Minneapolis residents Renée Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by ICE and US Border Patrol agents. President Donald Trump called Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist”. Without evidence, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller labelled him a “domestic terrorist” and a “would-be assassin”.
Notably, a frame-by-frame analysis by CNN shows that shots six, seven, eight, nine, and 10 were all fired while Pretti lay incapacitated on his back.
George Orwell, author of the dystopian novel 1984, observed: “Atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.”
In fact, Trump’s department of justice filed a motion challenging a judge’s order that barred the destruction of evidence in the Pretti case.
It’s crucial to recognise that selective memories of aggression have long been used to justify state violence.
We owe a debt of thanks to those who document, protest, and refuse to look away. Without them, the truth of what happened to Pretti and Good might never have come to light. – Terry Hansen, Grafton, Wisconsin
