Government personnel entrusted with a badge and a firearm are required to de-escalate threats. This trust is not a license to brutalize and murder civilians in cold blood. This cannot become commonplace in America.
Fear does not equal respect — read that again.
Respect is earned every day — it cannot be bought and certainly cannot be coerced. Those who require fear as an analog for respect are weak. It is easy to be a bully; it is easy to intimidate; it is easy to dehumanize. It takes true courage to exercise temperance and speak truth to power without violence.
Everyday Americans across every state have shown that courage. We see it in the peaceful demonstrations where people unite their voices unequivocally to stop this brutalization. They are organizing and taking action because their elected leaders are weak — failing to provide coherent direction when their constituents need solid leadership most.
I wrote an entire article about the use of Deadly Force — please read it if you haven't yet. It provides the context needed for what I am writing here. Let’s start with the facts of the latest crime scene in Minneapolis where federal agents were once again implicated.
The Incident: 26th & Nicollet (9:05 AM on 24 JAN 2026)
- The Victim: Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37. A registered nurse in the ICU at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. He was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record — only a few parking tickets.
- The Conflict: Eyewitness video from multiple angles and local reports indicate Pretti was acting as an observer. He was seen filming ICE federal agents and, according to witnesses, attempting to assist a legal observer who had been violently shoved to the ground by an ICE agent.
- The Escalation: Video footage shows a federal agent violently shoving an unarmed woman to the pavement and spraying her with chemical irritants at close range. Pretti can be seen moving to aid the woman, attempting to shield her with his body as an agent continues to spray. ICE Agents then tackled them separately. As they wrestled Pretti to the sidewalk, multiple agents began striking him all over his body. One agent appears to grab Pretti's legally concealed weapon; then another agent then shoots Pretti while he is pinned and disarmed. Up to ten shots were fired within five seconds against Pretti's already lifeless body. Pretti was not a threat; he was filming with his cell phone in his dominant hand until the agents escalated the encounter. The first shot was fired after the ICE agent had already removed the gun from Pretti's person. Pretti was unarmed and never reached for his weapon.
- The Justification: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and CBP Commander Gregory Bovino claim Pretti was "armed" and "reacted violently." While local officials confirm Pretti was a legal gun owner with a permit to carry, video from the scene does not show him pointing a weapon or threatening agents before the shots were fired.
The Execution of an American in Cold Blood
This killing comes from an emboldened, ill-trained force incapable of de-escalating conflict — in fact, ICE normally escalates force when there is no actual conflict. We have seen this havoc in Minneapolis before. The details of the January 7th shooting of Renée Good remain concealed because anyone who understands forensics knows her killing was murder. It was committed by an agent itching to pull the trigger when he was in no imminent danger. He committed a "101-no-no" by placing himself in front of a vehicle.
How do I know he was trigger-itching? During the interaction with Renée's partner, the agent moved his cell phone from his dominant right hand to his left as she called him "big boy." He felt disrespected by — gasp — a woman and was freeing his dominant hand to draw his weapon at will. That was the last part of the deadly force triangle: intent. He already had capability and opportunity. Agent Ross then walked in front of the vehicle as Renée was moving away from him — then he shot her at close range multiple times with an unsupported hand, as his left was holding the cell phone the entire time.
We are trained never to shoot a vehicle because it becomes a multi-ton, unguided missile. The moment the bullets impacted, the car accelerated because a dying foot becomes a brick. The vehicle's trajectory continued on the original vector away from the shooter; the car only stopped when it crashed into a parked sedan and a light pole. Days later, we've learned that Renée was alive as she agonized, but agents refused to allow medical aid to be rendered.
The Forensic Indicators: "Operation Metro Surge"
Today, Alex Jeffrey Pretti was the third shooting and second death of an American citizen by ICE federal agents in Minneapolis in just three weeks. The pattern is now forensic:
- Blockade of Local Authority: The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) was denied access to the scene by ICE federal agents, even after a judge signed a search warrant.
- Mockery of Grief: Protesters reported an ICE agent mockingly saying "Boo hoo" as he walked away from the scene. This is pure dehumanization.
- Chemical Crowd Control: In -10°F temperatures, federal forces used tear gas, flash-bangs, and pepper balls on residents who gathered to peacefully protest as an exercise of their First Amendment rights.
Holding those on your own team accountable is always the right course of action. You may support the administration or the agencies involved, but that does not mean you are supposed to condone violations. In the Navy, I saw that when Sailors f*cked up, they were held liable — from counseling to court-martial. It didn't matter if they were "Sailor of the Year."
This is the second white person killed by these agents in a month; for those who thought they were immune because of their skin tone, the common denominator is now simply the agents' perceived "vindication" to escalate — paired with their ineptitude to de-escalate a clearly non-threatening situation. If this is too stressful for them, they should return their $50K signing bonus and do something else — unless they were too stupid to spend it all before hitting the field.
It is time to set aside the hypocrisy. I am an independent, so I call out both sides. The Democrats are weak and lack a unified message, leaving them outmaneuvered. But in any organization, if you condone the actions of the "weakest link," the entire organization fails. You don't have to make excuses for bad agents — unless cruelty is the purpose. Read the ICE "X" page and you'll see what I mean.
Lawful deportations are supposed to occur under any administration, but the issue is the dehumanizing tactics used in the process — and the myriad of unlawful and erroneous actions by agents who are breaking more laws than they are enforcing.
For those in the back: if your "law enforcement" tactics have more collateral damage than successes, then you're doing it wrong. This is not an "action movie" where the cop causes millions of dollars in damage to apprehend a $20 pickpocket. Yes, this excess force looks exactly like that.
The Global Context
Governor Tim Walz called it what it is: a "federal occupation." When you look at the tactics used in occupied places like Ukraine, the parallels are chilling. In Russia, Putin spends 38% of the budget on "Internal Security" to crush dissent. In the U.S., we are seeing federal agents bypass local police to conduct operations that end in the deaths of citizens on "Eat Street" — with a budget larger than the U.S. Marine Corps.
As Governor Walz stated today: "You ask us for peace, and we give it, and we get shot in the face on the streets coming out of a donut shop."
I don't anticipate this will be the last summary execution by an untrained, normalized ICE force in our streets - of agents coming from out of state "to own the libs" in blue areas. The question remains: What are our elected leaders doing to fix this before it leads to an inevitable insurgency in a rudderless America? And yes, I write about it because I am advocating to prevent exactly that. BZV
About the Author: J. Marcelo "BeeZee" Baqueroalvarez
🔗 Connect & Learn More: Visit Marcelo's comprehensive landing page for his extended bio, social links, consulting form, and more.
J. Marcelo "BeeZee" Baqueroalvarez is the Founder of Half Life Crisis™, a unique father-daughter collaboration dedicated to the relentless pursuit of intellectual honesty, critical thinking, geopolitical strategy, and meaningful art. Marcelo is the recognized author of the essential reads, Authoritarianism & Propaganda and Woke & Proud, driving challenging conversations worldwide. When not publishing, Marcelo utilizes his strategic insight in technology and business as the founder of BeeZee Vision, LLC™, which includes BZVweb™ Automated Web Services and Info in Context™ strategic consulting.
Continue the Conversation
We encourage intellectual debate! To maintain a clean, focused reading experience, comments have been disabled on this article. Share your insights, counterarguments, or continue the discussion on your preferred social platform:
Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn
