We have reached a point where only those who willfully ignore what is before their eyes can defend the actions of a federal law enforcement agency that has become a danger to its own citizens.
The killing in Minneapolis of Alex Pretti, a nurse who cared for veterans and, yes, a protester against his government’s actions, is a sickening new low in what has become an intolerable abuse of power.
What happened on that street Saturday deserves a full and independent criminal investigation.
It is possible to support the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws while totally rejecting what should be unthinkable: A man on the ground, restrained, and then shot in the back.
Opinion
As with the killing of Renee Good, we expect those who defend just about any action under this administration will find reasons to defend this one.
As an editorial board that believes in limited government and in the freedom of citizens to exercise their right to protest and to grieve their government’s actions, we cannot understand how truly conservative voices are silent in the face of what is happening.
If you believe the killing of Ashli Babbitt in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an abuse of power, you must speak up against the killing of Pretti. If you believe that federal agents’ raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco was unnecessary and disastrous, you must not accept this death, either.
If you believe in the right to carry a firearm without that right meaning a death sentence in any encounter with law enforcement, this killing should be unacceptable.
Some, to their credit, have spoken up. The Libertarian Party of Texas has posted a statement calling the killing into question.
“[I]f federal agents can lawfully kill someone for the mere possession of a firearm — without it being fired, aimed, or used — then the right to keep and bear arms is meaningless in practice,” the Libertarian Party wrote on its Facebook page.
The visual evidence thus far indicates that at the time he was shot, Pretti had been disarmed. There is no visual evidence we have seen that he was attempting to use his gun against law enforcement.
As with Good’s death, we expect that too many people will see in this video evidence whatever it is they want to see. They will use it to draw conclusions that support predetermined points of view.
That is terribly dangerous. We have to be able to see things as they are, not as we wish to see them.
Ours is a nation built on the premise that the government does not have total immunity, as the vice president once suggested, to exercise power over the people. The government does not have the right to hold a man down and shoot him in the back. The government does not have the right to sow the fear of death in people who protest its actions. That is the work of tyrants.
This is the United States. What happened to Alex Pretti was wrong, and we must all stand against it.
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