Alex Pretti was incited by the anti-federal government rhetoric of Frey and Walz. He knowingly armed himself and impeded and harassed Federal police officers.
The latest round of anti-federal government conduct by Mr. Frey and Mr. Walz is all too familiar. It includes that of disallowing local police officers to assist federal police officers when the latter are under attack, joined by no effort of either Frey or Walz to tell the anti-ICE movement to refrain from harassing and impeding federal police officers. The current landscape is one in which federal police officers are harassed in their hotel rooms, in restaurants, and in churches. The harassment and stalking is marked by air piercing whistles, blaring car alarms, objects thrown at them. Additionally, protestors are using their bodies and automobiles to obstruct ICE vehicle movement. Protestors follow in lockstep within mere inches of the officers, blowing whistles, etc. This is not First Amendment protected activity; this is criminal activity. Following police officers –as in you are in lockstep with, or tailing police officers, represents the crimes of stalking and assault (to include harassment).
Then there was Philadelphia Sheriff, Rochelle Bilal, in uniform telling a national audience after the shooting of Renee Good: “You got to resist because we have democracy, and we want to keep it that way…Stand up against things that are happening around the world, but keep yourself safe, and don’t let them pull you into harming yourself. Don’t let them pull you into the smoke.” In fact, Bilal, like Frey, and the Philadelphia District Attorney (Larry Krasner), told the masses that on duty ICE officers need to be arrested [on-duty], joined with their telling citizens to report officers –as in to call 911 to report ICE officers.
Mayor Frey and Governor Walz have challenged the federal government like in no other time subsequent to the establishment of the U.S. Constitution. It eerily feels like Minnesota’s leadership is indirectly calling for annexation from the United States. I am sure that is what people overseas watching newscasts have concluded. A state is actually rebelling against the federal government. What a damning presentation!. After all, United States federal law is supreme to state law in the area of immigration. The Supremacy Clause cannot be any clearer. Therefore, it is perplexing and dizzying that Frey and Walz are telling the federal government that it is not permitted to enforce immigration laws in Minnesota. Just as disturbing are their orders to their police officers to look the other way when human beings –federal police officers– are being pelted with bottles and bricks, etc. I assert we should be calling the conduct of Frey and Walz insurrectionist activity. Use of the “I” word may be gaudy but who could have predicted that a governor and mayor of a U.S. state would have given the order to their police officers not to come to the aid of federal police officers? Who could have predicted glaring omissions by Frey, Pritzker, Walz and Newsome as in not informing protestors to refrain from violence against federal police officers –and– not warning Minnesotans that any such violence will result in arrest by local police officers. Instead we have politicians telling local cops to look the other way. This translates to renegade politicians knowingly attempting to create a civil war between U.S. local police officers against U.S. federal police officers.
There is a reason why Mr. Pretti stalked ICE officers while he was locked and loaded. It was because days earlier, Mayor Frey was on national television telling ICE Police Officers to “Get the f___ out of Minneapolis.” In fact, Pretti wasn’t the first armed protestor to heed Frey and Walz’s aggression, it was another Minnesotan who was able to capture the media’s cameras. He was so incited by Frey and Walz, that he photographed walking around his Minneapolis neighborhood with an exposed AR-15, daring ICE officers to enter. No Minneapolis cops have made any attempt to disarm him. He stated: “Yep, this is my block, this is my area. I don’t go into other people’s neighborhoods and try to intimidate them. I try to protect my people.” Within 7 days, there was Mr. Pretti, font and center. Don’t blame the cops for shooting Pretti. Those officers had every right and reason to be vigilant and to suspect that Pretti came there to harm them.
Lastly, the politicians in issue, who combined, have zero police experience, should stop further inciting people by defining Pretti’s demise as murder. Any experienced cop, me included, can tell you that things happen so quickly in police encounters with people armed with firearms. From my perspective, that of a cop who has been in the sort of tussle in issue, the federal officer who discharged his weapon at Pretti, from the officer’s vantage point, rightly perceived a threat.
