Very well said! Balanced and thoughtful. I have noticed in myself the tendency to be so fed up sick and tired and disgusted at the antics and insanity of the left that my knee jerk reaction to anything that hinders them or stops them is good. It's scary to see that in the mirror. It's scary to see that in faces and attitudes all around me left or right.
Glad you waited to write this article. I appreciate your analysis and measured response. It is hard to find people to trust in these situations since no one seems eager to analyze a case like this carefully. Once it happened, once video came out, everyone chose a side, and stuck with it.
Additionally, I am very cynical. If this happened under any other president would people care as much? Maybe. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.
Yeah, it takes a lot of humility. You also try to give LEO the benefit of the doubt in high stress situations but clearly, based on the Administration’s actions, they know ICE went too far in this case. Border Patrol, I mean.🙂
Hear, hear. I cannot argue against this, because it's correct. At the same time, most all of us know, our country has got big problems, and for many, these problems seem to be reaching existential level. I don't think we're there yet, but I can see it, and I understand it. Existential fears drive bad arguments and worse actions.
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is a phrase I have both heard and used. It's true. The rub is, how do you uphold the Constitution without the Constitution eating itself? My mind always goes back to what John Adams said, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people." He was right.
"The Constitution is for Commies Too" Yes.... but only to a point, because the Commies are NOT for the Constitution. They will happily use it against us. We cannot pretend that there is no limit there.
All that said, it's up to us, the defenders of the Constitution to get it right. We can't afford to cut corners. All LEOs should be held to high standards, and they should be held accountable for their actions.
Thank you for this well thought out piece. Early on I wondered why Pretti would, even if he had a concealed carry permit, go out to where all kinds of upset people were doing what they were doing. I read somewhere that, before he went out (first or second time = ?), that his father said to him "Don't do anything stupid."
I used to carry with a concealed carry permit. When I went into an area where open carry was legal, I still carried concealed. I wasn't stupid!
THE WORST offender, in my opinion, was the guy who yelled "GUN" and did not yell even louder: "I GOT THE GUN!"
A vital reminder that the Constitution isn’t a buffet—you can’t pick and choose whose rights to protect based on how much you dislike their politics. McGrew nails the "law of unintended consequences" here: if we cheer when the state oversteps against our enemies, we lose the standing to complain when that same power is turned on our friends. We don't need to back off our core beliefs, but we do need the foresight to anticipate their abuse. True conviction requires the discipline to protect the process, even when we loathe the person standing on the other side of it. - Thanks, Bethel, for provoking good thought amid the endless diatribes.
Carrying a weapon to an active riot scene (the entire Mnpls context over multiple weeks) and picking a fight with a cop and resisting arrest is never a good plan. You're asking a lot of the cops to sort out the mess in less than 5 seconds. One needn't celebrate the death to see that given the course of events it was inevitable. Even the governor figured out he had pushed the chaos too far.
I don't believe it's accurate or helpful to summarize Pretti's behavior as "picking a fight with a cop." It was rather the cop who was "picking a fight" with the irritating lady protesters by aggressively shoving them around, then kicking the situation into violently high gear by dragging Pretti into the street when he was walking away. If anything, Pretti appears to have been seeking to deescalate the situation.
"The mess" was indeed messy, but it could have been avoided had the first cop practiced a modicum of restraint. There was also a burden of responsibility on the cop who disarmed Pretti to make it clear that he was disarmed. Once you fling your colleagues into panic mode by screaming "GUN!" it's on you to make equally sure they know the gun is out of the picture.
None of that happened in a vacuum. Interfering with an officer in a high stress environment, no matter the intent, is defacto "picking a fight." Not immediately declaring the weapon and resisting the resulting arrest was equally ill advised and played out as it almost had to.
I appreciate your effort to calm the waters, the waters don't seem to want to be calmed, yet.
I'm not at all convinced that things would have unfolded much less violently had Pretti declared his weapon at some point, given how erratic and volatile these agents appeared to be.
I think words like "interfering" and "resisting" are being inflated here. Let's replay the tape of what exactly Pretti did: He walked in between the agent and a woman he'd just shoved into a snowbank, then turned to focus on assisting her up. At this moment there is no violent threat, he is retreating not advancing, all the power is in the agent's hands to decide what happens next in this situation. This is not one of those scenarios like when Renee Good abruptly started driving her car forward, or when an agent has to make a knife-edge decision that might cost him his life. It was this agent's decision to create a scrum where there otherwise would have been no scrum. It's not even clear if his intent was to arrest these women, or just push them around a bit. I likewise believe it sets a dangerous precedent to refer to Pretti as "resisting" after being seized, or to say the situation "had to" play out as it did at that point when it clearly did not.
I think there can be a tendency when talking about these situations to almost dehumanize LEOs by treating them like animals, electric fences, or some other non-human thing that could maul you or zap you if you get too close. We should be talking about them as free agents, not forces of nature with no control over their actions.
There have been a lot of arrests in Mnpls and no one else has been shot, Good being a different case.
Putting hands on an officer is interference, most especially in this scenario. I'm no lawyer, but I believe that is a legal standard and may be a felony.
A lot of legitimate fodder for after action analysis of the officers and that has been, and will be, done over time. My point is that Pretti used extremely poor judgement, not limited to those few minutes, and paid dearly for it. I would hate for that lesson to be lost on others.
"Putting hands on" is another unhelpful phrase being way defined down here. Pretti barely makes physical contact.
I'm not saying Pretti's judgment was maximally wise, but I fear almost no one wants to draw the "lessons" here from the extremely poor judgment on the LEOs' part, and that's what I'm drawing out since there seems to be such a reluctance to discuss it right of center.
I'm not arguing the cop's wisdom in making the arrest, that is a judgement call much easier made in hindsight. Not arresting Pretti the week before when he spit at officers and kicked out their tailight might have saved his life, or cost it earlier. He was armed then as well. The cop made a different judgement then.
I am in no way dehumanizing the cops; I am attempting to view them in the real world, hazy as it is.
You asked why people dropped their subscriptions. Your lengthy post seeming to defend the protestors as “irritating” may be a reason. Have you been subjected to the “irritating” behavior of leftist agitators? I have. I lived in Portland during 2020 where nightly violent riots made life miserable and dangerous to those who lived, worked or wanted to patronize businesses in the area. You claim they were no danger. You knew this how?
Alex Pretti shouldn’t have been interfering with a law enforcement operation. He certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun with multiple clips. He has previously assaulted ICE agents, kicked their car as they left, destroying a taillight. He sounded utterly deranged screaming and cursing. He was carrying his gun and what a blessing he didn’t pull it out and shoot them in his anger.
As I said I’ve been caught up in Antifa riots and it terrifying. I was simply trying to get to a friend’s house for strawberry shortcake when I was confronted by an Antifa barreling toward my car. He had a ski mask over his head and looked sinister. I had a split second to decide whether to stop or keep going. I kept going figuring I was safer in a moving car. He diverted and went around me.
The point is that in a volatile situation with seemingly irrational mobs, bad things happen.
Maybe rethink your assurance that Pretti and the others “meant no harm.”
You seem to have skipped over the entire opening to this post where I fully acknowledge that leftist agitators can be malicious and violently-minded. You also seem unfamiliar with my long public record on the BLM riots and wimpy clergy who couldn't find the spine to condemn them. You won't find anywhere that I've said violent Portland rioters were "no danger," because I never made such a claim.
You concluded that the agitators in Minnesota who were on the scene when Alex Pretti was killed were no danger. You know this how?
That was my point. I only brought up Portland because I had actual experience with the riots there. However if you listened to the news you’d think it was just a harmless “protest.” Whatever you saw or thought you saw watching the vid of Alex Pretti’s death cannot put you in the shoes of those BP agents.
The person responsible for Alex Pretti’s death was Alex Pretti. Trying to generate sympathy based on watching a video didn’t work for me and apparently for other subscribers.
I call balls and strikes. I have no particular sympathy for Pretti's cause. It was my judgment that he was handled recklessly and that there's a need for better protocol, as well as a need for people on the right to rethink how they generally talk about police violence.
Battle plans evaporate upon first contact with the enemy. Protocols cannot possibly cover every eventuality. We have gotten used to thinking the rioters may get in a scuffle, may throw objects, spit, scream, or destroy property. But did we think some would be carrying a loaded weapon?
Pretti’s death horrified me because that seemingly deranged man was “loose on the streets” with a loaded weapon and enough ammunition to kill dozens in those crowded and volatile situations. I have ZERO sympathy for Pretti. I have some sympathy for Renee Good who was simply stupid and got caught up in the excitement of the moment.
We have the right to peacefully assemble. We do not have the right to interfere with law enforcement, to create noise pollution, or to assault people or destroy property.
I am confused by the Border Patrol's presence. They patrol the border. So why are they in Minneapolis exactly? Isn't immigration enforcement away from the border the responsibility of a different branch of ICE, or am I misunderstanding how this works?
Unfortunately, the value of a protesters death or severe harm is of immeasurable benefit to the protester’s cause. The sheer pandemonium of noise and shoving is the secret sauce that raises the odds of capturing a gem like this for the “cause”.
Unrelated question, last year, the New Yorker had his article called,”We’re still not Done with Jesus.” It talks about Elaine Pagels’ analysis of Scripture. It described the Gospels as Greek styled fiction, basically. Have you published any articles about what the Gospels are as genre and if the writers wrote the Gospels as historical accounts? Craig Keener wrote a great book about the Gospels as ancient biography, but was interested in other perspectives. Thank you for suffering this question.
Very well said! Balanced and thoughtful. I have noticed in myself the tendency to be so fed up sick and tired and disgusted at the antics and insanity of the left that my knee jerk reaction to anything that hinders them or stops them is good. It's scary to see that in the mirror. It's scary to see that in faces and attitudes all around me left or right.
Thanks for holding up the mirror!
May the Lord have mercy.
Glad you waited to write this article. I appreciate your analysis and measured response. It is hard to find people to trust in these situations since no one seems eager to analyze a case like this carefully. Once it happened, once video came out, everyone chose a side, and stuck with it.
Additionally, I am very cynical. If this happened under any other president would people care as much? Maybe. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.
Oh probably they wouldn't. Cynicism is warranted I'm afraid.
Thanks so much for reading! Isn't it odd how even with video people's positions don't seem to shift much?
Yeah, it takes a lot of humility. You also try to give LEO the benefit of the doubt in high stress situations but clearly, based on the Administration’s actions, they know ICE went too far in this case. Border Patrol, I mean.🙂
Hear, hear. I cannot argue against this, because it's correct. At the same time, most all of us know, our country has got big problems, and for many, these problems seem to be reaching existential level. I don't think we're there yet, but I can see it, and I understand it. Existential fears drive bad arguments and worse actions.
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is a phrase I have both heard and used. It's true. The rub is, how do you uphold the Constitution without the Constitution eating itself? My mind always goes back to what John Adams said, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people." He was right.
"The Constitution is for Commies Too" Yes.... but only to a point, because the Commies are NOT for the Constitution. They will happily use it against us. We cannot pretend that there is no limit there.
All that said, it's up to us, the defenders of the Constitution to get it right. We can't afford to cut corners. All LEOs should be held to high standards, and they should be held accountable for their actions.
Thank you for this well thought out piece. Early on I wondered why Pretti would, even if he had a concealed carry permit, go out to where all kinds of upset people were doing what they were doing. I read somewhere that, before he went out (first or second time = ?), that his father said to him "Don't do anything stupid."
I used to carry with a concealed carry permit. When I went into an area where open carry was legal, I still carried concealed. I wasn't stupid!
THE WORST offender, in my opinion, was the guy who yelled "GUN" and did not yell even louder: "I GOT THE GUN!"
Yes! I see almost no one saying this!
A vital reminder that the Constitution isn’t a buffet—you can’t pick and choose whose rights to protect based on how much you dislike their politics. McGrew nails the "law of unintended consequences" here: if we cheer when the state oversteps against our enemies, we lose the standing to complain when that same power is turned on our friends. We don't need to back off our core beliefs, but we do need the foresight to anticipate their abuse. True conviction requires the discipline to protect the process, even when we loathe the person standing on the other side of it. - Thanks, Bethel, for provoking good thought amid the endless diatribes.
Carrying a weapon to an active riot scene (the entire Mnpls context over multiple weeks) and picking a fight with a cop and resisting arrest is never a good plan. You're asking a lot of the cops to sort out the mess in less than 5 seconds. One needn't celebrate the death to see that given the course of events it was inevitable. Even the governor figured out he had pushed the chaos too far.
I don't believe it's accurate or helpful to summarize Pretti's behavior as "picking a fight with a cop." It was rather the cop who was "picking a fight" with the irritating lady protesters by aggressively shoving them around, then kicking the situation into violently high gear by dragging Pretti into the street when he was walking away. If anything, Pretti appears to have been seeking to deescalate the situation.
"The mess" was indeed messy, but it could have been avoided had the first cop practiced a modicum of restraint. There was also a burden of responsibility on the cop who disarmed Pretti to make it clear that he was disarmed. Once you fling your colleagues into panic mode by screaming "GUN!" it's on you to make equally sure they know the gun is out of the picture.
None of that happened in a vacuum. Interfering with an officer in a high stress environment, no matter the intent, is defacto "picking a fight." Not immediately declaring the weapon and resisting the resulting arrest was equally ill advised and played out as it almost had to.
I appreciate your effort to calm the waters, the waters don't seem to want to be calmed, yet.
I'm not at all convinced that things would have unfolded much less violently had Pretti declared his weapon at some point, given how erratic and volatile these agents appeared to be.
I think words like "interfering" and "resisting" are being inflated here. Let's replay the tape of what exactly Pretti did: He walked in between the agent and a woman he'd just shoved into a snowbank, then turned to focus on assisting her up. At this moment there is no violent threat, he is retreating not advancing, all the power is in the agent's hands to decide what happens next in this situation. This is not one of those scenarios like when Renee Good abruptly started driving her car forward, or when an agent has to make a knife-edge decision that might cost him his life. It was this agent's decision to create a scrum where there otherwise would have been no scrum. It's not even clear if his intent was to arrest these women, or just push them around a bit. I likewise believe it sets a dangerous precedent to refer to Pretti as "resisting" after being seized, or to say the situation "had to" play out as it did at that point when it clearly did not.
I think there can be a tendency when talking about these situations to almost dehumanize LEOs by treating them like animals, electric fences, or some other non-human thing that could maul you or zap you if you get too close. We should be talking about them as free agents, not forces of nature with no control over their actions.
There have been a lot of arrests in Mnpls and no one else has been shot, Good being a different case.
Putting hands on an officer is interference, most especially in this scenario. I'm no lawyer, but I believe that is a legal standard and may be a felony.
A lot of legitimate fodder for after action analysis of the officers and that has been, and will be, done over time. My point is that Pretti used extremely poor judgement, not limited to those few minutes, and paid dearly for it. I would hate for that lesson to be lost on others.
"Putting hands on" is another unhelpful phrase being way defined down here. Pretti barely makes physical contact.
I'm not saying Pretti's judgment was maximally wise, but I fear almost no one wants to draw the "lessons" here from the extremely poor judgment on the LEOs' part, and that's what I'm drawing out since there seems to be such a reluctance to discuss it right of center.
I'm not arguing the cop's wisdom in making the arrest, that is a judgement call much easier made in hindsight. Not arresting Pretti the week before when he spit at officers and kicked out their tailight might have saved his life, or cost it earlier. He was armed then as well. The cop made a different judgement then.
I am in no way dehumanizing the cops; I am attempting to view them in the real world, hazy as it is.
You asked why people dropped their subscriptions. Your lengthy post seeming to defend the protestors as “irritating” may be a reason. Have you been subjected to the “irritating” behavior of leftist agitators? I have. I lived in Portland during 2020 where nightly violent riots made life miserable and dangerous to those who lived, worked or wanted to patronize businesses in the area. You claim they were no danger. You knew this how?
Alex Pretti shouldn’t have been interfering with a law enforcement operation. He certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun with multiple clips. He has previously assaulted ICE agents, kicked their car as they left, destroying a taillight. He sounded utterly deranged screaming and cursing. He was carrying his gun and what a blessing he didn’t pull it out and shoot them in his anger.
As I said I’ve been caught up in Antifa riots and it terrifying. I was simply trying to get to a friend’s house for strawberry shortcake when I was confronted by an Antifa barreling toward my car. He had a ski mask over his head and looked sinister. I had a split second to decide whether to stop or keep going. I kept going figuring I was safer in a moving car. He diverted and went around me.
The point is that in a volatile situation with seemingly irrational mobs, bad things happen.
Maybe rethink your assurance that Pretti and the others “meant no harm.”
You seem to have skipped over the entire opening to this post where I fully acknowledge that leftist agitators can be malicious and violently-minded. You also seem unfamiliar with my long public record on the BLM riots and wimpy clergy who couldn't find the spine to condemn them. You won't find anywhere that I've said violent Portland rioters were "no danger," because I never made such a claim.
You concluded that the agitators in Minnesota who were on the scene when Alex Pretti was killed were no danger. You know this how?
That was my point. I only brought up Portland because I had actual experience with the riots there. However if you listened to the news you’d think it was just a harmless “protest.” Whatever you saw or thought you saw watching the vid of Alex Pretti’s death cannot put you in the shoes of those BP agents.
The person responsible for Alex Pretti’s death was Alex Pretti. Trying to generate sympathy based on watching a video didn’t work for me and apparently for other subscribers.
You asked. I gave you my opinion.
I call balls and strikes. I have no particular sympathy for Pretti's cause. It was my judgment that he was handled recklessly and that there's a need for better protocol, as well as a need for people on the right to rethink how they generally talk about police violence.
Battle plans evaporate upon first contact with the enemy. Protocols cannot possibly cover every eventuality. We have gotten used to thinking the rioters may get in a scuffle, may throw objects, spit, scream, or destroy property. But did we think some would be carrying a loaded weapon?
Pretti’s death horrified me because that seemingly deranged man was “loose on the streets” with a loaded weapon and enough ammunition to kill dozens in those crowded and volatile situations. I have ZERO sympathy for Pretti. I have some sympathy for Renee Good who was simply stupid and got caught up in the excitement of the moment.
We have the right to peacefully assemble. We do not have the right to interfere with law enforcement, to create noise pollution, or to assault people or destroy property.
I am confused by the Border Patrol's presence. They patrol the border. So why are they in Minneapolis exactly? Isn't immigration enforcement away from the border the responsibility of a different branch of ICE, or am I misunderstanding how this works?
My understanding is that they are there so ICE can actually do their job, since there is so much needed crowd control. They are reinforcements.
My understanding is that they are there so ICE can actually do their job, since there is so much needed crowd control. They are reinforcements.
Unfortunately, the value of a protesters death or severe harm is of immeasurable benefit to the protester’s cause. The sheer pandemonium of noise and shoving is the secret sauce that raises the odds of capturing a gem like this for the “cause”.
Unrelated question, last year, the New Yorker had his article called,”We’re still not Done with Jesus.” It talks about Elaine Pagels’ analysis of Scripture. It described the Gospels as Greek styled fiction, basically. Have you published any articles about what the Gospels are as genre and if the writers wrote the Gospels as historical accounts? Craig Keener wrote a great book about the Gospels as ancient biography, but was interested in other perspectives. Thank you for suffering this question.
Oho, have I! Here's Part 1 in a series.
https://www.furtherup.net/p/the-case-of-the-four-gospels-part
He was a commie jerk who asked for it and got it. You don’t give much content and then you put out this? I’m unsubscribing.
Hi Mark. This post is free. I put out three exclusive posts last month which is a fairly normal pace for me. But thanks for reading.