> The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted on X further details about what led up to the shooting. "DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here," the post reads.
> O'Hara said that Pretti was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit.
> "The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming."
> The DHS wrote that when a federal agent feared for his life, "an agent fired defensive shots." The post also noted that the "suspect" had "2 magazines and no ID."
By any ordinary reading of prose, the article is attributing the quote to O'Hara.
The statement you say was O'Hara was made by McLaughlin (DHS employee). If the article implies otherwise, it's incorrect.
Here's the facts as I see them:
A protestor who had a gun he was legally allowed to carry got involved in an incident with ICE/Border Patrol. The protestor was interacting with the agents and other protestors, at which point BP or ICE pepper sprayed him and took him down to the ground. At least 4 different federal officers were physically holding him. at this point it appears they disarmed him (unclear) and then shortly after, shot him.
At no point did the protestor hold the gun in a threatening way while approaching, when he was taken down he did not have a gun in his hands, and while down, it's very unlikely he could access the gun and use it in a way that any reasonable officer would feel unsafe and be required to shoot the protestor.
Based on the videos I've watched, the protestor made some ill-advised choices getting physically involved, but there was no reason for him to be shot. I read various online conservative communities (to try to understand their reasoning) and nearly all the posts I see seem to think that ICE/BP truly made an error here, possibly due to poor training.
I understand your point about the use of emotional terms, I try to avoid them and instead focus on facts and known unknowns, but in this particular situation, it's pretty clear that ICE/BP made an egregious error in a way that is clearly obvious to everybody (even those who would normally support the federal officers) and in denying this, the federal leadership is undermining itself. This is a situation where they could de-escalate and not immediately blame the protestor, while focusing on increasing the training of the ICE/BP officers, rather than taking an aggresive posture.
This would imply it was an unintentional mistake which is far from obvious. If they recognized it was an egregious error the perpetrators would be prosecuted and they won’t be.
> training of the ICE/BP officers
What makes you think it’s something they want to avoid repeating in the future? (Not /s)
My wife who is very offline saw a Bovino photo yesterday and asked me point blank “why is he dressed like a Nazi? he looks like that guy from Man In The High Castle”
I guess I use the term "authoritarian cosplay" or maybe "authoritarian LARP" but he's taken it further than just play and posturing. He seems to truly idolize and identify with the authoritarians of the past.
What I also find extraordinary is that there is no consistent uniform, for example if you watch the video this post refers to, all the agents are wearing random combinations of personal clothing ("tactical" or "hunting") which makes them look more like a militia than federal officers.
This is the sort of federal policing force the libertarian right always conspiracy mongers about, and now that they are the ones in power its good, actually.
The language being used by the president to describe immigrants is on par with how the enemy was talked about during the war on terror. ICE has been told they are immune from prosecution, and the recruitment videos are basically white nationalist cosplay.
Now they are being surged, masked, poorly uniformed, poorly trained into US cities, as if they were Fallujah.
The problem is some are using only their ears to listen to what they are told happened by those responsible for and overseeing the officers involved and refusing you use their eyes and watch the videos. It seems some just want to believe (a lie) and not dig into know the truth.
A funny thing about the "stages of grief" is that they are a total myth and the originator of the hypothesis never intended them to be abused this way.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross did her research solely on people who were dying: people with terminal illnesses, and she studied how they coped with facing their own mortality. Not how other people did.
And of course, even for a dying person, this may be total bunk. It is not like some programmed flowchart that people go through five stages of emotional stuff. This is just, like, a framework for further therapy.
I'm actually studying this stuff right now. In the 1980s and 1990s, "The Five Stages of Grief" were basically a household phrase, and everybody talked about them like they were real and true and invariable. But everyone doing the talking had never actually studied the research or even knew who proposed it. They were just parroting headlines.
Also, to be obviously, the statement you attributed to O'Hara is inconsistent with what he would say given his role.
While I totally appreciate that you don't like people using emotional verbiage or making false conclusions biased by their own beliefs, the reality here is that basically no objective independent observer would say that the government's statements are true and accurate. And I also think that careful analysis of the videos by that same observer would conclude the agents made an egregious error in the heat of the moment. Constantly doubling down about how you're the rational one, when there is ample evidence otherwise simply weakens your own position and makes people less likely to bother reading what you have to say.
DHS lies as easily as they breathe. They have proven they cannot be believed.
A previous example:
You can watch the video for yourself of an ICE masked thug grabbing a man's carotid artery, when NOT facing a deadly threat, against DOJ rules. You can watch him seize and his eyes roll back. And you can choose to believe your eyes or DHS' lies. What do you think, zahlman?
> In a social media post after the incident and in its statement to ProPublica, DHS did not cite a deadly threat. Instead, it referenced the charges against Zapata Rivera’s wife and suggested he had only pretended to have a medical crisis while refusing help from paramedics. “Imagine FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice,” the post said.
> The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted on X further details about what led up to the shooting. "DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here," the post reads.
> O'Hara said that Pretti was a “lawful gun owner” with a permit.
> "The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming."
> The DHS wrote that when a federal agent feared for his life, "an agent fired defensive shots." The post also noted that the "suspect" had "2 magazines and no ID."
By any ordinary reading of prose, the article is attributing the quote to O'Hara.