Like multi-millions of other Americans, I spent much of the weekend thinking about Alex Pretti. Combing through countless media reports, checking for up-to-the-minute alerts, trying, flailing, really, to write something coherent yesterday that would bring a modicum of ease and a shred of understanding to the awful scene of his murder.
Abhorrent as it is, I kept cueing up the raw video footage and still photos, as if at some point I could finally come to some halfway sensible conclusion about how it all came to this. How it is that eight masked, heavily armed and armored agents of our federal government had their quarry pepper-sprayed, helpless and kneeling on the ground before one of them rose to shoot him five times in the back, followed seconds later by at least five other shots from another agent after Pretti had slumped to the ground?
In the United States, in 2026?
It’s a sickening scene, my stomach roiling even as I type these words. A human being literally slaughtered by paramilitary forces swarming various American cities and turning them into virtual war zones, all in the name of…promoting public safety.
The irony is too bitter for ready understanding.
Which is why, if my own own social circle and reading sources are any indication, a good part of the American population spent the weekend half-dazed, trying to come to grips with the question of whether the long-held image of their country as being governed by the rule of law was being supplanted by the “iron laws of the world.” Those are the now infamous words uttered by presidential advisor and, by many accounts, shadow President Stephen Miller a few weeks ago in a television interview on CNN. A world, Miller intoned, “governed by force, by power.”
Will it be Miller’s voice that carries the day with the president at what feels like a key juncture point in contemporary American history?
So much rides on that question.
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“The Mayor and the Governor are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric! Instead, these sanctimonious political fools should be looking for the Billions of Dollars that has been stolen from the people of Minnesota, and the United States of America. LET OUR ICE PATRIOTS DO THEIR JOB!”
—From President Trump’s post on Truth Social in the aftermath of the Pretti murder
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Part of the thinking I did over the weekend was about whether I could do what Alex Pretti did. Could I identify enough with his intentions, his commitment to justice, his willingness to put himself out there in a volatile set of circumstances where “putting myself out there” effectively means putting my life on the line?
I’ve gone to multiple rallies in recent years, including the “No Kings” marches of Trump’s second term. They were benign events all, exercises in solidarity that served as comfort that one is not alone, and as inspiration to keep on going.
Even the cops at intersections were jovial, our helpmates in the exercise of courtesy and order—all the good things of a functioning democracy with assured First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and assembly.
But in cities occupied by federal armed forces ordered there by a mendacious administration with the express purpose of terrorizing, arresting, shackling and humiliating undocumented immigrants, a very different picture emerges—one of confrontation and the hunting of prey.
Alex Pretti’s father Michael sensed as much, in words I felt haunting me as I went about a largely shut-in day of a winter storm on Sunday. He told the Associated Press after his son’s death:
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically. And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
That sensible advice is likely what I would give my own daughter and grandkids, were they to be entering the kind of tinderbox Minnesota is today. And what I would be thinking of for myself were similar circumstances to play out in Durham. “Do not engage, do not do anything stupid…”
The situation presents a prism. From one angle, Alex Prezzi was a portrait in courage, putting his body out on the street and at a distance from menacing agents that he had to have known might result in the engagement his father warned him against. That courage only multiplied with the specific circumstance of an agent pushing a woman to the ground close to Pretti, which seemed to almost instinctually inspire his action to put himself between the agent and the woman.
That intensification resulted in his death only seconds later.
Did any of that behavior qualify as the “stupid” his father warned him against? That’s a judgement call I simply cannot make. He did what he did, with noble intentions, and sometimes those intentions mix with an explosive element that leads to catastrophe.
I only know what I think I would do in a similar circumstance, which is likely to keep a safe enough distance from the agent to avoid the kind of contact that so tragically transpired. Does that make me a coward or merely prudent? Another question without a facile answer.
I’m exactly twice Alex Pretti’s age, and I no doubt proceed more cautiously, with greater deliberation in most all things, than he did.
Which rather compounds the tragedy, it seems to me. If I’m indeed more deliberate and he more bold, it doesn’t seem fair that he, with so much life still ahead of him, taking a dramatic action that he saw as meaningful in forming that life, has to suffer so grievously and finally for his courage, while I, so much closer to my life’s end and so richly rewarded for this second half I have already lived, get to keep on with it in the face of my greater caution.
But then: Who ever said life is fair?
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Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.
—From The Dhammapada, a collection of sayings reportedly uttered by The Buddha and collected by his followers, circa 500-600 BC
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I have a dear friend of longstanding who leans moderate Republican, which means she is almost as aghast at the Trump presidency as I am. But she reminds me regularly of the Martin Luther King quote—“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him”—by way of exhorting me to stop with the Trump vitriol and just concentrate on other means of ending his assault on the country and its Constitution.
Her particular cause is the 25th Amendment, which provides a roadmap—albeit a highly difficult one—for declaring a president incompetent. I argue that it simply isn’t realistic, she thinks it’s our best shot this side of 2028, so we go in circles about that every so often before we give up (and remain pals).
But the point about not hating even as hate-full a figure as Trump regularly proves himself to be bears some reflection for anyone striving to maintain a pure-as-possible heart in this often contentious world. Hating always comes with a price, flirting as it does with destructive, even homicidal feelings that undermine the well-being of the hater, both body and soul.
There’s a toxic element to it, which is why most all the world’s religions preach against it, with many conveniently fobbing off its source on a devil character actively working to darken our hearts.
The Buddha’s little quatrain above speaks to the issue with specific advice on how to respond to various kinds of unpleasant people. And most inconveniently for the parts of ourselves holding fast to, if not hate, then at least some form of radical disdain for the president, all of it is centered on acts of love, goodness, generosity and truth-telling.
Damn!
On Saturday, seeking the kind of spiritual solace not likely to be found by spending the day ranting at more reports on the atrocity taking place in Minneapolis, I went with a friend to a stop on the 2,300 mile-long Buddhist Walk for Peace that took off from Fort Worth in late October and had a major stage through Raleigh that ended at the State Capitol Building.
Alex Pretti had died in the morning, and fresh updates were breaking all day, even as what turned out to be a huge crowd lined Raleigh streets under gray skies and bitter, 11-degree wind chill factor weather (notably, still some 20 degrees warmer than Minneapolis). We joined a large throng at the march’s beginning (photo above), the mood upbeat and expectant.
Unlike Minneapolis, no clear danger, but also more abstract: the Buddhists are walking cross-country for peace rather than the particular, sometimes harshly rendered goal of “ICE Out of Minneapolis.” Though lately, “Justice for Renee Good/Alex Pretti” has been appended as a goal of the protests.
At walk’s end, its leader, the Venerable Bhikkhu Paññākāra, told the crowd packing the Capitol grounds:
“Look [around] now. We have different backgrounds, different faiths and beliefs, different skin colors, different languages. But we are able to come here together in this weather in front of this Capitol, just to support the mission of peace. It means there’s no difference between all of us.”
It was an uplifting message for a crowd no doubt in sore need of one, but of course he could not have meant, “…there’s no difference between all of us who are repulsed by Trump.” Mr. Paññākāra is a Buddhist committed to the cessation of suffering for all sentient beings—meaning not only everyone hanging on his word in that crowd but also the president and every one of those ICE officers chasing immigrants in Minneapolis.
And: every member of Trump’s cabinet and inner circle. The Venerable Bhikkhu hopes you would feel the same way—as a means of releasing you from your own suffering.
It’s a heady challenge. I can’t say I’m prepared to meet it, even knowing it has a lot of support from other major historical figures such as MLK and that Jesus fellow who was also fond of walking around his country with a message to “Love thy neighbor.”
My slight unease with the pure love and non-violence practiced by such religious figures is that while it sounds great on paper or in the ear, it wouldn’t fare well, I fear, with the likes of Trump or Stephen Miller. My suspicion is they would smile benignly at such spiritual teachers, ask them to convey their message of universal love and peace post-haste to the protesters in the streets, and then proceed to resume their heavy-handed, terror-based effort to make America much whiter, straighter and more obedient again.
That said, the hatred Trump regularly spews and directs to be carried out in his name seems to be wearing thin in the face of the overwhelmingly non-violent and dogged protests that have been taking place over months now in cities all over the country, and which is currently on such dramatic display in Minneapolis. More voices are expressing unease with the sheer meanness and violence of the anti-immigrant mindset, so the tide may yet turn. History has a way of zigging again after each zag, and vice versa. Attention must continue to be paid.
The Dhammapada again:
“Can there be joy and laughter
When always the world is ablaze?
Enshrouded in darkness
Should you not seek a light?”
That light-seeking is always hardest to muster in the darkest time of year—which is why the holiday season has entrenched itself so stoutly in response around the world. It’s no different in the darkest times of a country’s history, one of them, I will venture to say, being now.
What we do know is there’s a lot of light shining through the dark and the cold in Minneapolis these days. After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, there are two fewer individual lights—will their sacrifice sufficiently galvanize those who remain?
If the streets of Minneapolis and the roads traversed already by the Buddhists on these freezing winter days are any indication, lights are still burning—brightly.
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Monks leaving Raleigh by Travis Long https://tinyurl.com/343bb4mb
In these terrible days, I was most saddened by the simple request from Alex Pretti’s parents who objected to the smearing of his reputation by this administration: “He was a good man.”
Yes, a poignant, heart-breaking plea in a horrible, heart-breaking time. Thanks, Julie.
I feel almost physically ill sometimes watching these encounters between ICE and protesters. It all looks like it’s meant to create maximum chaos. It’s crazy, how did we get here? It was nice to see the Buddhists though. Thank you! Maybe they could require all ICE agents to attend their next walk?
Thanks, Deanna. The great consolation is you (we) are not alone, and though the situation is indeed crazy, we are not the crazy ones in saying, “Now wait just a minute….”
There is very little I can add to your words on the deaths of Alex Pretti/Renee Good and the horror inflicted upon them by ICE. The wisdom of Buddhism, whether through the sayings of Dhammapada or the words of Bhikkhu Paññākāra, is profoundly relevant to our country’s present state-of-affairs. The photos of the Buddhist rally in Raleigh and the jazzy clip of “This Little Light of Mine” add to the overall message of hope. Some time ago I read a poem about the rise of Nazism and the importance of protest or in this particular case, the lack thereof. It can be read on one of the displays here in Houston at the Holocaust Museum.
First, they came for the Communist
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
Is this not what it’s all about?
I had spent Saturday up in a high desert mountain area in charge of an aid station for a local trail race. We rely heavily on ATV enthusiasts and Ham radio operators for logistics. These are salt of the earth Idaho people, and they are predictably conservative. Even Trumpy. Most of the trail runners lean pretty progressive. Hugging a tree or two, even. But we all get along fine with our mutual admiration for outdoor recreation. We all love the outdoors. And during the long day out in the cold together, conversations with the ATV and Ham people will sometimes skirt around politics. Carefully. Respecfully. In the end we all find solidarity in task at hand: helping each other find solidarity and enjoyment in the simple and (to us) profound ways this event provides.
I came home after a wonderful day to read the news of yet another murder (no other way to describe it) in Minneapolis. I could only watch the video once and have avoided it since. I’m done hating Trump et al. Whether they pay for their sins or not matters far less to me than the day they are simply irrelevant. I’m going to guess the marching monks might agree. I plan to continue to march in what way I can, with as much love as I can squeeze out of my strained heart, until the tide of love renders their hateful rhetoric irrelevant. At least I hope I have the patience and the courage.
Such a sad state of affairs, Andrew. Thanks for the discussion. These are such ominous times. It’s hard to know how to respond. For myself, I find comfort in community of like-minded individuals. And for the sake of those around me, the best I can do is try to live with kindness, love, and understanding. All over the world there has always been hate, greed and selfishness. We cannot let ourselves fall into a similar abyss. Let’s do our best to shine our lights, indeed.
As someone who over a decade ago worked for ICE under the Obama administration (no longer there): Every county red or blue would allow us to go into the correctional facilities and remove anyone illegal in a civil manner. There wasn’t any politics involved and there wasn’t such a thing as a sanctuary city. It would require anyone arrested not to be released, which was always the case. Perhaps that model could once again work as it was never broken in the first place.
Your comment is vital to this conversation. Congress created ICE in response to 9-11. As an agency within Homeland Security, its primary role is to enforce our immigration laws; its existence isn’t without merit. The outrage revolves around how this agency presently operates or carries out its duties. Your comment illustrates just how essential competence and morality are in the running of any enterprise, public or private. Finally, in this politically polarized environment there needs to be a coming together of differing opinions to create an atmosphere of civility and respect. Your post does that. Thanks.
I guess what I would want to know is whether we will have to wait for a new president to get back to the old way of doing things. And then what about another president after that who wants to do it the Trump way again? Are enforcement operations always just subject to who the president is? Somehow, I think a consistent policy written into national law by Congress would serve everyone better.
Hey Jonathan, standard ICE procedures under Bush, Obama, and Trump (Biden I don’t believe followed this same procedure as his border policy deviated from the previous). During those years an Ice agent would put a request in for a detainer which allows for a legal 48 hr hold for an investigation into the offense committed and legal status of a suspect who’s been arrested with probable cause. Where things can take a turn (2021) is when city mayors can and have refused to work with ICE in the detainer process allowing the suspect arrested to bond out with no detainer being approved and no legal status investigation being conducted until after they’re released. At some point after that, the individual would then become wanted by local authorities and potentially federal authorities as well. Normally the next potential options are for local authorities to find the individual or ICE would utilize ERO’s (enforcement removal officers) who have always been utilized in a specific manner for an already identified wanted individual. While presidential policy can be a factor, your local mayors decision to work with ICE would be equally important as there wouldn’t be a need to find the individuals in the general public. What you said about a consistent policy written into law, 100% would mean that we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in today. Please not policy change at any level is subject to change with the stroke of a pen, so I’m still hopeful comunication can still solve the problem as it usually does. I hope that helps answer your question.
Thank you. What a mess. Heavy-handed, violent enforcement from ICE. Then mayors don’t cooperate because of it. Making it harder to capture the actual criminals everyone wants off the streets. Where do you realistically think we go from here?
Hey Jonathan, I’ve been thinking about your question of “where do we go from here?” Here would be my solution/opinion to potentially solve the problem of dealing with the ice operations country wide. The sheriff in every county in the U.S. is the top law enforcement official, while a mayor and his hand picked police chief are the talking heads nobody is above a sheriff. I would want them to meet with Thomas Holman. He’s been dubbed the boarder czar but his experience is extensive. He started his fed career in 84’ and was appointed director by Obama in 2014 and was awarded a presidential medal in 15. Yes he’s a no nonsense/ brash at times guy, but he’s one that simply says the law is the law and quotes federal code when questioned. He recently went to Minneapolis and after that meeting with government officials, recent reports by local news outlets read as follows. “Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt said Friday she’s carefully considering options for a compromise with federal immigration agents if it means winding down Operation Metro Surge.” If the right people sit down and talk to each other I believe there’s a real possibility this could calm down everyone involved and a successful pathway forward.
Robert, yes, I think that is indeed what it is all about: As many people as possible speaking out as frequently as possible and keeping it up as long as possible. And man, it would sure be nice if another dozen or so Republican legislators were in that group! What’s amazing to me is to see just how bad things had to get before we heard a few more of them begin to express concern—while all the rest still just mumble along, pretending nothing is happening.
Dennis, I hear ya, Bro. Unfortunately, Trump won’t be getting irrelevant until enough people speak out, get & stay activated, and decide this mode of government just isn’t healthy or sustainable for hardly anyone, and makes the entire world much less safe. Putin and Xi are having the time of their lives watching it happen, I am certain.
I do sense, though, that we may be reaching an inflection point—that the nonstop chaos and contentiousness is leaving too many people exhausted. Still though:three years yet to go is formidable, and we’re a long, long way from out of the woods.
Thanks, Al—your sentiments are timely and true, and could probably be repeated in one form or other every day over a lifetime. Words to live by…
Bryson, why couldn’t you and the basic good sense you convey have stuck around for a few more administrations? That sounds like such a sensible and basic protocol for how to do efficient, non-violent immigration enforcement, so the natural question arises: Why isn’t it happening now? That’s where we have to look at motive, no? Sure, the Trump administration wants immigrants out, but the numbers are staggering, so Trump tries to paint them all as hard criminals or fresh out of “mental asylums.” Two reasons for that, I think: 1) So he can justify treating them as sub-human, and 2) So undocumented immigrants watching the cruelty and chaos on media or hearing about it become so terrorized that they self-deport, which would save the administration a ton of trouble and money. The cruelty and chaos thus become the purpose of the effort, but it has been so over the top that a backlash seems to be setting in. Will the backlash make a difference? Hard to tell. (See my note above about three more years!)
Thank you for this powerful reflection and response, Andrew, it is greatly appreciated and helpful to maintain hope. We grieve the loss of Alex and Nicole.
Thanks so much, Miryam, and you’re very welcome. I think you might really like this piece I was just reading through in the New Yorker, on applying the rubric of Imago Dei to a “theology of immigration,” including an interview with a Jesuit priest who has written extensively on the topic. Don’t know if you get the New Yorker and whether a single article is behind a paywall if you don’t, but let me know if you can’t access it and I’ll find another way to get it to you—I think it will resonate with a lot of your thinking on this topic and others. https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/a-theology-of-immigration