Another senseless killing in Trump’s senseless war against Americans | Editorial
The president's masked thugs have now executed two U.S. citizens in broad daylight on the streets of Minneapolis.
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes … Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared … Everyone is scared … No one can keep out of the conflict … the end is nowhere in sight.”
— Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Donald Trump’s masked marauders murdered another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday, a senseless killing in a senseless war playing out in broad daylight on America’s streets.
Cell phone videos showed one of Trump’s immigration enforcement goons violently push a woman to the ground. As a man recording the agents tried to intervene, at least seven federal agents surrounded and dragged him to the ground as another beat him with a canister.
As the agents struggled to subdue the man, another agent appeared to remove a gun from the scrum. A Border Patrol agent then shot the man in the back from close range. A third agent pulled out his gun as nine more shots were fired within seconds.
Several agents scampered away as Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen with no criminal record, laid motionless on the street.
After the shooting, a crowd of protesters shouted profanities at the federal officers, calling them “cowards” and urging them to leave. One officer mockingly responded: “Boo Hoo.”
Pretti’s killing came two weeks after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis killed Renee Good — a mother of three and a U.S. citizen — as she tried to maneuver her SUV out of the street. A week later, a DoorDash delivery driver was shot in the leg by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
After the two killings, Trump and his loyal lieutenants tried to blame the victims and local Democratic leaders. But cell phone videos showed the truth: Trump’s jackboots have now plainly executed two U.S. citizens.
The American people can see the lawless mayhem with their own eyes.
» READ MORE: The killing of Renee Nicole Good and the moral rot of Trump’s reckless immigration enforcement plan | Editorial
Trump has unleashed a paramilitary of ICE and Border Patrol agents into American streets with a license to arrest, confront, detain, beat, or kill anyone who gets in their way — even if it is an off-duty police officer or a 5-year-old boy.
Any pretense of federal investigations into abuses by ICE or others doing Trump’s bidding is quickly compromised or shutdown. Constitutional rights are ignored. The rule of law is now set by Trump’s morality, which appears to thrive on cruelty.
Federal immigration agents must leave Minneapolis and end their vigilantism. But who will stop them?
There are no checks on Trump’s power as his administration is stocked with unqualified lackeys competing for his attention.
The Republicans who control Congress have abdicated their constitutional duty, while conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court continue to enable the president.
Sadly, justice left town after the U.S. Senate — including Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Dave McCormick — confirmed Pam Bondi, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, as attorney general.
The FBI has been decimated by Kash Patel, an unqualified incompetent, pushing conspiracy theories and vendettas. Kristi Noem has turned the Department of Homeland Security into a Bull Connor-like police force, led by Gregory Bovino in his greatcoat.
The architect behind the draconian ICE crackdown is Stephen Miller, an unelected and unconfirmed senior adviser and speechwriter with a history of white nationalist ties and bigotry.
» READ MORE: People are dying in Trump’s squalid concentration camps | Will Bunch
Republicans enabled the surge in ICE manpower and funding when they approved Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. If the GOP will not stop Trump, then voters must act come November.
ICE was supposed to go after the “worst of the worst” of people who entered the country illegally. Instead, Trump and his lawless administration have occupied cities, caused civil unrest, and accomplished essentially nothing.
Tens of thousands of immigrants arrested have no criminal records. Others are collateral damage. After Good was killed, Trump said “things happen.”
Alex Pretti was among the best in America. He was a nurse in an intensive care unit that served veterans. He died trying to help a woman attacked by a masked thug.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asked the question many want to know about the Trump administration’s growing domestic war: “How many more Americans need to die?”