This was murder. It is time to rise against Trump

I don’t have all the details yet but it appears that Trump’s goons have murdered another American in Minneapolis.

This is the third shooting involving federal agents in the city this month, including the murder of Renee Good, 37, on Jan. 7.

The person who was killed was Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old man, an American citizen who lived in Minneapolis.

At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. The video appears to show a group of masked agents mobbing someone, pushing him to the ground, then shooting him multiple times, even as he lies motionless.

The Department of Homeland Security says he threatened agents with a gun, but footage shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him.

The people of Minneapolis, who braved sub-zero weather yesterday to protest Trump’s army of occupation, are not deterred.

Dozens of protesters at the site of today’s murder blew whistles and demanded that police arrest the federal agents. As rapid response networks immediately sent text messages about the killing to various neighborhood and immigrant network Signal chats, other protesters made their way to the scene.

Trump’s goons used tear gas and flash bangs against the crowd. As protesters began running away, ICE agents pursued them.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called the incident “sickening” and said Trump “must end this operation,” adding that “Minnesota has had it.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he saw a video of the shooting.

“How many more residents, how many more Americans, need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” he asked, adding that “a great American city is being invaded by its own federal government.”

There are now 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, a city whose own police force numbers 600.

I expect Trump will use today’s protests to invoke the Insurrection Act, and send active military troops there.

But almost everyone in America is now aware of the brutality of Trump’s goons.

It’s becoming harder for Americans to tell themselves that Trump is only going after “hard-core criminals.” Or even “illegal immigrants.” Or even Latinos. Or Black people. Or communists or “radical left extremists.”

He’s coming after all of us.

He’s coming after all of us who oppose his tyranny and brutality. All of us who defy his dictatorship. All of us who challenge his out-of-control, murderous goons.

All across America, we must rise up against this oppression as peacefully but as definitively as we possibly can.

• Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org