Memorial at the site of Alex Pretti’s murder. Photo: Steve Perry.

Here’s what I saw after watching multiple videos of the execution of Alexi Pretti: VA nurse Alex Pretti, whom Gregory Bovino said wanted to do “maximum damage,” was trying to protect a woman who was being pepper-sprayed, an act of humanity which enraged the CPB agents who then went after him en masse, pepper-spraying him in the face. He was holding a cellphone in his hand at the time eight agents descended on him and slammed him to the pavement. With six immigration agents on top of him, Alex Pritti could easily have been “Chauvined” to death…if they hadn’t decided to shoot him. He had a holstered gun, which he had a permit (and god-given right, according to Trump and the NRA) to “open carry.” And that gun was taken from him by an agent who walked away, then they shot him multiple times from only inches away, as many as 10 shots in less than five seconds.

The attempted cover-up happened immediately. As the gang of officers splintered like a fissured atom from Pretti’s prone body after the shots were fired, they turned directly on the crowd who had filmed and screamed in horror at the execution they’d just witnessed. Out came the pepper-spray. Out came the clubs. Out came the guns. They tried to detain witnesses and steal their cellphones. Homicide is a state crime. But DHS, once again, as in the case of Renee Good, blocked the Minnesota state police from investigating the killing of a Minnesota resident and US citizen and the FBI shut down any internal investigation of the shootings. That’s evidence of guilt. It’s also evidence that Cheney’s “Dark Side” tactics aren’t for black sites anymore. They’ve come home to roost against Americans in broad daylight…

Noem, Bovino and Trump were willing to slander the corpse of a man who worked for their own government, providing care for American veterans. A US citizen, born to US citizens. A man with no criminal record, who had committed no criminal act when he was shot, except trying to protect himself and others from being brutalized by masked, federal agents, who were armed to the teeth. They slimed him before they knew anything about him. They vilified him before his blood had even frozen on the sidewalk. They libeled him before they’d even seen the videos of his murder. They smeared him after they saw the videos of his murder. They blamed him because he was blameless. They defamed him to hide their own guilt. A guilt that runs from that sidewalk in Minneapolis to the offices of Border Patrol to the DHS HQ to........

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