This morning, the world outside my windows is stark black and white.
The snow has continued falling since very early, and it now looks like a painting of barren trees amidst a heavy blanket of white.
Yesterday was a day of stark opposites, as we watched our now 9-year-old grandson lead his YMCA basketball team to an undefeated season and the final championship game. One day, this group of kids will learn what it feels like to lose, but it hasn’t happened in three years of practiced determination. Brooks thinks if you practice and play hard, a good guy will always win.
Just moments before leaving our home to go to his game, I watched in horror as the news out of Minneapolis brought video of citizens standing in protest of ICE agents in their neighborhoods.
A 37-year-old man attempting to help a woman who had been knocked down was pepper-sprayed at close range. With a phone in his hand, the other empty hand raised, he was then pushed to the street, held down and hit repeatedly by four ICE agents and then shot in the back. Initial reports say he was then shot a total of 10 times.
A registered nurse, Alex Pretti worked in the ICU for the Veterans Administration. It was reported he was walking home from work through the streets of protestors against ICE, had a handgun holstered and some say he shouldn’t have. Others say that as a citizen, he had the right to bear arms. He had stepped forward to help a woman who had been shoved down get out of harm’s way. This was how Pretti lived his life, and he was likely not used to being punished for it.
People see chaos in the streets and reach assumptions about what came before. My first thought is that those who are doing a job of protecting citizens should not shoot someone 10 to 12 times at point-blank range. One shot to the leg would have subdued even the worst criminal.
The former top lawyer of the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration has characterized the current tactics of ICE as embarrassing, lawless and cruel.
It has been widely reported that the U.S. Attorney General sent a letter to Minnesota officials saying that ICE will be ordered to leave if state officials turn over its voter database to the Trump administration.
Just like the view out my farmhouse windows today, this current view is stark. All the color that makes this country so vivid and lovely has been stripped away by unrelenting chaos, widely and wildly opposing viewpoints.
Pushing masked ICE recruits and federal agents into communities to protect citizens prompts many to ask who is being protected?
The only way to prevent further tragedies is to pause this approach. This clearly is not working. It seems we are past the point of a questionable situation. Elected officials in leadership need to step in, unplug and review.
Judith, tell me you are as left as possible without telling me. The ‘nice man’ shows up at a protest armed with a non-standard firearm, ultra-high capacity magazine, and exotic optics. This is not a carry firearm. This is for mass killing. He resisted arrest, grabbed his gun. Do that with any cop and you get shot. Dead. And yes the snow is pretty from inside. Don’t go out to work in it unless you want that viewpoint to vanish.
This is a beautifully written heartfelt piece, about this tragedy of a nurse helping others. Immigration is an important part of our rural society and economy. Our elected officials need to come up with fair and humane legal immigration policies and remedies.
Everyone needs to google the video and decide for themselves if this man should have been shot for helping a lady stand up.
Totally agree with John Beatty, nor did you mention any of the firearm details and question just what was his intent? Why did he go to an area where there were crowds of protestors and ice agents in the first place?? And lastly, no investigation has been conducted at all and therefore where are conclusions being derived from in this tragic but real incident?
You have no facts about what may have transpired in the hours and minutes before the lethal altercation. You don’t know what “the woman” might have said or shouted. Death threats, perhaps? What did “the nurse” say before agents tried to arrest him? Death threats? How many times were they patiently given lawful orders to move, to stay away?
How are agents expected to do their jobs well and safely with screeching, shouting, car honking, ear splitting whistles keep them from being able to hear one another?
Agitators (called “observers” by those fermenting this lawlessness) have no business mobbing locations where officers are trying to arrest murderers rapists, child torturers, gang thugs, fraudsters, cartel operatives, and thieves. ICE would not need to be on those streets if Minneapolis police turned those criminals over to Immigration at the jails. But Walz and Frey instruct their police to release them onto the streets to victimize americans.
Your conclusions lack context and facts, and are not informed by rule of law, and do not help the crisis in Minneapolis.