ICE Wants You to Believe That it Was Justified in Executing Alex Pretti for Exercising His First and Second Amendment Rights

The shooting of Alex Pretti, another observer of the federal anti-immigration occupation in Minnesota, would seem to go beyond the murder of Renee Good to include a violation of both Pretti’s First Amendment rights and his Second Amendment rights, with administration officials justifying his killing simply for carrying a gun, without brandishing it or using it.

A USA Today report describes the response of usually right-leaning pro-gun-rights groups:

Several prominent Second Amendment rights groups have blasted federal officials for suggesting it’s dangerous—and possibly an indication of mal intent—for lawful gun owners to protest while in possession of their legally obtained firearms.

The controversy came after a Border Patrol agent on Jan. 24 shot and killed Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and registered Veterans Affairs nurse, in Minneapolis. Federal officials said Pretti had a gun and intended to “kill law enforcement.” But videos and a witness account in federal court show Pretti holding a phone, not brandishing a firearm. …

“Federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm,” [Gun Owners for America] said. “The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting—a right the federal government must not infringe upon.” …

“No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines,” [FBI Director Kash Patel] said, adding, “You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have that right to break the law.” …

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that…Pretti was “exercising his First Amendment rights to record law enforcement activity, and also exercising his Second Amendment rights to lawfully be armed in a public space in the city.”

Under the First Amendment, bystanders have a right to record the police. Pretti was also legally carrying a firearm, and armed protests—usually by the right—are common in America. Just days before Pretti was shot, an annual anti-gun-control protest was held in Richmond, Virginia. Neither of these activities is, by itself, legitimate grounds for arrest—much less federal law enforcement’s use of deadly force.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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