Alex Pretti's 'Execution' Is Not What We Stand For
US Army vet Naveed Shah, who is part of a veteran-led grassroots movement dedicated to protecting democracy, talks to the Byline Times Podcast about the latest ICE shooting in Minneapolis
Former US military veteran Naveed Shah has accused immigration officers of “executing” protestor Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis during protests against Donald Trump’s ‘ICE’ immigration enforcement agency.
Shah, the Political Director at Common Defense, a pro-democracy NGO set up by former military families, described Pretti – an ICU nurse – as “the best of us”.
And in an interview with the Byline Podcast, he poured scorn on attempts by the White House to tarnish Pretti’s reputation by calling him a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.”
Independently verified video footage shows that Pretti was, in fact, attempting to peacefully protect a woman who’d been pushed by agents from ICE – US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Shah said: “The reason Alex was in that situation is because they shoved a woman to the ground. He put his body in the way to try to protect her and got pepper sprayed in the face, beaten, thrown to the ground and shot in the back as he kneeled in the street”.
Claims that Pretti represented a threat have been undermined by the fact that, although he had a gun in his holster, this was legally owned and had been removed from him by an ICE officer before he was killed in a hail of bullets.
“It seems like this administration is launching a total indiscriminate attack on anybody and everybody who would stand in their way,” Shah commented.
“You would never expect for conservative Republicans to be against the Second Amendment, but suddenly, carrying a weapon – which is your legal right as an American – is justification for your execution in the street.”
Pretti’s death follows the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis just a fortnight earlier. Shah believes this forms part of a widespread assault on Democrat-supporting cities by Trump since his re-election in 2024.
“It’s definitely not a coincidence that the Trump administration is deploying these federal forces to ‘blue’ cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC and now Minneapolis. Both Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota and Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis have come out and said that we don’t need federal forces to help with enforcement in our cities, in our state; the senators have come out and said the same thing.
“When local leaders are saying this, under normal circumstances the federal government would listen and take their advice. They’re clearly not interested in actual enforcement. What they are interested in doing is using immigration enforcement as a cover for political intimidation.”
ICE was created by the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but has adopted a much higher profile during the second Trump presidency.
The recent arrest of five-year old Alex Ramos was one of numerous controversies triggered by their aggressive approach, with members of visible minority communities frequently reporting stories of harassment – even when they are legitimate US citizens.
Former British diplomat Alex Hall Hall, now a US citizen, recently told Byline Times she fears for her sons – who have non-white heritage – when they are simply walking along the street, in case they are targeted by ICE agents.
According to Shah, none of this is necessary. “They have created this boogeyman about immigration. The fact of the matter is that President Obama was able to deport millions of people during his two terms in office without using any of these scare tactics.
“There’s a way to carry out immigration enforcement and enforce our laws that doesn’t require thousands of federal troops, tear gassing civilians, terrorising people.
“It’s just sickening, the lies that the administration is using. As a veteran, I swore an oath to the Constitution – not to a political party or a candidate or a politician – and what we’re seeing now goes against everything that we stand for.”