All posts tagged "Alex Pretti"

Early Friday morning, caretakers arrived at Alex Pretti’s memorial, finding it doused in two gallons of synthetic motor oil.

Motor oil is not flammable, and much of the memorial remains unharmed. Volunteer caretakers quickly gathered throughout the morning to wash the ground and chairs, and to clean offerings that visitors leave at the site. Caretakers expect the site to be cleaned and reset by the end of the day as volunteers continue arriving to help.

Minneapolis police responded to the scene....

A Republican and a Democratic lawmaker started screaming at each other during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

The heated clash between Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) happened during a hearing on sanctuary policies before a House Judiciary subcommittee. Raskin attempted to get Lawler to condemn the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were gunned down by Trump's immigration agents during a protest in Minneapolis in January. However, Lawler was only interested in talking about family members of victims killed by undocumented immigrants.

The back-and-forth soon escalated into a full-blown shouting match. ...

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks announced his resignation Wednesday, effective immediately, in an exclusive interview with Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin — offering a rosy self-assessment that critics say glosses conveniently over a deeply troubled chapter in the agency's recent history.

"It's just time," Banks told Melugin. "I feel like I got the ship back on course. From the least secure, disastrous, chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen. Time to pass the reins, 37 years is time to enjoy the family and life."

Last month, Banks had been accused of regularly soliciting sex workers. ...

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Wednesday said he regretted what he said about 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis this January.

Ranking member Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) pushed Mullin to respond to his statement blaming Pretti for his own death, saying he was a "deranged individual that came in to cause max damage" during Mullin's confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Mullin was selected by President Donald Trump to replace outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and was facing a number of serious questions from lawmakers.

"Those words probably should've been retracted," Mullin said. "I shouldn't have said that. I regret those statements."...

A lawyer has explained what must happen next in the courts as prosecutors continue to seek justice for Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

The two civilians were shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this year, with state officials "at a loss as to how to proceed", according to legal expert Chris Truax. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, he says, is struggling to bring an "apparently stymied" Bureau of Criminal Apprehension into the fold, while crime scene access has been flatly denied.

This causes a logjam which the court must now solve by taking a tough line against the government, Truax told The Hill. He wrote, "In the vast majority of these incidents, there is never any question what happened. The only questions are about why it happened and whether the officer behaved reasonably under the circumstances."...

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) went off on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and criticized her handling of FEMA disaster relief during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Noem was testifying before senators when Tillis gave his statement, eviscerating Noem's leadership and expressing his disappointment about her decisions regarding the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions, including the deaths of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. He argued that Noem had disappointed him and specifically expressed concerns about how she has handled the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"What we've seen is a disaster under your leadership," Tillis said. ...