Rising This Week: The People for Alex Pretti
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech about "living within a lie" has lessons for an angry and grieving U.S. populace.
Whenever a federal agent guns down a civilian, Donald Trump’s government will immediately defame the victim, protect the killers, and threaten any credible investigator with prosecution.
That was clear two weeks ago after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good.
It is now foolish and deceitful to pretend otherwise after masked Border Patrol agents unloaded a hail of bullets into the disarmed and pinned-down body of Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lied that the victim had been “brandishing” a gun, and the agency that she leads is now heading an investigation that the federal government wants the public to accept as credible. Stephen Miller labeled Pretti a “would-be assassin” in a post amplified by J.D. Vance.
To quote a line that shook the world community last week: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
Possible Action Item: Mutual Aid
The 50501 Movement has compiled a list of resources for legal support, food support, safe houses and more for the people of Minnesota.
The links also include fundraisers for people living out of state.
‘Living within a lie’
Those were the words that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered last week in Davos, Switzerland, in an epoch-defining speech amounting to a eulogy for the U.S.-led world order.
As Carney observed, that order no longer exists, and those rules were always malleable:
“In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless, and in it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?
And his answer began with a greengrocer.
Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: ‘Workers of the world unite.’ He doesn’t believe it, no one does, but he places a sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists — not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
Havel called this “living within a lie.”
The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.”
Carney was speaking for a NATO community grappling with a grim reality: the United States, led by Trump, extorting allies while cozying up to adversarial dictatorships.
His words have a lesson for grieving and angry citizens in the United States: “Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just.”
‘America 2026’
As the founder of Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins leads an Amsterdam-based investigative journalism collective that performs forensic investigations to expose the war crimes of authoritarian regimes.
He provided this perspective of how to treat Trump officials’ statements.
“Treat the US government and ICE claims like you’d treat a Russian government claim after they’ve shot down an airliner or bombed a hospital. America 2026,” Higgins wrote.
That Trump’s government forfeited any credibility on the world stage is beyond question: Officials smeared both victims before their bodies were cold, cleared the officers before any investigation, forced out experienced prosecutors who refused to toe the party line, and used the power of the state to intimidate state officials beyond their control.
In a court document, the state of Minnesota described the government’s actions as a “federal invasion of the Twin Cities,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proved state officials correct in a post from his official account treating the citizens of the state as an unruly, occupied people.
“ICE > MN,” Hegseth sneered.
Any justice for Good or Pretti will need to come from private citizens and state actors resisting the federal government’s bullying. This process is already underway.
On the evening of the shooting, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Hennepin County Attorney’s Office sued over the federal government denying local law enforcement access to evidence. U.S. District Judge Eric C. Tostrud, a Trump appointee, granted a temporary restraining order forbidding the government from “destroying or altering evidence.”
Two federal dockets also felt the aftershocks of Pretti’s summary execution. The state of Minnesota cited the shooting as evidence of the “urgent and undeniable” need for a federal judge to halt the government’s so-called “Operation Metro Surge.” The state’s request heads for a hearing on Monday.
‘Please get the truth out’
The profusion of videos in Good and Pretti’s cases reflects the bravery of the people of Minnesota risking their lives and freedom to document what is happening to their neighbors.
As a result of those videos, the headlines of every national U.S. newspaper — The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal — contradict official lies that Pretti brandished his weapon. One agent can be seen disarming him as others wrestled him to the ground. (Pretti owned a firearm lawfully, but the only object in his hands during the encounter was his phone.)
In a civil rights lawsuit, a licensed pediatrician who witnessed the shooting and examined the slain victim submitted a sworn declaration in court contradicting the government’s narrative. The doctor observed that Pretti had “at least three bullet wounds in his back.”
Under a climate of government intimidation, these witnesses answered the call of grieving parents Michael and Susan Pretti, who released a statement that they are “heartbroken but also very angry.”
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact.
I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.
Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.”
Truth and justice for Good and Pretti are possible.
State investigators can and are starting to fight the federal government’s blockade on preservable evidence. Witnesses, at great personal risk, contradicted the government’s deceptions under oath. People across the country and around the world provided financial and moral support to mourning and suffering people.
Under no illusions, they recognize that they face repressive headwinds from a malicious and vindictive government.
A Quick Editor’s Note:
From the earliest days of All Rise News, I committed to going where the news breaks to follow the cases that shape our democracy.
This week, I will be heading back to Nashville, Tennessee, where a federal judge will consider whether to dismiss the Trump Justice Department’s case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia for vindictive prosecution.
On Monday, there will be another important hearing in Minneapolis to determine whether to halt Trump’s ICE surge in the Twin Cities. Since the court has allowed remote access to the press, I plan to cover that hearing virtually, but I expect to be on the ground in Minnesota this year as important cases unfold.
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