Of Course That Video of Alex Pretti Kicking a Cop Car Matters

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Minneapolis isn’t just a tragic spectacle, it’s a mirror.

On Wednesday, footage from Jan. 13 of an altercation involving Alex Pretti was published by The News Movement. It depicts Pretti berating federal agents (it sounds like he’s screaming, “f*cking trash!”) and spitting at their feet. After the agents climb into their SUV and begin to drive away, Pretti repeatedly kicks the vehicle, eventually breaking their taillight.

“F*ck you!” shouted Pretti, who was then shoved to the ground and held there for a few moments before being let go.

For those on the Right determined to justify the events of Jan. 24, when Pretti was shot dead by Border Patrol agents during an altercation in which he appeared much less confrontational — and criminally liable — the footage was beheld as an answer to their prayers.

And for those on the Left who fetishize the disorderly, destructive behavior exemplified by Pretti, it was something to be handwaved away: an irrelevant, even disgusting, smear of a dead man.

Of course it is neither.

Pretti’s inexcusable actions on the 13th — though they could and arguably should have resulted in his arrest — didn’t come anywhere close to warranting the use of lethal force. To cite them as a justification for his death a week-and-a-half later at what appeared to be a much less charged moment (bear in mind that an investigation into the shooting may turn up more relevant information) is an intellectual as well as a moral error. American citizens are entitled to make mistakes, even egregious ones, without paying the price for them with their life. Anyone who disputes as much has breathtakingly low expectations for their government.

Still, the unearthed video of Pretti does get at a larger truth that those seeking to canonize him are loath to acknowledge. The seeds of street violence have been tended to not just by the Trump administration, but progressives in political office and the press.

Survey any description of the protesters in Minneapolis from these culprits and you’ll find the sun blotted out by euphemisms. There are odes to “protest culture” and appeals to the First Amendment; talk of “community,” “resistance,” “humanity,” and even “love.” Some demonstrators are surely motivated by such laudable sentiments, and comport themselves in a manner that they can be proud of.

Others, including Alex Pretti on Jan. 13, however, have been whipped up into a such a frenzied moral panic by elected Democrats and the media, that they march into the street believing that anything and everything they may do in pursuit of their objective is in bounds. Scream, and spit, and blow whistles in law enforcement’s face, curse them out, block the street with your car, storm a church, vandalize vehicles — it’s all allowed, and it’s all, bizarrely, taken to be proof of their own virtue.

And why not? After all, leaders like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz reach for the most extreme, incendiary rhetoric they can find to refer to those tasked with enforcing on-the-books immigration law. Last May, Walz deemed ICE the “modern-day Gestapo,” and only a few days ago he suggested that somewhere in his state, a modern-day Anne Frank was in hiding.

He’s far from the only guilty party. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) suggested that ICE was turning the country into something akin to “Nazi Germany.” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) referred to its agents as “masked thugs.” His colleague, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), opted for a “slave patrols” comparison. And that’s just a small sampling of the kind of the venomous deck this cohort is playing with.

It it any wonder, then, that the situation in Minneapolis has devolved to the point that it has?

Immigration authorities are on edge — and more prone to making tragic mistakes — because they have good reason to fear for their lives. Violence, including the deadly variety, against agents has skyrocketed. Back in July, actual domestic terrorists mounted an attack on an ICE detention facility in Alvarado Texas. You may not have heard about it because neither CNN nor MSNBC devoted a single minute of airtime to it, but a local police officer was shot in the neck during a carefully planned ambush.

That doesn’t excuse poor decision-making in the field, but it does help to explain it.

Across the country, people like Alex Pretti have been inspired to riot and worse by self-interested actors in the business of crafting convenient narratives, regardless of the bloody consequences of the tense, even battlefield-like atmosphere they’ve helped create.

And that’s the incriminating truth that those dismissing the new Pretti video altogether hope to elide.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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