Editors of National Review Online assess current problems in the North Star State.
Another immigration-enforcement-involved shooting has rocked Minneapolis.
On Saturday, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old man who was out in the streets agitating against an immigration enforcement operation. Although there is much still to learn about the incident, Pretti was armed and got gang-tackled by agents after he tried to assist a woman shoved by an officer. In the midst of the melee — in the very instant after another agent had disarmed Pretti — an officer opened fire.
At first blush, the tragedy appears to be in the same category as the fatal shooting of Renee Good, although the details differ and so do the legal questions. Both Good and Alex Pretti engaged in hazardous conduct — accelerating toward an officer in a car and physically interfering with law enforcement officers while armed, respectively — that resulted in officers making split-second decisions to fire in what they presumably believed was self-defense.
The beginning of wisdom here would be for opponents of ICE to protest peacefully and not to attempt to harass or impede ICE agents or make them fear for their safety. Elected officials in Minnesota should be urging their citizens to back off and stay home rather than justifying and encouraging the resistance to ICE by direct action in the streets. But, of course, with each incident, their rhetoric gets even more inflamed and irresponsible.
As a fundamental matter, the federal government has the obligation to enforce federal immigration law, and city and state officials are out of line in trying to make it a de facto impossibility in their jurisdiction.
All that said, the preposterous claims made by Kristi Noem and DHS after these incidents are unworthy of officials holding the public trust and undermine federal credibility. They accused Good of “domestic terrorism.” Almost instantly after this latest shooting, a spokesperson claimed that Pretti (not yet identified at the time) had “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.” Video evidence contradicts this account.
