You may note my extreme disrespect for the ICE agents involved in this. It grew from their actions and does not reflect my views on legitimate and professional law enforcement organizations and personnel.
Here we go.
I have watched all the videos I could find of the situation. These directly contradict the statements coming from the Federal Government officials. Here is why:
The earliest point in the available videos begins with officers moving Pretti to the sidewalk. They are talking and Pretti is complying as someone next to him is taken into custody. About a minute later, Pretti is in the road, away from the ICE agents, helping to direct traffic through the clear path between protesters on the left and ICE on the right. A few seconds later, another camera angle (below) shows an ICE agent had crossed the street to shove one of a pair of women standing on that side of the road (away from the ICE operation).
The lady in the red jacket is the other videographer and you’ll see her angle in some of the other stills. It begins with the ICE agent approaching the two women at the rear of the white car and violently shoving one of them. In the footage from the woman in red, this is where her camera is down and she is shouting at the ICE agent. You can see Pretti (in light brown with a black hat) approaching the agent and women.
The agent shoves the woman in brown into Pretti. Her companion follows.
Next, the ICE agent shoves Pretti . They still had no peaceful interaction here. The agent does not seem to issue and orders to the women nor to Pretti. He just walks up and shoves.
Note here, that there is ice on the road in front of the white car. The conditions are slippery.
As Pretti and the woman in brown are recovering, the ICE agent turns his attention to the woman in the white coat and orange backpack.
Turning immediately to the woman in the light colored coat, the ICE thug doesn’t bother to order her to do anything, but instead immediately shoves her.
This shove is immediate and violent. Pretti is, understandably concerned here. This is not normal (nor even acceptable) behavior from a professional law enforcement officer.
From another angle, you can see the lady in the light colored coat fall into the snow bank.
The agent thug now turns to Pretti.
The agent, again, without provocation nor ordering anyone to do anything goes right to grabbing Pretti’s arm and pulling out the bear spray.
This of course, draws the attention of other ICE agents who begin to approach.
From this angle, you can see Pretti is no threat to the officer, but rather, is stepping back, his hand up to protect him from the bear spray the ICE thug is showering all over him.
Another angle of the same moment, as the lady in brown tries to flee the bear spray.
The ICE agent/thug continues lathering bear spray on everyone still standing.
From this angle, you can see the lady in the light colored coat trying to get up and the lady in brown trying to navigate around the bear spray to get to her. While ICE thug number one works to make sure Pretti is completely blinded by the spray, other officers are getting closer.
Pretti manages to turn away from the bear spray and tries to help the woman to her feet. The thug just keeps spraying at anyone he can see not wearing a mask and ballistic vest.
The first of the additional agents arrives on the scene.
Two more approach, as Pretti is losing his footing on the ice.
The agents get Pretti to the ground and Pretti’s hands are in front of him as he goes down. In the video you can tell the ground is slippery in places as Pretti, the two women, and all the agents slip and slide.
Not sure what got kicked out of the pig pile here, but the last of the incoming agents walks past it.
Everyone seems to want to pile on top here. At about this moment, one of the agents (the one in the light grey coat and blue jeans) notices Pretti’s legally concealed pistol and the agent draws it from Pretti’s holster. Someone says what sounds like either “I got his gun” or “He has a gun”. I believe it was the former, but I can easily understand it being misinterpreted as the latter.
This is the exact moment the first shot rings out.
Here are my conclusions:
- At the earliest point in available footage, Pretti is (reluctantly) complying withe the officer and moving back.
- The first sign of something amiss is when the officer (Thug number one in the green jacket, brown vest, and grey pants) shoved the lady in brown into Pretti.
- That same agent/thug continues to escalate by shoving the lady in the light colored coat and orange backpack.
- Pretti rightfully protests this escalation in violence.
- The thug then turns his wrath on Pretti and goes into pure, uncontrolled rage mode.
- As other agents show up to help their colleague, chaos ensues. This is made worse by patches of very slick ice on the road.
- Judging by the movements of the officers responding, they were more concerned with piling on top of Pretty than securing his arms and legs. Anyone who has watched a few episodes of “C0ps” can see these agents are not trained for this.
- The agent who disarms Pretti fails to communicate in a manner the other officers can understand.
- Other agents misunderstanding the disarming officer think Pretti has pulled a weapon and rather than either verifying this or securing the supposed weapon, they just open fire and essentially mag dump into Pretti’s head and torso.
I don’t know who all fired.
I DO know that the person ultimately responsible is not Pretti, but ICE Thug Number One who did nothing but escalate and attack three civilians who were will out of the way of the actual ICE operation on the far side of the street.
Secondarily responsibility goes evenly between the agent who disarmed Pretti and the agents who opened fire on him.
Tertiary responsibility goes out to ICE and DHS who allowed such ridiculously poorly trained agents to engage in this kind of harassment, terrorism, thuggery, and sloppy attempt of apprehension that ultimately ended in the death of an innocent US citizen.