, would be to kill Trump. And yes, he did repeatedly say that he wanted to “kill Donald Trump.” …
… I want to tell you what I mean when I say that I am going to kill Donald Trump.”
He continued smugly, “I mean, I’m going to obtain a conviction rendered by a jury of his peers at a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt based on evidence, presented at a trial conducted in accordance with the requirements of due process, resulting in a sentence, duly executed, of capital punishment. That is what I mean when I say I am going to kill Donald Trump.”
I think that, among other things, this indicates the state of legal education these days. I assumed that Forhan is young, and although he’s not as young as, say, Mamdani, he’s pretty young: age forty. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013 and was an Ohio state representative.
Oh, and also:
On September 15, 2025, Forhan posted an image on his personal Facebook page with a red background and the words “F*** Charlie Kirk”, who was assassinated five days before the post was made. Forhan’s social media posts have prompted significant pushback, both on the internet and from Republicans in the state, with many calling on him to withdraw from the race for Ohio Attorney General.
It used to be that candidates with views like that would keep them to themselves. Now I guess he considers them a feature rather than a bug, and so do way too many members of the Democrat base.
Holocaust remembrance these days
Holocaust Remembrance Day was yesterday. But in Britain, it’s changed:
Schools are stepping back from Holocaust Memorial Day. Not because the facts changed. Not because the lesson became unclear. Because it became dangerous. Administrators sense backlash. Teachers fear complaints. Institutions calculate risk and choose quiet. …
The West forgetting the Holocaust does not dissolve Jewish identity. Jews do not require British schools to remain Jews. Jewish memory is internal. …
So why does this matter so much.
Because in Britain, and across the West, the Holocaust is not merely a tragic chapter to teach. It is part of the foundation of the moral identity that replaced religion as a shared anchor after the war. …
It built a rules based order with human rights language, minority protections, and institutional checks meant to prevent the machinery from ever being assembled again. It built education systems that treated remembrance as civic duty, not political option.
That is why the retreat from Holocaust Memorial Day is not a marginal culture war story. It is an indicator light on the dashboard of a weakening civilization. …
… [F]ear of backlash now outranks fear of forgetting. …
This is Britain quietly admitting it is no longer sure who it is.
A country that cannot commemorate the clearest moral lesson in its modern history without fear has already begun the next chapter.
I’m not British and don’t claim to know for sure, but my sense from across the pond is that it’s actually worse than that. There is some fear of backlash, of course. But much of British society – both imported and homegrown – has become more anti-Semitic, and the schools themselves are probably staffed by more and more teachers and administrators who at best don’t care about the Holocaust and at worst wish it had been more successful.
What’s more, as the actual event recedes, there’s an understandable diminution of caring as well as knowledge. Unless a person is especially interested in the topic, and makes an effort to read in depth about what is admittedly a distressing example of evil, it is possible to gain only a very cursory and sometimes flawed understanding of what the Holocaust was, how it worked, and what it meant.
It also becomes easier and easier to have Holocaust fatigue and say to oneself, “Why are we learning about Jews and their sufferings compared to everyone else on earth who has suffered? What self-centered and annoying people Jews are; who cares?”
To some people the Holocaust has become a useful way to make false and cheap analogies against one’s opponents. To take a prime example, we have the abominable Tim Walz:
“We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank,” Walz said. “Somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.”
Speaking of Anne Frank, her father Otto – a person for whom I have the deepest respect – decided, for understandable reasons at the time, to edit her diary to make it more “universal” and somewhat de-emphasize her references to being Jewish. You can read about it in this article.
[NOTE: Here’s a post I wrote about an oft-quoted and oft-misunderstood quote from Anne Frank’s diary. And here’s one of many posts I’ve written on the Holocaust; two more can be found here and here.]
Yesterday
I never did post another post yesterday – I was so exhausted I fell asleep early instead.
Did you ever lie down thinking “I’m just going to rest for ten minutes” and wake up five hours later?
By the way, yesterday was also the third anniversary of Gerard’s death. It’s very difficult to believe it’s been that long.
Open thread 1/28/2025
I’ve got some …
… large weather-related tasks today that have delayed posting. I plan to post tonight.
It’s very snowy out there. My car in particular needs a lot of tending to before I can do much of anything with it. And yes, it’s cold out, even for here.
By the way, we didn’t get as much snow as expected. But we got plenty.