ICE Shooting in Minnesota

[Rubashov]

ICE Unloads

Immigration officers speak out: “**** this.”

www.kenklippenstein.com

“The best they can do is shoot the guy in the back?” That’s not the voice of some liberal commentator. That’s what a homeland security officer told me this weekend, one of over half a dozen who have reached out to express their alarm over the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and beyond.

I’ve listened to the stories and the beefs of immigration officers in Minneapolis across the country, and to a person, they all blame the shooter, one of their own. The major media is stuck on framing the killing of Alex Pretti as some national and partisan battle, highlighting Republicans breaking ranks, the NRA protesting, MAGA wavering, and Chuck Schumer doing whatever he’s doing, but no one is really capturing what the federal law enforcement officers on the ground are thinking. The truth is that they’re fed up and have been for weeks.

They paint a picture that is more Police Academy (or even Reno 911!) than a Gestapo on the march. Yes, they agree that Washington is a huge problem and are uncomfortable with the mission creep that is taking them away from actual immigration enforcement. But internally? Theirs is also a story of gung-ho 19-year-olds, drunken stakeouts, and senior officers disappearing into meetings and all of a sudden needing time off.

They are also frustrated with the narrative unfolding and the information war being waged from Washington, including the flamboyant defense of the shooting and other controversial moves on the ground.

“As much as I support this administration there needs to be more common sense in situations like this, not a knee jerk damage control narrative that does not line up with the evidence on video,” one Border Patrol agent said in a private chat group that was shared with me. “This individual was shot 8 to 9 times while unarmed.”

“We can’t always support what happens just because it’s one of us,” he adds.

An ICE agent was even more critical. “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting … ten versus one and somehow they couldn’t find a way to subdue the guy or use a less than lethal [means],” the agent said. “They all carry belts and vests with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back?”

……
Several agents described receiving briefings about retaliatory threats to ICE inspired by the Minneapolis shooting. “Guys take it really serious, like we are fighting insurgents,” as if Minneapolis is Baghdad, an ICE officer said.

Though all of the federal agents I’ve spoken to this weekend support immigration enforcement, they indeed see the Minneapolis operation as something else entirely — an open-ended counterinsurgency in a faraway land and under an out-of-touch leadership in Washington more concerned with optics than immigration.

“This is a no-win situation for agents on the ground or immigration enforcement overall,” a Border Patrol agent said in the private group chat shared with me.

He closed on a plaintive note: “I think it’s time to pull out of Minnesota, that battle is lost.”

“F*** this,” a senior ICE officer said about the shooting of Pretti.

Its completely amateurish but with practice they will get better at executing citizens.

 

[Red]

Its completely amateurish but with practice they will get better at executing citizens.

No, I don’t believe that’s going to happen. Not after Pretti’s execution.

 

[Rubashov]

No, I don’t believe that’s going to happen. Not after Pretti’s execution.

What's changed? Are the Brown Shirts facing charges? Have they stopped brutalising people on the street? Its just another PR pivot, there will be some other outrage that Trump unleashes tomorrow, maybe they bomb Mexico or Columbia? Iran?

Continue to flood the zone, cause chaos, divide and conquer.

 

[Red]

What's changed? Are the Brown Shirts facing charges? Have they stopped brutalising people on the street? Its just another PR pivot, there will be some other outrage that Trump unleashes tomorrow, maybe they bomb Mexico or Columbia? Iran?

Continue to flood the zone, cause chaos, divide and conquer.

What changed is the People are rising up. IMHO. You don’t have to agree, I understand. I believe in the goodness of the American people. I see the uproar over a citizen’s very public execution. I believe we will overcome this attempt to establish an Americanized fascist movement in my country, and we will toss MAGA into the dustbin of history. It’s not us. Oh sure, since it is happening, I guess I could say, “no, sadly, it IS us, and always has been. An ugly, hateful, intolerant people”. Well, some Americans certainly fit that description. Stephen Miller. Donald Trump. Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem. Fascists one and all, in their hearts. And that’s where fascism starts: in a heart that know only anger and hatred. I chose to believe the strength and duration of our democratic institutions, our goodness, and the fact the freedom loving world long looked to us as a force of GOOD in the world.

You may think nothing has changed, and I can see it getting far worse still. Did you read the post I left, describing how ICE agents themselves are pissed off? Bovino was stripped of his position, and his social media account terminated. That’s one change. But I hear you. I chose to believe in my country, still, and will not give up hope. Why should I?

Bovino, in his Gestapo style trench coat:

 

[Red]

What's changed? Are the Brown Shirts facing charges? Have they stopped brutalising people on the street? Its just another PR pivot, there will be some other outrage that Trump unleashes tomorrow, maybe they bomb Mexico or Columbia? Iran?

Continue to flood the zone, cause chaos, divide and conquer.

I also just posted this in a different thread:

I agree. You had opined in a previous comment, that we were at an inflection point. I tend to agree. Trump and MAGA are an overwhelmingly negative movement, focused on anger, and the application of anger toward “the other”, undocumented humans, and towards anyone who disagrees or gets in the way. On the street, innocent citizens exercising their rights become “domestic terrorists”. If they are citizens, who simply voice disagreement with Trump, they become “the enemy within”.

I’ve always been of the opinion that highly negative movements really cannot be maintained in the long run. Executing citizens and identifying them as terrorists is that bridge too far. Impossible to maintain such a stance! It can’t be done, IMHO. Sooner or later, these populists eruptions of hatred and anger run their course. I might sound pie eyed, Putin managed to do in Russia what his disciple Donald Trump is attempting to do in the United States. It’s lasted decades there, and in other authoritarian regimes. And I guess we can know now what it’s like to be a dissident on the streets of Moscow. But not forever. I don’t believe it will work here, as hard as Trump is trying. Our democratic traditions will win out, IMHO. Just don’t yet know how it will all play out, or how much uglier and tumultuous it will get. But I do think we are at a turning point.

 

[LogGrad98]

Its completely amateurish but with practice they will get better at executing citizens.

Unfortunately this is true. It isn't a huge stretch to see them just start rounding up people like Pretti instead of killing them in the streets. Then killing them in a camp somewhere.

The big mistake the Trump admin made in this regard is just signing up any rabid redneck with a gun and a murder fetish. That will be their undoing since those people are undisciplined and uncontrollable. You better believe that the men who executed Pretti and the guy who killed Good all had dreams of killing people with impunity. You don't do what you cannot or do not imagine first. So a vide of a cop showing restraint with his firearm shows a guy that imagines being under control. These guys imagined killing, first and foremost, as zero restraint was shown. But that will be their undoing in the end. As the german populace showed, do it in relative private with no fanfare and the ordinary people can learn to tolerate any atrocity, as long as it is rumor and hearsay.

 

[Red]

It isn't a huge stretch to see them just start rounding up people like Pretti instead of killing them in the streets. Then killing them in a camp somewhere

Rachel Maddow was talking last night about the growing resistance to building ICE Detention centers all over the country. I could not find that discussion yet, but she talked about it last week as well.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0us6Sg8cZKg

2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. Here are the 32 people who died in custody

The deaths came as the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement, detaining a record number of people

www.theguardian.com

 

[idestroyedthetoilet]

I wore the wrong teams jersey to a football game.
My neighbor raped The Rocks kid.

We both made dumb decisions that put ourselves in danger. The two situations are the exact same and my neighbor and myself should face the same consequences!

Aren't false equivalencies fun!

This was one of your worst takes ever lol.
Sent from my OPD2203 using Tapatalk

I dunno, I look at this as how I would advise my children.

Green light:
Wearing wrong team jersey to a football game.

Use caution:
Driving, skiing, playing night games with friends, attending a protest at the capitol.

Definitely avoid:
Raping The Rock
Carrying an AR15 into an active riot
Joining an organized police agitator and disruption group actively stalking police. Arm yourself. Agitate police in a high tension environment that may be on the verge of riot or armed resistance, interfere with a police action and push an officer, resist arrest.

I think further caution should be used given this is Trump’s ICE. I’ll risk being presumptive here: bad actors within ICE are emboldened by Trump administration’s nasty rhetoric. The **** coming from this guy and other high levels is beyond the pale. You don’t think a bad actor might interpret this as leadership having your back no matter how controversial your actions? That they can shoot first at the slightest whiff of personal danger, ask questions later?

What the guy did without the current ICE context was beyond ill advised. Given the context it was outright stupidity. Ask yourself this before responding: do you have faith in the Trump administration to allow a full, independent investigation into ICE shootings and honestly hold bad actors accountable? I ****ing don’t.

 

[Red]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/27/federal-court-opts-not-to-restrict-federal-agents-actions-against-protesters

A federal appeals court on Monday left in place its ruling against limiting federal agents’ actions against protesters and observers in Minnesota.

It’s the latest in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging that federal agents are violating protesters’ and observers’ rights amid the ongoing surge of federal immigration agents to Minnesota.

A federal judge had issued an earlier injunction in the case, barring agents from interfering with peaceful protesters. That included detaining protesters and observers who had not committed a crime, and using crowd control methods like pepper spray and nonlethal munitions.

But the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals put that injunction on holdshortly after. The court said the order was too vague, after attorneys for the federal government argued that the injunction could limit agents’ ability to defend themselves and control crowds.

The ACLU asked the court to reconsider after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents on Saturday, citing “escalating, imminent risks” to protesters and observers. Attorneys for the ACLU submitted statements from two witnesses to that shooting, alleging that Pretti did not pose a threat to agents.

In its ruling Monday, the appeals court declined to reinstate the order limiting agents’ responses to protesters and observers. In their opinion, the judges wrote that the category of protesters and observers that the initial injunction seeks to protect is too broad, as protesters behave differently toward federal agents.

The judges also wrote that the injunction’s requirements for federal agents “are simply commands to ‘obey the law,’ which are ‘not specific enough.’”

The case will continue through an appeals process.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/26/minnesota-immigration-cases-ice-00746275

A Myanmar refugee nursing a five-month-old, arrested and shipped to Texas. A Mexican man who sustained severe skull injuries during an arrest by ICE and was shackled in the hospital against doctors’ wishes. A Kenyan woman detained after picking up seizure medication. A Ukrainian refugee arrested for no apparent reason.

In other words, an ordinary weekend for federal judges in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s mass deportation push in the Twin Cities.

The district’s seven full-time judges and 10 partially retired judges have been inundated by hundreds of emergency lawsuits from immigrants targeted by ICE during the operation. They’re working weekends to manage the backlog and juggling a crush of individual cases under intense national attention.

And in all but a handful of cases, those judges have ruled that the Trump administration violated the law, sometimes flagrantly.

The judges, representing appointees of nearly every president since Ronald Reagan, have grown increasingly alarmed by what they see as a pattern of defiance by the administration, shocking behavior by ICE and rampant targeting of people with no criminal history, despite Trump’s claim to be targeting “the worst of the worst.”

“Since November 2025, the courts of this District have thought of little else,” Judge Michael Davis said in a Sunday ruling criticizing the Trump administration’s “disingenuous” claim that one of his colleagues had given only a cursory review of its arguments. “It is a grave error to confuse efficiency with lack of rigor.”

 

[idestroyedthetoilet]

Even more baffling are the people who cheered Rittenhouse on, but are now enraged that Alex Pretti was carrying a legal weapon. Check out what Rittenhouse brought to a volatile situation, from another state. The Right defended him 100%. Alex Pretti? Not so much.
Interfered with the police? I’ve watched all the videos. Best I can determine he was executed. His crime was attempting to help a woman a border patrol agent had flung to the ground. Pretti was shielding her from the pepper spray, and trying to help her up. So he was executed. Not for one second did he interfer.

This is good, according to the Right. And he killed that night. So good!

View attachment 20013

But, a man carrying a concealed weapon with a permit, never displaying it, never removing it from his holster, and photographing the activity, he deserved to die, right? As Trump, Bovino, Miller, Noem all indicated, he brought a gun with him! They said doing that means there is a good chance federal agents will kill you! Imagine that?! Federal agents can kill you for legally carrying a weapon. Second amendment doesn’t exist apparently. Which didn’t go over well with the NRA and others.

Why would you, or anyone, compare Pretti to Rittenhouse?? “Packed heat and interfered with the police”. No. No he did not, and you cannot look at any of the half dozen citizen videos and say he drew his weapon, or interfered in the least: he was helping a woman who had been pushed violently to the ground by an agent, and he was trying to shield her from pepper spray. For this he needed to die? He had a permit, there was no demonstration even taking place. A few observers using their phones to film agent activity. Thst’s legal.

Carrying a concealed weapon is legal. “Packed heat”. Yes, and Bovino and Noem said he carried that heat in order to massacre federal agents. Is that your take as well? Rittenhouse came to kill. Did Pretti come to kill? I see a difference, even if you don’t.

You buy into that crap too? He was an ICU nurse for veterans.

Here’s Pretti as an ICU nurse. What the hell is wrong with you that you are actually upset that people are not demanding the electric chair if he had actually lived?


View: https://x.com/AP/status/2015867774724149475

I agree Red. Didn’t you get that from my “two clip” MAGA comment? You are right that it is even more ridiculous.

My comment wasn’t about comparing the two events. I was simply ranting about the distorted, inconsistent logic the crazies use.

 

[Red]

I think further caution should be used given this is Trump’s ICE. I’ll risk being presumptive here: bad actors within ICE are emboldened by Trump administration’s nasty rhetoric. The **** coming from this guy and other high levels is beyond the pale. You don’t think a bad actor might interpret this as leadership having your back no matter how controversial your actions? That they can shoot first at the slightest whiff of personal danger, ask questions later?

Of course. The rhetoric of Trump, Bovino, Miller, Noem, etc. have given a green light. But this was the case from the very day Donald Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower, in 2015, and announced his run for the presidency. He also introduced to his potential followers, at that time, who “the other” would be: Undocumented human beings. Even though the vast majority were not criminal, not violent, and “the neighbors” to many, all good demagogues create “the other” for disaffected members of a society to focus anger, even hatred. That has been the case, with Trump’s rhetoric, for the entire time since that day in 2015. It’s one of the main arguments for avoiding fascist movements from the get go. Fascism is always motivated by highly negative emotions. And when the emotions seem noble, like “love of country”, it never stops there. Only certain people are “true Americans”, who can love this country. To VP Vance, your family needs to have been in the United States since the Civil War era. But overall, Trump's rhetoric has encouraged anger, hatred, and at times violence. So this rhetoric, that might give an ICE or Border Patrol agent the sense that he will be protected, has been there all along. Trump has been giving the OK to be a bad dude from the very start.

 

[fishonjazz]

I dunno, I look at this as how I would advise my children.

Green light:
Wearing wrong team jersey to a football game.

Use caution:
Driving, skiing, playing night games with friends, attending a protest at the capitol.

Definitely avoid:
Raping The Rock
Carrying an AR15 into an active riot
Joining an organized police agitator and disruption group actively stalking police. Arm yourself. Agitate police in a high tension environment that may be on the verge of riot or armed resistance, interfere with a police action and push an officer, resist arrest.

I think further caution should be used given this is Trump’s ICE. I’ll risk being presumptive here: bad actors within ICE are emboldened by Trump administration’s nasty rhetoric. The **** coming from this guy and other high levels is beyond the pale. You don’t think a bad actor might interpret this as leadership having your back no matter how controversial your actions? That they can shoot first at the slightest whiff of personal danger, ask questions later?

What the guy did without the current ICE context was beyond ill advised. Given the context it was outright stupidity. Ask yourself this before responding: do you have faith in the Trump administration to allow a full, independent investigation into ICE shootings and honestly hold bad actors accountable? I ****ing don’t.

I already agreed that what the guy did was ill advised. But that is the end of the comparison.

Hence my fictitious comparison. Wearing the jersey of the wrong team to a sporting event is ill advised (lots of drunk testosterone filled passionate people that may want to fight you). So is raping the Rocks kids and definitely more ill advised.

Filming ICE while armed is ill advised.
Going to a place with lots of violence and anger with an AR15 with the intent to do some shootin is definitely more ill advised.

Its a poor comparison.