ICE goons murder of Alex Pretti show us a true version of citizen heroism!

By Donald A. Collins | 3 February 2026
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

As we keep watching that huge crowd of protesters in Minneapolis, walking in 5° weather, one is absolutely feeling elevated by their courage.

I was particularly moved to watch TV when Anderson Cooper interviewed Shella Carlson who stood with her cell phone camera photographing the six ICE agents pinning Alex Petti to the ground, and then firing 10 shots into his body to murder him. “I watched him die”, she said after filming from 5 to 10 feet away.

Carlson’s heroism represented those over 100,000 marchers as Alex Pretti as tried to help another women being assaulted by these same thugs and got murdered for no reason!

Becoming a hero is in most cases, not truly understood by those who become heroes until they are! You can think about Rosa Parks or many others who got less credit and were killed, but who were showing enormous courage in doing what they perceived to be the right thing at the right time.

After Shella Carlson in her pink jacket produced the evidence that Pretti was murdered, she then had the bravery to go on CNN television with Anderson Cooper to describe exactly what happened. The narrative she voiced so beautifully articulated.

She expects to be pursued by Trump’s forces or even just crazy people his attacks provoke.

I know that most bright people who care about our country and have an interest in public affairs watch a considerable amount of television and try to stay alert to news developments as they break.

However, this interview you will wish to look and listen to. Carlson explains so much of what we are facing today as the Trump administration moves relentlessly, cruelly maliciously toward the authoritarian state that he is pursuing with the help of fascists Stephen Miller and his inner circle.

As is now evident, most voters understand that the cover-up on these murders has utterly failed, and that claims that there will be an investigation by the department of justice or the FBI makes those claims laughable or horrifying.

Trump’s career has centered, not only on cruelty, lying, and ruthless manipulation of his power, but now is focused on his efforts to intimidate any who would be brave enough to question the power he can wheel as president of the United States.

He has also ready committed treason, he has been convicted as a felon, he has destroyed our reputation overseas and has looted promising places using his office.

I simply can’t imagine how Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the rest of the GOP who continue to tolerate this behavior and fail to take action against anyone who would destroy a democracy that is now under great threat after 250 years.

So we must salute those protesters, not only in Minneapolis, but also those who marched around the country understanding now that affordability is important, but democracy rest on the ability to obey the rules.

So far except for the Supreme Court, which has fallen down by kissing Trump’s ring frequently, most judges in our judiciary system from both parties, have not permitted many of the lawsuits to proceed that Trump has undertaken based on laws that simply don’t apply to the crimes they are alleged committed!

Perfect example is Don Lemon who three judges declined to indict above will now suffer harassment from a grand jury who again will likely not be able to bring him to trial, although that is not certain.

Again, leave attacks on the press will continue and those independent reporters who do not have the financial resources Lemon has may be intimidated not to write stories that might subject them to attack.

On January 28 2026 CNN piece entitled ‘We all have to be brave’: Meet the woman whose video of Alex Pretti’s killing contradicted the administration’s claims” By Michael Williams. Here’s the full article.

Stella Carlson was supposed to spend Saturday morning painting children’s faces at a church. It would have been a welcome contrast to the weekslong onslaught of federal immigration enforcement and protests that have overwhelmed her home in the Twin Cities.

Being an active participant in her community is important for Carlson, and she had spent the last three weeks learning about mutual aid and participating in grassroots efforts to warn her neighbors of impending federal immigration action. The fatal shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer earlier this month proved to Carlson and other Minnesotans that the potential for danger as an observer was not abstract.

“I know every time I leave my vehicle or leave my house and I put that whistle around my neck, I know because of Renee Good, the risk,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during an interview Tuesday. “I think we all knew after that happened, it is now at that point, and it could be any of us.”

But she had no way of knowing that she would soon watch a man die — or that her video of that fatal incident would serve as a crucial counter to the Trump administration’s initial efforts to paint Alex Pretti as a wannabe assassin or domestic terrorist.

On her way to work, and wearing a pink jacket that would become instantly recognizable from other videos of the incident, Carlson heard the sound of whistles that have become the ubiquitous warning of the arrival of immigration officers.

She drove down Nicollet Avenue and saw what she described as a brawl in the street. She thought of Good, who was also driving her car when she was fatally shot. This was when she first noticed Pretti directing traffic.

“It felt like somebody in my opinion, in my background, who was doing a risk assessment and found his place in this moment to be useful,” she said of Pretti.

Carlson got out of her car and began recording.

The video Carlson took showed that Pretti, who had a permit to carry a concealed pistol, never brandished his gun, as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first claimed he did (Carlson said she didn’t even know Pretti had been armed until after he was shot, and wouldn’t have gotten so close if she had known). Nor did he approach law enforcement with the intent to assassinate them, as Stephen Miller, the architect of the White House’s immigration policy, also claimed.

Instead, Carlson’s video showed that the 37-year-old ICU nurse who treated veterans spent his last moments trying to help a woman who had been knocked down.

The video also showed that Pretti’s handgun had been removed from its holster by an officer seconds before he was pinned down and shot multiple times, including in his back.

“I remember him arching his back and his head rolling back,” Carlson said. She had previously seen people die in hospice settings and said she knew by looking at Pretti that he was not going to make it.

“I knew he was gone because I watched it,” she said. “And then they come over to try to perform some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors, and then maneuvering his body around like a rag doll, only to discover that it could be because they wanted to count the bullet wounds to see how many they got, like he’s a deer.”

President Donald Trump met for nearly two hours with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her senior adviser, Corey Lewandowski, in the Oval Office on Monday evening, two sources familiar with the meeting told CNN, after Noem had asked to speak with Trump in person.

Shortly after the shooting, Carlson recounted what she had witnessed in a sworn statement. But as of Tuesday, she said she had not been contacted by federal law enforcement.

She has little confidence in a federal investigation into the shooting that killed Pretti.

Instead, her faith, she said, is placed in “various representatives throughout our country who are trying to do the right thing and make sure that justice is served.

I doubt I would have risen to to act as those heroes did. Probably few people would. The fact that these goons instigated with their behavior. However, the kind of challenges to the Trump fascism it gives me hope that perhaps by the time of the midterm elections enough people will realize how important the ability to vote is.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Los Angeles, CA, has spent over 60 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of 15 books: “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk”, “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?”, “Trump: Pardon or Punish?: The Nixon Precedence Was Not A Trump Coup Denied!”, “Common Sense: When will Trump be Impeached, Indicted, and Exited?”, “Trump–unrestrained dangerous liar!” and “Our Ethnic Mix May Save Us!”.

ProPublica Identifies CBP Agents Who Fatally Shot ICU Nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here