Uh-oh, the Minneapolis shooting narrative just crinkled. Yesterday, CNN broke a story headlined, “Alex Pretti broke rib in confrontation with federal agents a week before death, sources say.” In other words, the pugilistic anti-ICE activist was a pro who kept at it and fought through the pain to its predictable, tragic conclusion. But the good news is, media is learning to use AI:
Mendacious MSNBC gave deceased amateur wrestler Alex Pretti a glow-up
In case you somehow missed it (or live in Portland), last week, a Minneapolis nurse named Alex Pretti blocked an ICE operation, blew his bullhorn in agent’s faces, physically tried to stop them from arresting another rioter, thereby committing a crime (assault on a federal officer), violently resisted arrest in a scrum with a half dozen officers, and after Pretti’s gun went off in the fracas, was shot and killed.
The media spent a week rediscovering Second Amendment rights, polishing Pretti’s resumé, manufacturing a nasty narrative of an unjustified police shooting, and credulously quoting Democrats calling Pretti’s death a “murder” and an “assassination.”
But things became more complicated yesterday. CNN reported that ‘sources’ said that, about a week before Pretti’s death, he was involved in another physical fight with ICE agents. Apparently, federal officers tackled him while he was interfering with their attempt to detain other protesters. Pretti told the source that five agents pigpiled him and one leaned on his back, which, he claimed, broke his rib. (He was released at the scene.)
The source said Pretti told a friend, “I thought I was going to die.” Ironic. But apparently it only whetted his appetite for more.
CNN then said it had “reviewed records consistent with treating a broken rib.” Its source also said Pretti was “known to federal agents,” but admitted that nobody knows whether the officers had ID’d him before last week’s shooting.
The best you can say is that Pretti didn’t learn his lesson the first time. Maybe it’s because he got off too easily. Did the pain and humiliation make him furious at the feds for breaking his rib? Did Pretti have a score to settle? I assume ICE agents can’t arrest every single obstructing protester, or that’s all they’d be doing all day long. (Maybe we need to bring back the Paddy Wagons.) Had Pretti been arrested the first time around, he might still be here.
The repeated violent encounters suggest that Pretti had conceived a self-image as some kind of heroic, vigilante-style civil rights warrior. Not like the Tiananmen Square guy who stood peacefully and resolutely and got squashed by CCP tanks. More like something in a Hollywood revenge fantasy like Inglourious Basterds, except without the plot armor.
He’d already gotten his rib broken; one wonders where Pretti thought he would end up on his current trajectory.
Was Pretti playing out the arc of a mental movie where he’d continue escalating, bruised and battered, and then triumphantly emerge as a viral video hero after forcing the state to back down? Maybe we should dig more into who or what filled Pretti’s head with these fantastical ideas and urged the recently divorced, 37-year-old nurse to reinvent himself as an urban guerrilla. (People reported that Pretti’s ex-wife “hadn’t spoken to him since they divorced more than two years ago.” Oof.)
Sad. But now, having raced out of the gate with its “Pretti the hero” narrative, media’s whitewashing is falling apart like cheap gas station toilet paper. Pretti now sounds more like a despairing, unstable, broken man who might have been inclined to suicide-by-cop, in a vain attempt to infuse his life with final, tragic, victimized meaning.
Finally, CNN’s story mentioned Signal-gate, where independent investigators discovered large organized groups using paramilitary tactics to coordinate anti-ICE riots. It wasn’t much, but it was there. “On Monday,” CNN said, “FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency was investigating Signal group chats used by observers to share information about ICE activities.” As far as I know, it was the first time U.S. corporate media acknowledged the Signal-gate story exists. Progress.
🔥 The media frenzy over the Pretti-Good shootings is remarkable. Each year, on average, there are 1,400 police-involved shootings resulting in somebody’s death. Two in Minnesota are a rounding error. In a Fox News interview with Will Cain yesterday, President Trump called it “a distraction.”
🚨BREAKING: President Trump just promised there “WILL BE ACCOUNTABILITY” with the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal.
“What you don’t see is we have hundreds of accountants… We’re finding fraud on top of fraud on top of fraud.”
Follow: @BoLoudon
pic.twitter.com/k15D2MY2gX— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) January 28, 2026
“What you don’t see is we have hundreds of accountants working on this,” President Trump said. “We’re finding fraud on top of fraud on top of fraud.” He figures it is much bigger than anyone estimates. “They think it’s $19 billion. Probably that’s a minimum number. Triple it, or quadruple it,” he said, promising, “There will be accountability. What’s happening in Minneapolis —all the hoopla— is a distraction from the fraud.”
Then he said he thinks California is much worse. “It’s totally out of control. They don’t know what they’re doing out there,” he said. That is almost certainly true. Now consider the timing and ask yourself: what might these fraud investigations make politically possible? Major welfare reform? Could it knock some Democrat presidential hopefuls off the chessboard? Tim Walz is out, that’s for sure. Could it help unify the GOP before the midterms? Help pass the SAVE Act or other election laws? Something even more profound?
One thing is clear: the Trump Administration is like a pit bull on a pork chop. They aren’t letting go of the fraud issue. Every time Trump or other officials talk about the Minnesota ICE surge, they never fail to mention the fraud story. It is remarkable messaging discipline.
Even tho being pro-hamas and anti-semitic is all the rage this useful idiot had to be the martyr.
But, bad for the Left: he was Jewish.
So they cleaned him up.
It was either that or another useful idiot would have to die.
(When Netflix does his story he will be black.)
The Left doesn’t care about facts or truth.
They have their fantasies and “their truth.”
The media is desperate they are comparing Kyle R. with this guy.
Kyle legal open carry, self defense, not protesting, obeyed police when ordered to go home while trying to turn himself in.
Their guy broke all the rules for carry and resisted law enforcement two times.