In the long distant past, my commentary on current events would be published by the local papers. In the somewhat more recent past, I would have posted this on Google Plus, where I had 10,000+ followers (most of them were, admittedly, fake Russian accounts). I don’t have quite the reach now on the few social media accounts I use. So I’m posting here, among mostly friends, while I decide how and where-else to post this on-line. Feel free to pass this along in whatever fashion you like.

The Execution of Alex Jeffrey Pretti 

The man fatally shot by Border Patrol agents in the morning of Saturday, January 24th in Minneapolis was Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Mr. Pretti, who was 37, was a registered nurse who worked in the intensive-care unit at the Veterans Affairs hospital. According to friends, he wanted to be a ‘force of good in the world.’ He was, but can be no longer. He was not just shot by Border Patrol agents. He was executed.

Almost immediately after agents shot Mr. Pretti, federal officials claimed that he had endangered agents with a gun he was carrying, and some later accused him of “domestic terrorism.” But videos on social media that were verified by The New York Times appear to contradict portions of the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the shooting. But let’s not, for the moment, debate about why the shooting happened. It happened. And what happened after is what made this not just a shooting. It was an execution.

Border Patrol agents threw Mr. Pretti to the ground and, within seconds, four or five agents started shooting him. Ten shots were fired. Afterwards, when agents could have been rendering first aid, they appeared to be inspecting the body, counting the number of bullet wounds. Like you might count the number of hits on a target at the shooting range.

There were five or more bullet wounds, three of them to his back.

A doctor on the scene told an agent that they were a physician and asked to check Mr. Pretti. He was initially refused, but eventually allowed to go to Mr. Pretti after being patted down. “Normally, I would not have been so persistent,” the doctor said in their statement, “but as a physician, I felt a professional and moral obligation to help this man, especially since none of the agents were helping him.”

Law enforcement officers are generally expected to render first aid after a shooting once the scene is safe and the threat has been neutralized. This expectation is rooted in federal policies, state laws, and professional standards. Once a person is incapacitated or arrested, they are considered to be in the officer's care, making the officer responsible for their safety and treatment. But the agents were not rendering first aid. And when the doctor asked if Mr. Pretti had a pulse, the agents allegedly stated they did not know.

The agents did not take Mr. Pretti’s pulse. They hadn’t applied first aid. Rendering first aid is what you do after a shooting. It’s not what you do after an execution.

This mirrors a similar shooting on January 7, 2026, involving Renée Good, where a doctor was recorded asking to check the victim's pulse. The doctor was initially told "No." The agent said "I don't care."

We do care. We should care. We should do something to stop the shootings and the deliberate indifference of federal agents.

We should do something to stop the executions.