>> "The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming."
You've misread your link. The "violently resisted" quote is from a tweet by DHS, not local police: https://xcancel.com/DHSgov/status/2015115351797780500
> The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted on X further details about what led up to the shooting. "DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here," the post reads.
> O'Hara said that Pretti was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit.
> "The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming."
> The DHS wrote that when a federal agent feared for his life, "an agent fired defensive shots." The post also noted that the "suspect" had "2 magazines and no ID."
By any ordinary reading of prose, the article is attributing the quote to O'Hara.
A previous example:
You can watch the video for yourself of an ICE masked thug grabbing a man's carotid artery, when NOT facing a deadly threat, against DOJ rules. You can watch him seize and his eyes roll back. And you can choose to believe your eyes or DHS' lies. What do you think, zahlman?
See full context here: https://www.propublica.org/article/videos-ice-dhs-immigratio...
> In a social media post after the incident and in its statement to ProPublica, DHS did not cite a deadly threat. Instead, it referenced the charges against Zapata Rivera’s wife and suggested he had only pretended to have a medical crisis while refusing help from paramedics. “Imagine FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice,” the post said.
Just visit the link I posted, this will take you two seconds to verify.
https://abc7ny.com/post/minneapolis-shooting-today-federal-a... attributes the quote to DHS
https://www.tpr.org/news/2026-01-24/man-shot-dead-by-federal... says it came from a DHS statement.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/live-updates/reported-shoo... -minneapolis-federal-agents-protesters/ is, I think, the article you say suggests O'Hara said this, but I believe it was originally incorrect and updated since then
https://x.com/Sec_Noem/status/2015202988923711951 is the tweet from the government using the direct wording
Also, to be obviously, the statement you attributed to O'Hara is inconsistent with what he would say given his role.
While I totally appreciate that you don't like people using emotional verbiage or making false conclusions biased by their own beliefs, the reality here is that basically no objective independent observer would say that the government's statements are true and accurate. And I also think that careful analysis of the videos by that same observer would conclude the agents made an egregious error in the heat of the moment. Constantly doubling down about how you're the rational one, when there is ample evidence otherwise simply weakens your own position and makes people less likely to bother reading what you have to say.
No need to read press releases, your own eyes and ears.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross did her research solely on people who were dying: people with terminal illnesses, and she studied how they coped with facing their own mortality. Not how other people did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_K%C3%BCbler-Ross
And of course, even for a dying person, this may be total bunk. It is not like some programmed flowchart that people go through five stages of emotional stuff. This is just, like, a framework for further therapy.
I'm actually studying this stuff right now. In the 1980s and 1990s, "The Five Stages of Grief" were basically a household phrase, and everybody talked about them like they were real and true and invariable. But everyone doing the talking had never actually studied the research or even knew who proposed it. They were just parroting headlines.
(Ps I’m sad you deleted your comment to me in the other thread , I was enjoying our conversation, even if you seem a little emotionally disregulated and unstable)
Here's the facts as I see them: A protestor who had a gun he was legally allowed to carry got involved in an incident with ICE/Border Patrol. The protestor was interacting with the agents and other protestors, at which point BP or ICE pepper sprayed him and took him down to the ground. At least 4 different federal officers were physically holding him. at this point it appears they disarmed him (unclear) and then shortly after, shot him.
At no point did the protestor hold the gun in a threatening way while approaching, when he was taken down he did not have a gun in his hands, and while down, it's very unlikely he could access the gun and use it in a way that any reasonable officer would feel unsafe and be required to shoot the protestor.
Based on the videos I've watched, the protestor made some ill-advised choices getting physically involved, but there was no reason for him to be shot. I read various online conservative communities (to try to understand their reasoning) and nearly all the posts I see seem to think that ICE/BP truly made an error here, possibly due to poor training.
I understand your point about the use of emotional terms, I try to avoid them and instead focus on facts and known unknowns, but in this particular situation, it's pretty clear that ICE/BP made an egregious error in a way that is clearly obvious to everybody (even those who would normally support the federal officers) and in denying this, the federal leadership is undermining itself. This is a situation where they could de-escalate and not immediately blame the protestor, while focusing on increasing the training of the ICE/BP officers, rather than taking an aggresive posture.
Not an error. Intentional murder since those victims of unsuccessful abortion know that they are getting away with it.
Given that the Trump goon running this shit show (Bovino) has a fetish for Wehrmacht/SS greatcoats (it looks like an M36 from the photos I've seen) and the behaviour of the ICE goons in general, I'm not so sure it was an error.
My wife who is very offline saw a Bovino photo yesterday and asked me point blank “why is he dressed like a Nazi? he looks like that guy from Man In The High Castle”
He knows, he knows we know, he is proud of it
That said, even our (US) military leadership wore outfits like that (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/style/gregory-bovino-ice-...)
What I also find extraordinary is that there is no consistent uniform, for example if you watch the video this post refers to, all the agents are wearing random combinations of personal clothing ("tactical" or "hunting") which makes them look more like a militia than federal officers.
not totally random, that black and white velcro American flag-like patch seems to be a common sight, like all the temu/amazon/walmart mallninja stuff.
its easy to obtain, and coupled with masking, makes it easy pickings for imposters.
none of these guys seem to be wearing helmets, and it seems questionable regarding actual ballistic armor in thier carriers.
The language being used by the president to describe immigrants is on par with how the enemy was talked about during the war on terror. ICE has been told they are immune from prosecution, and the recruitment videos are basically white nationalist cosplay.
Now they are being surged, masked, poorly uniformed, poorly trained into US cities, as if they were Fallujah.
All that happens afterwards is inevitable.
This would imply it was an unintentional mistake which is far from obvious. If they recognized it was an egregious error the perpetrators would be prosecuted and they won’t be.
> training of the ICE/BP officers
What makes you think it’s something they want to avoid repeating in the future? (Not /s)
I’m not sure how you can possibly make that assertion. They disarmed him and then they shot him.
These investigators are not amateurs, and that’s putting it lightly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat
Depends on how you define the word. But yes?
Their decision to escalate the situation in the first place is a clear indication of that.
> no longer posing a physical threat?
Can you show a video of the gun leaving its holster before that then? Or are you saying that merely possessing a firearm regardless of circumstances is grounds for an immediate execution?
This has already been proven to be a lie thanks to the five different videos of the incident in question. They shot him after removing his legal weapon for concealed carry that he was permitted to have on his person.
Oooph. Just watch it.
My patience level is now in the negatives with these kinds of posts, especially the ones that are more upset about people being mean to them than the execution of citizens using their constitutional rights.
Is that right?
Here is a stabilized version: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qlyj9h/i_did_...
After that agent takes the gun, the agent standing immediately to the left draws and fires into Pretti's back.
Prediction: no answer
It does matter to me. Of course it does matter.
The presumption that it wouldn't matter is why I'm getting so annoyed with these discussions.
I have seen other analyses now, offsite, from people I trust that concur with this shooting not being justified.
So will you now go back and edit all your comments where you adamantly argue that everyone else is incorrect and that the shooting was justified? Or will you leave them up without any redactions or corrections?
One video [1] shows someone walking away from the scene with a gun a fraction of a second before the shooting begins. But I can't see that the gun was removed from the protester.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1qlvpbr/footage_of_the...
I don't mean to diminish the importance of the shooting, which is horrific no matter what one makes of the photos.
It might be clearer if the agents were wearing bodycam videos and that footage was released.
I'm sure you'll still find something in there to quibble with, so have at it. Like, you can't see the guys hands, so maybe he had a second weapon! Could happen!
I don't know if this is your intent or not, but by engaging in this kind of framing you're essentially saying that all violence[1] is excusable by default. We're supposed to live in a society where the opposite is true, I thought.
[1] All violence by your allied authority figures, that is. We both know you wouldn't grant the same grace and charity to the intentions of the protestors.
I have nothing to quibble with the video you linked (which I think must have been released since I made my comment, or I missed it), that makes the order of events a lot clearer, I can see the gun being taken now, and the timing of the shot.
> whether the protestor could possibly have wielded their gun while being restrained by agents, or whether he is disarmed by the gray-jacketed agent, or what caused the agents to fire when they did
Is a list of excuses for the shooting (to wit: "maybe he wielded the gun", "maybe he wasn't disarmed", "maybe they had cause to fire"). It's all things that would have (arguably) made it justified. You'll have to forgive me if I took that for a clear indication of your opinion here.
Like, if you look at something and say "Well, it looks like X happened, but I don't know", it's neutral. If you say "It looks like X happened, but I don't know because it could have been Y or Z instead', you're pretty clearly constructing a sideways argument that "X did not happen". And thus, you'll end up being painted as an X denialist by people on the internet too lazy to find your comment history.
More importantly, when X is phrased in a way that implies intent or motives not in evidence, or plays up the injustice of X in legally irrelevant ways, that's reason to push back in an open Internet discussion.
That's the part that dekhn skipped above, and which I called out. In point of fact "Y and Z" are clearly shown to be false per the evidence, so pontificating about them amounts to pure spin. Creative storytelling in defense of a political point is very bad to begin with, doing it in defense of a killing is horrifying.
To dekhn's credit, he seems shamed enough to be yelling about the implication. I'm not sure that you've made that leap yet.
I disagree that it has that effect. With the assumption of good faith, comments like GP aren't fishing around for an excuse; the point is to highlight what's legally relevant and where there is room to disagree with the interpretation of video.
I don't think it's plausible that defense for the agents would clutch for a straw like "maybe he had a second weapon". That seems sarcastic and not interested in engaging with the argument seriously.
I've seen a couple different videos now (not from any links ITT) and the most commonly shown one seems to have something obscuring the camera at a critical moment. Nevertheless, it seems highly probable that the man is indeed disarmed well before the first shot. But there will still be more that matters:
* Was the first shot fired by an officer who knew that the weapon had already been taken? In particular, could there have been any miscommunication between the officers?
* Did the victim know the weapon had been taken? I don't think it would be likely to succeed in court, but to my understanding the defense could raise the argument that one or more officers perceived that the victim still intended to draw and fire it.
Ultimately, it boils down to establishing whether there was a reasonable perception, on the part of any officer that fired (I can't tell from the video I've seen who fired or how many shots or anything like that), of a threat from the victim meeting the legal standard to respond with lethal force. This is based on "totality of the circumstances" (as in things the officers knew leading up to the moment of shooting), but specifically based on what a reasonable officer would have been able to deduce in the moment (a high-pressure situation), without the benefit of hindsight.
Most analyses I've seen thus far agree that there was not any solid defense here. Certainly it seems much more likely that someone is going to prison for this than in the Renee Good case. The DHS says they will be investigating.
You can’t count the number of gunshots? Huh. And here I thought your handle meant zahl + man.
I did later find video where the gunshots are much more clear.
> [1] All violence by your allied authority figures, that is. We both know you wouldn't grant the same grace and charity to the intentions of the protestors.
This is a disgraceful ad hominem attack. The previous poster's comment is entirely sensible, and it takes a great deal of intellectual dishonesty to portray it as a defense of ICE in any way.
> it takes a great deal of intellectual dishonesty to portray it as a defense of ICE in any way
Regardless of your opinion, I'll portray it as a defense of ICE, anyway.
> > So a U.S. citizen who is a legal, permitted gun owner with no outstanding criminal charges, legally carrying in public, who complies with the law and informs a DHS officer that they are legally carrying, is effectively subject to summary execution without due process.... a federal officer shooting and killing a legal gun owner solely for possessing a gun in their presence.
> This completely misrepresents what happened.
I don't strictly disagree with the idea that "solely for having a gun" is a misrepresentation, either (after all, the ICE agents had guns and they weren't executed), but it's not a "complete" misrepresentation. (The actual misrepresentation is that the victim was helping someone who was being abused by the agents and he had a gun.) Calling it a "complete misrepresentation" is seeking to emotionally prime the reader against the supposed illogic in the parent comment. That is indeed a defense of the ICE agents (and such defenses and excuses can be seen throughout their comment history, hence, I presume, the ad hominem).
Somehow, still, I doubt that's the framing zahlman would accept about the situation, especially given their (obvious) defense of ICE's actions in their initial comment. Yes, the ad hominem statement you refer to should not have been included. But it is surely not intellectually dishonest regardless of how inappropriate it is for this forum. Given the quote from their initial comment, it seems that said dishonesty cuts the other direction.
But also, my defense is not about treating protestors uncharitably. Telling me "We both know you wouldn't grant the same grace and charity to the intentions of the protestors." would still be ad hominem, because my arguments do not rely upon protestors being malicious.
Except for the physical obstruction of justice aspect, which isn't in question. 1A doesn't give people the right to get in an LEO's way when that officer is actively trying to enforce law. Protestors shouldn't physically be in the path of on-duty law enforcement if they expect not to get arrested. Arrest is a natural consequence of "civil disobedience". For a more extreme example, "freedom of assembly" for me and my friends does not extend as far as "assembling" in a tight circle around you that denies your freedom of movement. (Note: I am neither an American citizen nor an American resident, but these principles are not difficult to understand, and not sufficiently different from Canadian law to matter for this discussion.)
But for example in the Good case, I don't believe she intended to run over the officer, but that doesn't matter to the officer's perception of threat. And in point of fact, he was struck (although NYT reported that he wasn't "run over", and then other outlets presented this as if he wasn't struck).
At no point did I claim not to be defending the ICE agents, so let's please not talk about intellectual dishonesty there.
----
Regarding the bit you quoted from me:
I responded prematurely to the situation based on my experience from every single previous discussion of ICE agents I found myself in. I don't see how there's a problem with offering a defense of ICE in general. You can't just say that one side of an argument is barred, if you're going to have a discussion at all. (And the reason HN permits political submissions like this is because they want people in tech to have discussions. The relationship of the story to tech is tangential at best.)
I said "completely misrepresents" because "solely for having a gun" is completely false, and because it should be rejected as absurd a priori. That's just not how entanglements with law enforcement play out, and ignores that probably many lawful gun owners were rightly ignored (given that MN allows concealed carry of handguns). People are seriously now arguing as if they believe that a Republican government is stripping away 2A rights by force. I don't understand how that could possibly pass anyone's sniff test.
But I also said it because it's part of a long string of loaded language — the stuff I went on to dissect. The victim's virtue is played up, seemingly to make the event seem more egregious, even though it's clearly irrelevant to the cause of action. Or else it's being played up to try to bolster the "solely for" case by denying other reasons for the shoot. Regardless of whether it was justified (I agree that it will likely not be found justified), the actual cause of action is clear.
(Having seen multiple videos now, I can't hear the part where Pretti supposedly "informs a DHS officer that he is legally carrying". The part where one of the officers is shouting about he has a gun, would seem to contradict that; because it comes across that the officer first saying it is surprised to see that he has a gun.)
Most importantly, "effectively subject to summary execution without due process" is an unreasonable way to characterize LEO use of lethal force, both in general and I believe in this specific instance. One or more people messed up and this guy shouldn't have gotten shot. But that is miles away from what it would actually take to justify that phrasing. That would require:
* everyone who shot could clearly see, from their own perspectives, that the gun had already been taken away;
* before firing, they took enough time to respond to that change in the situation;
* at the time of firing, they had the mens rea that the victim should die as punishment for what had happened up to that point.
These are simply things that you can't prove with video footage like this. I can't even tell who shot. It's a chaotic scramble recorded from distant third-person perspectives, with important parts of the action obscured from line of sight by other important parts of the action. Yes, there's enough to see the gun being taken away before gunshots (apparently) but that's a lucky break considering everything else. (When I first saw the footage from the angle on the street, I thought it was happening on the sidewalk rather than in front of the parked car; of course the other angle being from the sidewalk disproves that.)
Anyway, I simply can't fathom how you think that the term "complete misrepresentation" is "seeking to emotionally prime the reader". Like, what words could I possibly use instead that aren't supposedly emotionally manipulative, given that I actually did sincerely consider the statement a complete misrepresentation?
For that matter, I think your characterization "helping someone who was being abused by the agents and he had a gun." is still misrepresentative. He was obstructing and resisting. And, yes, he had a gun, which is dangerous any time one gets in a physical altercation with any kind of LEO. People with CC permits should understand that.
An ad hominem argument is an argument constructed around characteristics of a person outside the bounds of what is being discussed. Inferring someone's opinion[1] about the subject under discussion from their text, and explicitly marking so in my text when doing so, is just "debate". Am I wrong? Say I'm wrong and cite why.
Don't call me "disgraceful". Why? Because THAT is an ad hominem attack. In fact the clear offense being taken makes it pretty clear to me that my point landed closer than maybe you're prepared to admit.
[1] You cleverly skipped the point where I even admitted I might be wrong!
"Ad hominem attack" is commonly used to just mean saying something insulting or uncharitable.
> Inferring someone's opinion
You accused that dekhn would treat people unfairly, based on no apparent evidence:
> We both know you wouldn't grant the same grace and charity to the intentions of the protestors.
This is an accusation that the other person is knowingly biased. And it is not, in fact, an inference of "opinion".
> Say I'm wrong and cite why.
There are reasons to object to a comment on the Internet other than being "wrong". Which is what's happening here.
> Don't call me "disgraceful". Why? Because THAT is an ad hominem attack.
You were not called "disgraceful". Your commentary was called disgraceful.
> In fact the clear offense being taken makes it pretty clear to me that my point landed closer than maybe you're prepared to admit.
The person taking offense, the person your comment referred to, and I (the person you originally replied to ITT) are three separate people.
> You cleverly skipped the point where I even admitted I might be wrong!
The only thing in your comment that could be interpreted as such as "I don't know if this is your intent or not"; but that does not refer to the commentary being called out here as an ad hominem attack.
You're right about that. I'm sorry.
No further comment from me in this thread.
It's exactly what this was, though. He was disarmed before being shoved to the ground and beaten with a gas grenade. There is another video which shows that his hands are on the ground or in front of his face, the entire time he's down, long before he's shot.
Watch the fucking videos.
You know you can watch the videos yourself