Judge grants order barring feds from altering or destroying evidence in Pretti shooting; MPR, January 25, 2026

Andrew Krueger , MPR; Judge grants order barring feds from altering or destroying evidence in Pretti shooting

[Kip Currier: Consider the current state of public trust that has resulted in a Temporary Restraining Order (T.R.O.) needing to be sought by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which was then approved by federal Judge Eric Tostrud, because of concerns that the Trump 2.0 administration will potentially cover up and/or obstruct a fulsome, fair, and transparent investigation into the killing of ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti by a federal agent in Minneapolis on January 24.]

[Excerpt]

"A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order barring federal officials from destroying or altering evidence related to Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by a federal agent in Minneapolis.

That’s in response to a lawsuit filed Saturday night by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. 

Judge Eric Tostrud’s order bars the federal government from “destroying or altering evidence related to the fatal shooting involving federal officers that took place in or around 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, 2026, including but not limited to evidence that defendants and those working on their behalf removed from the scene and/or evidence that defendants have taken into their exclusive custody.”

The lawsuit was filed after the BCA said it was blocked from accessing the shooting scene on Saturday to collect evidence, despite having a search warrant giving them authority to do so."

Lies, violence and the American state; Democracy Docket, January 25, 2026

Marc Elias, Democracy Docket; Lies, violence and the American state

"In early 1974, as he awaited his fate for writing about the horrors of the Soviet penal system, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn decided to take on the authoritarian regime’s most potent tool: lies. “In our country,” he wrote to Western journalists, “the lie has become not just a moral category, but a pillar of the state. In breaking with the lie, we are performing a moral act, not a political one.”

Several weeks later, on the day he was exiled from his country, he explained the connection between government lies and state-sponsored violence against citizens:

When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance. It displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly. A few years pass — and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally —Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence...

Donald Trump is an infamous liar. He has lied his way through business, law and politics. The movement he built is based on lies — lies about the economy, immigration and crime. But its most important lie — the Big Lie — is about democracy itself.

Trump abhors democracy because it allows ordinary Americans to reject his lies. Even worse for Trump, it allows us to reject him.

When voters did exactly that in 2020, he responded with more lies — lies in court, lies in the media, and lies to his supporters. On Jan. 6, 2021, those lies turned into violence.

Yet, as Solzhenitsyn suggests, that was not the end of the story. The violence itself then required more lies — about the Capitol Police, the Department of Justice, election workers, judges and his political enemies.

But something has changed in recent weeks. The lies are no longer about shadowy figures wielding great power and influence. They are now targeting everyday citizens — people standing in their own communities, in front of their homes, protecting their neighbors."

Senate Democrats and Republicans call for investigation into killing of Alex Pretti; NPR, January 25, 2026

 Luke Garrett , NPR; Senate Democrats and Republicans call for investigation into killing of Alex Pretti

"Congressional leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration's account of the killing of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old U.S. citizen shot dead by federal officers during an immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis Saturday...

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., warned the Trump administration against any attempt to shut out local and state law enforcement from the investigation. 

"There must be a thorough and impartial investigation into yesterday's Minneapolis shooting," Tillis said in a post Sunday morning. "Any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump's legacy."

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also called for a "full joint federal and state investigation" and said the "credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake" in a statement. 

On Sunday, Trump administration officials continued to defend the federal agents who killed Pretti. The head of President Trump's immigration operation, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, told CNN that the federal agents are "the victims" and said Pretti "perpetrated violence" during an active immigration enforcement operation.

"That suspect injected himself into that law enforcement situation with a weapon," Bovino said. 

The video evidence and eyewitness accounts that have surfaced so far refute that assertion. There has been no evidence that NPR has verified of Pretti brandishing his handgun at any time during the encounter with federal agents.

On Saturday, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said if a U.S. citizen approaches law enforcement with a gun, federal officers "will be legally justified in shooting you." 

The powerful National Rifle Association and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., criticized Essayli. 

"Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it's a Constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don't understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government," Massie said on X. 

Chair of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, R-Ky., suggested Sunday that Trump remove ICE from Minneapolis because local law enforcement aren't cooperating. 

"If the mayor and the governor are going to put our ICE officials in harm's way, and there's a chance of losing more innocent lives or whatever, then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide do we want to continue to have all of these illegals," Comer said on Fox News."

Vance Gives Deranged Excuse for Agents Killing ICU Nurse; The Daily Beast, January 25, 2026

Erkki Forster , The Daily Beast; Vance Gives Deranged Excuse for Agents Killing ICU Nurse

"JD Vance has suggested that Minnesota officials invited the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in an unhinged defense of the Trump administration’s deportation operation...

He claimed on X that local officials “created the chaos so they can have moments like yesterday, where someone tragically dies and politicians get to grandstand about the evils of enforcing the border.”...

The vice president, who frequently makes false claims—such as alleging that Haitian migrants in Ohio are eating dogs—added, “This is just a taste of what’s happening in Minneapolis because state and local officials refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement.”"

For Trump, the Truth in Minneapolis Is What He Says It Is; The New York Times, January 25, 2026

Peter Baker , The New York Times; For Trump, the Truth in Minneapolis Is What He Says It Is

"Twice since the start of the year, federal officers have gunned down protesters in Minneapolis with cellphone cameras rolling and twice President Trump and his lieutenants have rushed forward with a message to the American people: Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes.

Without waiting for facts, the Trump team has advanced one-sided narratives to justify each of the killings and demonize the victims. Renee Good, a mother of three, was engaged in “domestic terrorism” and “viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” they declared. Alex Pretti, an I.C.U. nurse at a veterans’ hospital, was an “assassin” aiming to “massacre law enforcement.”

The trick is that the Trump versions of reality have collided with bystander videos watched by millions who did not see what they were told. Ms. Good did not run over the ICE agent who killed her; a video analysis suggested she was trying to turn away from him and he continued to shoot her even as she passed him. Mr. Pretti approached officers with a phone in his hand, not a gun; he moved to help a woman who was pepper sprayed and he was under a pileup of agents when one suddenly shot him in the back.

The videos, sometimes shaky, incomplete or at a distance, may not show the totality of what happened in those confusing split seconds on the street and they do not speak to what was going through the heads of the officers who opened fire in what is being called self-defense. Many questions about exactly what happened remain unanswered and further investigation could change the understanding of the deadly events in Minneapolis, perhaps even bolstering the Trump administration’s assertions, but the administration is blocking independent inquiries."

Alex Pretti did not brandish gun, witnesses say in sworn testimony; The Guardian, January 24, 2026

Robert Mackey, The Guardian; Alex Pretti did not brandish gun, witnesses say in sworn testimony

"Two witnesses to the killing of Alex Pretti have said in sworn testimony that the 37-year-old intensive care nurse was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, contradicting a claim made by Trump administration officials as they sought to cast the shooting of a prone man as an act of self-defense.

Their accounts came in sworn affidavits that were filed in federal court in Minnesota late Saturday, just hours after Pretti’s killing, as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of Minneapolis protesters against Kristi Noem and other homeland security officials directing the immigration crackdown in the city.

One witness is a woman who filmed the clearest video of the fatal shooting; the other is a physician who lives nearby and said they were initially prevented by federal officers from rendering medical aid to the gunshot victim.

The names of both witnesses were redacted in the publicly available filings."

Protest breaks out at South Texas immigration detention facility holding 5-year-old Liam Ramos; Houston Public Media, January 25, 2026

 

David Martin Davies, Texas Public Radio

, Houston Public Media; Protest breaks out at South Texas immigration detention facility holding 5-year-old Liam Ramos

"A protest broke out Saturday at the South Texas family detention complex in Dilley, about 70 miles south of San Antonio, after guards abruptly ordered attorneys to leave while detainees — many of them children — poured into open areas of the facility chanting “Libertad,” or “Freedom,” according to an immigration attorney who witnessed the event.

Immigration attorney Eric Lee said he was at the Dilley facility for a confidential visit with clients — an immigrant family of six, including five children — when guards began shouting for everyone in the waiting area to leave, citing what they described as “an incident.”

As the Michigan-based attorney walked toward his car, he said he heard what sounded like “hundreds of children” shouting, with voices he described as “high-pitched” and “urgent.” He said he could see children streaming from dormitory areas behind a chain-link fence and chanting “Libertad.”

Lee said clients he later spoke with told him the protest was triggered by concerns over the treatment of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old who was taken into custody with his father in Minnesota earlier this week and transferred to the Dilley facility."

A Call for Peace and Discernment: A Pastoral Letter from Bishop Scanlan; The Episcopal Diocese of the Susquehanna, January 25, 2026

[Kip Currier: Share with others the following letter by Bishop Audrey C. Scanlan.]

The Episcopal Diocese of the Susquehanna; A Call for Peace and Discernment: A Pastoral Letter from Bishop Scanlan

Dear Members of the Episcopal Diocese of the Susquehanna,

In recent days the brightness of the Epiphany light has been obscured as division and discord in our nation has turned to deadly violence in our streets.  The events in Minneapolis – the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent, this weekend’s shooting and killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal forces – and the ongoing illegal seizure and detention without due process of hundreds of individuals across our country call for us as citizens and Christians, to respond.

Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20

These are grievous days in which the evil that Isaiah writes about is evident in our cities, villages, and in the hearts of those who do harm.  In the face of evil, God calls us to resist and to work, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to restore the peace and harmony that is God’s dream for us.

Many of us across the diocese are already engaged as peacemakers and reconcilers.  Our parishes are working to support the most vulnerable in our communities. Individuals are serving in ways that are both quiet and bold, reaching out one-on-one or to whole groups serving to repair the breach.  In the great prologue to John’s gospel, we read: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5) While the light maybe obscured, it is not extinguished.  God’s love will prevail.

Today I call us to discernment. I invite a diocesan-wide practice to engage in prayerful reflection on God’s call to us, asking for affirmation of the ways that we are now serving and direction for the days ahead. This ancient Christian practice invites us to listen for God’s call to us as we follow the path of love.  United by the waters of baptism, each of us in our diocese – lay and clergy alike – is called to participate in God’s mission and to find our place that will bring us from heartbreak to healing.  Our nation needs us and our faith instructs us to do this work. Discernment is not a “one and done” event but an ongoing practice that reveals God’s will for us.

In my discernment in the past several months, I have heard God calling me to “stability.”  This monastic virtue is described by St. Benedict as a path of perseverance in the face of adversity and the refusal to flee when the community or self becomes uncomfortable. Benedict also points to stability as the place where conversion of life can take place. For me, stability means “showing up:” sitting each morning to read the scriptures and say my prayers, meeting with people in their own discernment even when answers are not yet evident, and remaining faithful to our pattern of worship, coming together to be nourished by the Sacraments. Stability means to stand in the face of evil and to proclaim God’s power and love.  

And now, God is calling us to discern some more.  To revisit our practices in the context of what is happening in our country today.   Through this practice God may affirm that what we are doing is holy and good and to keep at it, or God may reveal something new, something more for us to do.

I invite you to join me in discernment and to do this work individually or collectively, as a family or parish community. There are materials provided at the end of this letter to assist you in your prayer of discernment.  May your work be blessed as you find God’s call to you as an agent of peace.

If you would like to share the call that God has placed on your heart with our diocesan community, please email communications@diosusquehanna.org and we will keep a list on our website to invite ongoing prayers for our ministry together from now until we celebrate the paschal feast at Easter.

May God bless us and keep us and may the light of Christ shine in our hearts.

The Rt. Rev. Audrey C. Scanlan
Bishop Diocesan of The Diocese of the Susquehanna"

The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act.; The New York Times, January 25, 2026

The Editorial Board, The New York Times; The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act.

"The federal government owes Americans a thorough investigation and a truthful accounting of the Saturday morning shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti on a Minneapolis street. When the government kills, it has an obligation to demonstrate that it has acted in the public interest. Instead, the Trump administration is once again engaged in a perversion of justice.

Mere hours after Mr. Pretti died, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, declared without offering evidence that Mr. Pretti had “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” Gregory Bovino, a border patrol official, offered his own assessment: “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

These unfounded and inflammatory judgments pre-empt the outcome of an investigation, which the Department of Homeland Security has promised. They also appear wholly inconsistent with several videos recorded at the scene.

Those videos showed that Mr. Pretti had nothing but a phone in his hands when he was tackled by border patrol agents, and that he never drew the gun he was carrying (and reportedly had a license to carry). Indeed, the videos seem to show that one federal agent took the gun from Mr. Pretti moments before a different agent shot him from behind. Separate analyses by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CBS News and otherorganizations all concluded that the videos contradict the Trump administration’s description of the killing.

The administration is urging Americans to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. Ms. Noem and Mr. Bovino are lying in defiance of obvious truths. They are lying in the manner of authoritarian regimes that require people to accept lies as a demonstration of power...

It is premature to reach conclusions about what exactly happened on that Minneapolis street. The Trump administration should not have done so, and we will not do so. What is clear, however, is that the federal government needs to re-establish public faith in the agencies and officers who are carrying out Mr. Trump’s crackdown on immigration. If the administration is allowed to act with impunity and avoid even the most basic accountability, the result will be more violence."

‘What Happened?’ When Ethics Erode; The Signal, Santa Clarita Valley, January 25, 2026

David Hegg , The Signal, Santa Clarita Valley ; ‘What Happened?’ When Ethics Erode

"“How did that happen?” I find myself asking that question far too often these days. How did a good guy get involved in illegal activity? How did a great company forget its moorings and slide into unethical behavior? How did an honored university get carried away from its foundations by the current of culture? And how did incivility, vile insults and threats, and outright lies become such a staple in our national discourse?   

To find an answer, I started thinking about the times in my own life when I ended up being and doing things I never intended, making assertions and behaving in ways I knew, down deep, weren’t best or even right. Here’s what I found...

As we look at our own lives and those on the national scene, it is evident that America needs an ethical revolution. We must demand better of ourselves and our leaders. We need to fight a two-front war on ethical erosion with the weapons of truth, civility, and love of neighbor. We must oppose the notion that truth is relative, and everyone gets to decide what is true for themselves. We must reject incivility in all its forms, and remind ourselves that listening is a virtue, tolerance is essential, and robust discourse, including civil disagreement, is required if a pluralistic society is to remain both free and united."

AG Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls after fatal Border Patrol shooting; Democracy Docket, January 24, 2026

Jacob Knutson, Democracy Docket; AG Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls after fatal Border Patrol shooting

[Kip Currier: As noted by MS NOW commentators last night, Pam Bondi's letter to Minn. Gov. Tim Walz looks like another example of Trumpian transactionalism: meet our demands for Minnesota voter rolls, end "sanctuary policies", and be willing to collaborate with ICE efforts, and we may then ease up on immigration raids in your state. 

That looks and sounds like a form of state-sanctioned extortion.]

[Excerpt]

"Just hours after federal immigration officers shot and killed a man in Minneapolis, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi seized upon the incident to demand access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, directly tying the Trump administration’s quest for voters’ unredacted personal data to its aggressive immigration raids across the state.

In a letter to Gov. Tim Walz (D) Saturday, Bondi blamed state and local leaders for the unrest ignited by the Trump administration’s expansive immigration enforcement operations. She claimed that Walz could “restore the rule of law” by complying with a list of demands, including giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) the state’s voter registration records.

“Allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law as authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1960,” Bondi said in the letter, which was first obtained by Fox News.

The letter adds the state’s unwillingness to share voting data to a litany of grievances the Trump administration has leveled against Minnesota, which range from the local Democratic leaders’ rejection of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) actions to a longstanding welfare fraud scandal.

Bondi’s other demands included sharing Minnesota’s data on Medicaid and supplementary food assistance with the federal government, ending “sanctuary policies” and supporting and collaborating with ICE. This would allow the government to investigate fraud and curb “crime and violence” in the state, the attorney general claimed.

In sum, Bondi’s letter represents a major assault on Minnesota’s sovereignty, demanding that it forfeit its ability to make and enforce its own laws and maintain its voter rolls without oversight from the executive branch, which does not have authority over elections."

How researchers got AI to quote copyrighted books word for word; Le Monde, January 24, 2026

 Nicolas Six , Le Monde; How researchers got AI to quote copyrighted books word for word

"Where does artificial intelligence acquire its knowledge? From an enormous trove of texts used for training. These typically include vast numbers of articles from Wikipedia, but also a wide range of other writings, such as the massive Books3 dataset, which aggregates nearly 200,000 books without the authors' permission. Some proponents of conversational AI present these training datasets as a form of "universal knowledge" that transcends copyright law, adding that, protected or not, AIs do not memorize these works verbatim and only store fragmented information.

This argument has been challenged by a series of studies, the latest of which, published in early January by researchers at Stanford University and Yale University, is particularly revealing. Ahmed Ahmed and his coauthors managed to prompt four mainstream AI programs, disconnected from the internet to ensure no new information was retrieved, to recite entire pages from books."

State Terror Has Arrived; The New York Times, January 24, 2026

M. GESSEN, The New York Times; State Terror Has Arrived

[Kip Currier: It is fortunate to have the first-hand experience and insights of M. Gessen, who has lived through state-sponsored authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union, and more recently in Russia, until emigrating to the United States.

Forward this New York Times article to as many people as possible to raise awareness and promote advocacy against what Gessen and others refer to as Trump 2.0's strategy of "state terror". To "name it" and "know what it is" is to be better prepared to stand against it.]

[Excerpt]

"After the past three weeks of brutality in Minneapolis, it should no longer be possible to say that the Trump administration seeks merely to govern this nation. It seeks to reduce us all to a state of constant fear — a fear of violence from which some people may at a given moment be spared, but from which no one will ever be truly safe. That is our new national reality. State terror has arrived.

Please look at this list with me. Since early January, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded its operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., federal officers have: killed Renee Good, a white middle-class mother; menaced a pregnant immigration lawyer in her firm’s parking lot; detained numerous U.S. citizens, including one who was dragged out of his house in his underwear; smashed in the windows of cars and detained their occupants, including a U.S. citizen who was on her way to a medical appointment at a traumatic brain injury center; set offcrowd-control grenades and a tear gas container next to a car that contained six children, including a 6-month-old; swept an airport, demanding to see people’s papers and arresting more than a dozen people who were working there; detained a 5-year-old. And now they have killed another U.S. citizen, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an I.C.U. nurse with no criminal record. It seems he was white. The agents had him down on the ground, subdued, before they apparently fired at least 10 shots at point-blank range."

The Minneapolis Shooting Demands a Real Investigation (w/ Andrew Weissmann); The Bulwark, January 24, 2026

SARAH LONGWELL AND ANDREW WEISSMANN, The Bulwark; The Minneapolis Shooting Demands a Real Investigation (w/ Andrew Weissmann)

"Sarah Longwell is joined by Andrew Weissmann for his reaction to the second killing of a civilian in Minnesota by federal agents. Andrew is professor of practice at the NYU School of Law who served as lead prosecutor in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office from 2017 to 2019, and was General Counsel for the FBI from 2011 to 2013. They discuss the roles of the First and Second Amendments in the case, the contradictions and falsehoods issued by the government, and why it is important for people to continue speaking out and come forward with any video evidence in cases like this."

Video contradicts Trump’s claim man killed in Minneapolis was a ‘gunman’; The Guardian, January 24, 2026

Robert Mackey, The Guardian ; Video contradicts Trump’s claim man killed in Minneapolis was a ‘gunman’

"Video recorded by witnesses to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday shows that the 37-year-old registered nurse was holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot, directly contradicting the claims of senior Trump administration officials that he threatened to “massacre” officers.

In the aftermath of the killing, which was recorded by multiple witnesses, the Department of Homeland Security released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as “the gunman’s gun” in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”, though she later declined to say whether or not Pretti pulled the gun out.

Greg Bovino, a senior border patrol commander who was reprimanded by a federal judge last year for lying, also told reporters that Pretti had approached border patrol agents with the same gun.

“The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a border patrol agent fired defensive shots,” Bovino said. “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

That account is directly contradicted by video evidence of the incident reviewed by the Guardian.

While Pretti was legally licensed to have a gun, it is unclear whether he had one on his person at the time of the incident, and the videos do not show him ever having one in his hand.

Video provided to the Guardian by a Minneapolis resident who drove past the scene at 8.58am local time, as a group of observers recorded video on their phones of federal officers on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis, showed Pretti standing on the street holding up his phone as one officer reached out and shoved him back. Pretti retreated, but appeared to continue recording the officer as he did so."