So reads the "Statement by President Obama and Mrs. Obama," posted on X by Barack Obama.
For weeks now, people across the country have been rightly outraged by the spectacle of masked ICE recruits and other federal agents acting with impunity and engaging in tactics that seem designed to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city. These unprecedented tactics—which even the former top lawyer of the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration has characterized as embarrassing, lawless and cruel—have now resulted in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens. And yet rather than trying to impose some semblance of discipline and accountability over the agents they've deployed, the President and current administration officials seem eager to escalate the situation, while offering public explanations for the shootings of Mr. Pretti and Renee Good that aren't informed by any serious investigation—and that appear to be directly contradicted by video evidence.
This has to stop. I would hope that after this most recent tragedy, administration officials will reconsider their approach, and start finding ways to work constructively with Governor Walz and Mayor Frey as well as state and local police to avert more chaos and achieve legitimate law enforcement goals.
In the meantime, every American should support and draw inspiration from the wave of peaceful protests in Minneapolis and other parts of the country. They are a timely reminder that ultimately it's up to each of us as citizens to speak out against injustice, protect our basic freedoms, and hold our government accountable.
I think that's well composed, as far as it goes. But it offers nothing to the people who voted for a presidential candidate who won the election while offering to enforce immigration law, that is, the people voted for Trump in 2016 and 2024 and the people who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012.
There is order and chaos on both sides of the discord in Minnesota. Obama criticizes the Trump side for its chaos but gives no credit for the order it is working to achieve. The Trump opponents are praised for their "peaceful protests," with no mention of their less-than-peaceful protests and nothing about solving the problem of illegal immigration or even acknowledging that it has been a problem.
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220 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 220 of 220OldManRick said...
Quick observation on the incident.
There is talk that the gun Pretti carried went off when the agent removed it from him. This lead the other officer to believe that Pretti had the gun and was shooting.
In either case, it means that Pretti was carrying a gun with a chambered round.
Check with your concealed carry advocates and you will find that this is really stupid and against all unwritten rules of concealed carry. Accidents happen and they happen more often when a round is chambered.
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I don''t know where you took your conceal carry class but that is not what my instructor, 30 years in law enforcement, told my class. Why does a person carry a weapon? For protection when their life is threatened. If someone is getting ready to kill you, you better be ready to draw and fire quickly. The last thing you want to do is take time to chamber a round. By that time you could be dead. We were told to not only make sure we had a round chambered but to pull our mag after to replace the chambered round. You might need every round you can get. Preventing an accidental discharge is what your safety is for. Don't want to have to thumb off a safety? Carry a Glock. Make sure you get plenty of practice drawing and firing (dry firing works if you can't get to the range) your life could depend on it.
Obama’s dad walked out on him when he was young. That accounts for 3/8ths of his issues.
He’s upset because his legacy is Wally Pipp.
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Laken Riley, among others was unavailable for comment.
The legitimate fear is that Trump will rig the US midterm elections this November to stop a widely forecast Republican defeat. But he is robbing himself of the means to get away with it.
"The officer needs to show his shooting to kill was reasonably necessary to prevent death or serious bodily harm."
Nope. The state has the burden of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, by a unanimous jury. These are, of course, what the prosecution has to do with each element in a felony charge in any criminal case. Think of self defense as just another element that has to be disproven. Except, at least awhile back, where the burden was on the party claiming SD, by a preponderance of the evidence. But the burden of proof in the other 49 states (and USG) is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t SD.
“Although a jury might throw the law out the window, that's not the legal standard. The officer only has to show that he reasonably believed that, regardless of if it's true or not. He's not expected to have god-like knowledge or to sacrifice his life to make sure.”
Exactly.
Bruce Hayden, thanks for the correction. I should not have suggested that the burden was on the defendant.
Carrying a firearm when protesting is not, per se, illegal. Unless the person carrying the gun committed a crime, which Pretti did, trying to interfere with an arrest by federal LEOs. Which may have violated the requirements of his carry permit. But he also violated those conditions, by not carrying his permit.
But that all is all probably irrelevant here. The rules of self defense still pretty much operate, even if the gun utilized is illegal for the guy using it. There are cases that clear the defendant from the murder (etc) if he was using a gun that he legally couldn’t have, but the additional charge of illegally possessing the gun stood.
So, it’s not really a legal question. Rather it was a stupidity problem. One of the first things that you learn in a CCW class is that if you ever deal with police, while armed, don’t fight them, don’t interfere with them performing their duties, etc. Pretti pretty much had two choices: he could remove his gun, or he could stand on the sidelines and not interfere. Instead, he chose #3 - winning a Darwin Award. Simply put, you don’t screw with cops when armed. Ever.
What’s a bit scary is that there are Dem politicians and others on the left suggesting that protesters arm up and get concealed carry permits, in order to protect themselves against federal LEOs. This is idiotic, and liable to get some more of them killed. Because you pretty much don’t have self defense rights against cops.
While the optics of ICE officers firing 10 shots into an unarmed man may be less than ideal for the administration, the politics around immigration still seem to favor Republican.
Kakistocracy said...
"The legitimate fear is that Trump will rig the US midterm elections this November to stop a widely forecast Republican defeat. But he is robbing himself of the means to get away with it."
Well, then we definitely need voter ID and get rid of mail in and early voting. We need to verify ever registered voter. I'm sure you'll agree.
"I'm sure you'll agree."
I'd like to see the betting line on *that*.
Stephen gets it backwards as usual. Texas shows that the fed gov knows how to cooperate with states; how could they cooperate with a state that is in open insurrection?
Leftists' core values are not America's. They should stop imagining that they speak for America. They don't. In fact, they don't even qualify as fellow citizens, being uniformly anti-nationalist.
"so, just to recap:
according to our lefties:
The Police SHOULD HAVE KNOWN
that Pretti boy WASN'T going to shoot anyone with the gun he had"
Well, given that Pretti never had his hand on his gun and was focused on helping another person on the ground when the ICE Thugs attacked him, and given that one of the ICE Thugs actually pulled Pretti's holstered gun FROM its holster and stepped away, leaving Pretti DISARMED...FUCKING YES they should have know not only that Pretti wasn't going to shoot anyone with the (holstered) gun he (had) had, they should have (and DID) know he COULD NOT shoot anyone at all. Pretti's murder by multiple ICE murderers was a communal act...a "mass murder," but not murder of many by one, but a murder of one by many.
To paraphrase John Kerry... Who will be the last American to die defending the Democrats illegal immigration and fraud schemes?
“FUCKING YES they should have know not only that Pretti wasn't going to shoot anyone with the (holstered) gun he (had) had, they should have (and DID) know he COULD NOT shoot anyone at all.”
Sounds good doesn’t it? Except, in legal terms, there is no “they” here. What matters is what each shooter (assuming more than one) individually knew and had experienced, immediately prior to them pulling their guns and aerating Pretti. It’s always hard pinning any sort of common knowledge on government employees. Harder for LEOs. And nearly impossible in this situation.
Here it was almost impossible due to the protesters having made accurate communications among the federal agents involved, with their rapid coalescing around the incident, in large numbers, all blowing their whistles and screaming loudly. That naturally led to the federal agents having an extremely hard time communicating verbally, among themselves. The result, apparently, was a lack of common knowledge about what the other federal agents knew, at the critical time.
The one command that pretty much every cop in the country recognizes instantly, and esp in larger departments, is a yelled “Gun!” They are taught to instantly draw their gun, and defend themselves by neutralizing the threat. That appears to have been going on here, with the Feds scrupulously using non-lethal techniques and munitions to try to pacify and apprehend Pretti. Then, at an instant, upon hearing the “Gun!” trigger, they all immediately shifted from non-deadly apprehension mode, to deadly defense mode.
What that means is that there was no Murder, because none of the federal agents had the requisite scienter or intent. Maybe some level of Manslaughter, but likely not even that. They were just doing their job, which included, by that point, trying to subdue and arrest Pretti, and then responded just as a million other cops, nationwide, would have responded, when hearing “Gun!” from another LEO.
That’s why Pretti earned himself a Darwin Award that day.
Add here, that the last person that the Trump Administration wants involved in the investigation of this shooting is MN AG Keith Ellison. He is very likely the one individual most responsible for the BLM riots, by prosecuting four cops, who were just doing their jobs, as they were taught to do, losing them their jobs, and making them do time.
He did it for political reasons, He got his BLM riots. And did it by his prosecutors knowingly utilizing false evidence at trial. The technique they utilized was designed to protect detainees, undergoing narcotics ODs, from aspirating on their own vomit. Floyd was in the police car, until he started exhibiting significant OD symptoms (from his fentanyl OD), at which time, he was removed from there, and put in that restraint position, to wait for the ambulance, in route, with the call having been upgraded from Code 2 to Code 3, but was delayed by the hostile crowds that had gathered.
Let me reiterate that - the restraint position that Floyd was placed in was for his protection, to prevent him from aspiration on his own vomit, as a result of his (self induced) narcotics (fentanyl, in this case) overdose. Ellison’s prosecutors introduced evidence that it wasn’t PD SOP. It was. It was taught at the police academy, that three of the officers had recently graduated from. Ellison’s prosecutors knew this, but convinced the jury of the exact opposite. And had their expert convince the jury that the restraint position that they placed him in, killed him, instead of his very obvious narcotics OD (despite video evidence of his symptoms, and more than enough fentanyl in his system to have killed him). And despite no bruising, whatsoever, that would have restrained his breathing.
Ellison is a hyperpartisan lying shitweasel. The absolute last person you would want investigating this shooting.
Bruce, thanks for the useful summary of the actual state of the law.
But I would like to be a little more pointed here about something - - Gusty, and everybody else, would you please please just drop the "with a gun " nonsense?
Here, let me fix it for you:
"when it comes to getting in a physical altercation with law enforcement ̶w̶h̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶r̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶u̶n̶ the tie goes to the cops".
With a gun, without a gun, doesn't affect the conclusion.
“ Iran was not permanently giving up enriching uranium beyond 5%. That is a fact. That leaves nuclear weapons on the table. Trump is hell bent on not allowing that, ever, for the sake of all of our families. The hell the regime has reigned on its own population is what it would do everywhere.”
A day out two ago, Sec State Rubio stated that they had significant evidence that the Iranian strategy was to build up their ballistic missile arsenal to the level where they could build nuclear weapons behind their ballistic missile defense shield. And do it by convincing their neighbors of annihilation from their massive stock of ballistic missiles, if they din’t go along. Crazy? Maybe. But, remember, that Iran was run by a fanatical nihilist death cult. And to this end, they were building these ballistic missiles like crazy, beggaring their people as a consequence, and keeping them in their place by brutally murdering as many of its citizens as needed.
Trump and his top people knew this. But more importantly, the Israelis knew this, and being Israelis, they were planning on taking out the Iranian leadership, sooner, and not later, knowing that a significant number of those ballistic missiles would be coming their way. Possibly in such numbers that they couldn’t defend against them. Essentially they were facing an existential threat.
The Israelis couldn’t trust the Dems to maintain OpSec, nor keep on their side. Esp now that their party is filled with Muslims and a lot of antisemites. But they did trust Trump. So far, he had done exactly what he said that he would do. Plus, much of their negotiate were being done by the major architect of the Abrahamic Accords - Trump’s SIL and their fellow Jew, Jared Kushner (who was so burned out by Trump 45 that he was going to sit out Trump 47).
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