{"id":46346,"date":"2026-01-27T13:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=46346"},"modified":"2026-01-27T13:14:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:14:51","slug":"what-my-lai-massacre-has-to-do-with-minneapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/what-my-lai-massacre-has-to-do-with-minneapolis\/","title":{"rendered":"What My Lai Massacre Has to Do With Minneapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) officers at a Speedway gas station in Minneapolis, MN, on January 22, 2026. Photo credit: Chad Davis \/ Flickr (CC BY 4.0)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US Politics<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russ Baker<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

01\/26\/26 (whowhatwhy.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New perspectives \u2014 and investigative avenues \u2014 on the shootings<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Vietnam War, \u201csuccess\u201d was measured primarily by the numbers of the enemy killed and wounded. Soldiers were under intense pressure to deliver impressive death statistics. Such pressure led to the infamous My Lai Massacre<\/a>, where hundreds of unarmed villagers \u2014 almost all of them women, elderly men, children, and babies \u2014 were massacred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, federal agents, too, are under top-down pressure to generate statistics. They must capture and deport large numbers of undocumented individuals. In the process, they\u2019re racking up another statistic: dead Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the unrelenting pressure for numbers \u2014 combined with the reckless hiring of unqualified people lacking the requisite skills for crowd control at demonstrations \u2014 that is bringing this country to a breaking point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let\u2019s go deeper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

TheTrump administration did not, after the Good killing, step back to reconsider this dynamic \u2014 they doubled down. Why<\/em>? As my colleague Jonathan Simon pointed out to me, the answer is not unlike the answer to the question of why, after dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the US doubled down by also bombing Nagasaki. That<\/em> \u201csignal\u201d was directed at the Soviet Union \u2014 a clear \u201ckeep your hands off Japan.\u201d This<\/em> signal is directed at the American people. It\u2019s basically state-sponsored terrorism \u2014 a nonverbal proclamation of fascistic intent \u2014 we can do whatever we want wherever we want, laws, tradition, and the Constitution be damned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Renee Good and Alex Pretti may not be the only names we come to memorialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can argue about the extent to which Americans have the right to protest, up to and including impeding actions they deem immoral. But one cannot argue with the numbers and the toxic values demonstrated in Minneapolis \u2014 or with the ultimate cause of our national spiral into chaos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know from experience that the immigration problem is complicated, and the process of identifying, adjudicating, and removing those who have no legal right to be in the country and may present a threat to the public good is a time-consuming and at times frustrating one for those who believe the country is being overwhelmed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But proceeding lawfully with due process is just the way it has to be in a democratic polity. Nothing is easy, and if the sense of the public is that this removal process must be continued, then it must be done responsibly, and humanely, over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pressure of quotas is, we now see, deadly. And the mindset behind it must be brought into the open and discussed if this ship of state is ever to sail upright again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ICED in Minneapolis\u2026 Again<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One version of the January 24 killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by ICE agents comes from US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem<\/a>: A man she labelled a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d approached some Border Patrol officers with a handgun and violently resisted when they tried to disarm him. \u201cFearing for his life and for the lives of his fellow officers,\u201d she said, an agent fired \u201cdefensive shots.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A different version, according to video analyses by The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, CBS<\/a>, NBC, CNN<\/a> and others: Pretti approaches the agents holding up a cell phone. He tries to help a woman who was shoved to the ground by an ICE agent. That agent pepper-sprays both of them in the face. Several officers pile onto Pretti, beating him for several seconds, when someone (as yet unidentified) yells, \u201cHe\u2019s got a gun!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently in response, an officer reaches down and retrieves the newly discovered gun from Pretti\u2019s waistband. Immediately after \u2014 at a time when he no longer has his gun<\/em> and while he is still being beaten \u2014 an officer shoots him at least nine times. The victim, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a veterans hospital, had a gun permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that practically the whole world knows that the Trump administration\u2019s claims are conspicuously false, how will they ever recover from being exposed as unambiguously lying about what amounts to state-sponsored murder of a US citizen who is clearly innocent of threatening law enforcement agents with deadly force?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched a disheartening display on Sunday: US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responding to Kristen Welker on NBC\u2019s Meet The Press<\/em>, as she tries in vain to get a straight answer out of him on, well, anything<\/em> concerning the shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She persistently asks him, does he not see that Pretti approached the ICE agents holding only a cell phone? That he was fatally shot after his legally permitted gun had been removed, when he was not possibly a threat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blanche\u2019s performance is an embarrassment. He clumsily bobs and weaves, challenges her \u201cperception,\u201d changes the subject, claims no one knows what happened, no one can see anything, tries to distract with irrelevancies, and adopts one of the most abused concepts in the history of disputation \u2014 claiming NBC\u2019s Welker was viewing the event \u201cout of context.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that may never be investigated: the extra ammunition Pretti allegedly carried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an apparent effort to make Pretti seem even more dangerous, Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino said, \u201cThe suspect also had two loaded magazines <\/a>and no accessible ID. This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.\u201d Pretti\u2019s 9mm semiautomatic gun was the same kind carried by many ICE agents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this in mind, as my colleague Milicent Cranor noted, and given all the other examples of deception in this case and wide-ranging cover-up in general, it\u2019s not unreasonable to withhold trust on the matter of the claimed extra ammunition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is especially so because of the incredibly high political stakes in a crucial election year \u2014 and the fact that DHS has shut out state and local authorities from the investigation of both fatalities. And blocked an investigation by the FBI<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any honest inquiry would take a look at something we brought up in our newish weekly series Saturday Hashtag<\/em><\/a>: What ICE officer Jonathan Ross did just before shooting Renee Good \u2014 position himself in front of a moving vehicle \u2014 is actually a thing<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)\u2019s \u201cUse of Force Review\u201d <\/a>of 67 cases between 2010 and 2012 (released in 2013) focused on this tactic as an excuse to fire. In fact, The<\/em> Nation<\/em><\/a> magazine, to which I was an erstwhile contributor reported on this back in 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, one cannot be sure whether ICE agent Ross was doing that when he fatally shot Renee Good in the head through the open driver\u2019s window. But certainly he was aware of the Border Patrol practice because he himself was with the Border Patrol in El Paso from 2007 to 2015 \u2014 the period during which CBP agents were employing the above-mentioned tactic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This seems like a very big deal but, aside from Raw Story<\/em> <\/a>and a few individuals posting about it on social media, it has gotten little of the attention it deserves. Legacy corporate media certainly hasn\u2019t seized the opportunity to raise the matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, back in March of 2014 (soon after The Nation<\/em> article), The New York Times<\/em><\/a> published a story based on the PERF report \u2014 but look at the headline: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Border Patrol Instructed to Show Restraint  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article was all about handling oneself when assaulted with rocks, the dangers that agents face, etc., and at the end of a paragraph, where you\u2019d almost miss it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The memo also instructed them not to shoot at fleeing vehicles and reiterated a policy that forbids officers to place themselves in the path of moving vehicles \u2014 an apparent response to accusations that agents had stood in front of vehicles to justify firing their weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, on February 27, 2024, The Los Angeles Time<\/em>s <\/a>began with this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Border Patrol agents have deliberately stepped in the path of cars apparently to justify shooting at the drivers and have fired in frustration at people throwing rocks from the Mexican side of the border, according to an independent review of 67 cases that resulted in 19 deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to that same Saturday Hashtag<\/em>, some of these ICE tactics may have originated with Israel\u2019s military, national police, and intelligence services,<\/a> which have been training American law enforcement for years, much as Americans for decades provided training<\/a> to other countries, notably those south of the border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloodying the Muddy Waters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This outstanding analysis <\/a>of multiple, clear videos of the shooting of Renee Good make it abundantly clear that, after firing through the far left side of the windshield, the agent quickly moves to the driver\u2019s window and fires more shots. Then he walks away. By no stretch of the imagination was he \u201crun over\u201d as claimed by Trump et al.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now compare the above with right-wing podcaster Megyn Kelly\u2019s analysis<\/a>, \u201cWhat Shooting Videos Really Show.\u201d In Kelly\u2019s version of the ABC video, agent Ross is a dark gray blob \u2014 in contrast to clearer objects around him. And it is impossible to see what happens with this blob. (Kelly also looks the viewer in the eye and says, with emphasis, the hole in the windshield is \u201cin front.\u201d Well, it is in the windshield, but so far to the left <\/em>on the windshield glass, right next to the metal frame, that it can most reasonably be considered a side shot.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, back to our story. On January 14, not long after the media coverage of the Good shooting \u2014 coverage that paid scant attention to the PERF report \u2014 CBS News<\/a> announced: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ICE agent who shot Renee Good suffered internal bleeding, officials say<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CBS staffers were skeptical of the claim, especially since the agent was seen walking around for several minutes after the incident before driving himself, not to a hospital, but to a federal building. We do not know exactly when he was taken to a hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One CBS staffer anonymously told The Guardian<\/a>, \u201cIt was viewed as a thinly veiled, anonymous leak to someone who\u2019d carry it online.\u201d Another said, \u201cFelt to many here like we were carrying water for the admin\u2019s justifying of the shooting to keep our access to our sources.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, they implied, Bari Weiss, the recently appointed editor-in-chief of CBS, seemed to be pushing that ICE-friendly detail of the story; a CBS News spokesperson said the network \u201cwent through its rigorous editorial process and decided it was reportable based on the reporting, the reporters, and the sourcing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repeating flimsy, vague assertions from an administration universally known for nonstop lying is a \u201crigorous editorial process\u201d? And when has that administration ever not <\/em>instantly weaponized advantageous information, like unquestioningly reporting the (still not substantiated) claim that ICE agent Ross sustained internal injuries (a category which sounds bad but encompasses everything down to small bruises).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In light of which, my question is this: Why did \u201cofficials\u201d wait seven days <\/em>to make this claim?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, by making Ross seem like a bleeding victim, it would also seem that he had<\/em> to shoot to protect himself. And it might distract from, if not neutralize, the PERF expos\u00e9.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how will they ever prove \u201cinternal bleeding\u201d? If it was more than a bruise, why let him out of the hospital the same day? Will we see scans of this \u201cinternal\u201d damage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now this: ICE has proposed cutting funding for bodycams<\/a> \u2014 and House Republicans do not want to mandate that ICE officers even wear them. Now, why would it do that, do you suppose? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, F*** OFF<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth keeping in mind the Trumpian tendency to lie and cover up potentially damaging material when we consider the interminable foot-dragging on the congressionally ordered release of the Epstein files. \u201cEven\u201d GOP representatives like Anna Paulina Luna and Lauren Boebert<\/a> \u2014 who have been championed by some as seriously concerned with transparency \u2014 now say they don\u2019t care that Trump failed to release 95 percent of the Epstein documents, or only care about seeing dirt on Bill Clinton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his back to the wall, on Epstein or any other perceived threat, we know Trump\u2019s longtime solution, as mandated by his mentor Roy Cohn: distract, distract, distract.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recruiting large numbers of unbalanced and unqualified people into ICE, then inviting them to wreak havoc, is another thuggish power play to command the news cycle. And it will create fear \u2014 as will his effort to roll back already ineffectual gun regulation,<\/a> a dangerous signal to his heavily armed base, to whom he constantly dogwhistles about violence against his enemies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do have reason to react with growing consternation. Especially when considering what may be yet to come. I keep hearing Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s timeless line from his 1933 inaugural speech: \u201cAll we have to fear is fear itself.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, fear itself is paralyzing, and generally makes everything worse. But let\u2019s face it: The reality is that the threat of dictatorship, fascism, cruelty, unjustifiable punishment, total disaster \u2014 is <\/em>terrifying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing, though: Facing a threat head-on can be empowering. That is, I think, what FDR meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because courage often arises out of even temporarily conquered fear. And then the challenge is to sustain that courage. Fortunately, this sentiment seems to be spreading rapidly. Our fellow citizens \u2014 in Minneapolis and elsewhere \u2014 get it, and now, so do our friends abroad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s bold challenge to Trump at Davos has Trump panicking and threatening Canada with 100-percent tariffs<\/em>. He\u2019s really starting to lose it and will begin to be overwhelmed if, as one hopes, more and more speak up. And they are<\/a> \u2014 from religious leaders to a Danish member of the European parliament literally telling Trump to \u201cF*** OFF.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no longer unimaginable that Europe \u2014 perhaps with help from Canada and Mexico \u2014 might save the United States from Trump\/MAGA, much as, in World War II, the US came to save Europe from the Nazis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s my glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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