On Jan. 24, through the glow of our phone screens, we were again forced to witness a federal immigration agent fatally shoot a civilian. The victim, American citizen and ICU nurse Alex Pretti, was shot at least 10 times while attempting to film agents. This slaughter happened less than three weeks after the world saw the killing of Renée Good circulate across their social media feeds.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, known for shooting her own dog, has grossly claimed that Pretti was intent on a “massacre” of agents because of his supposed possession of a gun. This narrative spread quickly online despite being directly contradicted by footage released by The New York Times itself showing that Pretti held his phone in one hand, likely recording the situation, while the other was empty. Although Pretti was carrying a concealed weapon, which is legal in Minnesota, a federal agent had confiscated it before shooting him, meaning he was unarmed at the time shots were fired.
In an era where nearly every act of state violence is mediated through video, Pretti’s phone should have functioned as evidence. Instead, it marked him as a threat.
Luckily, the people around Pretti were filming, and the video evidence is not ambiguous. It is clear, widely accessible, endlessly replay-able and available from different angles. Despite this, the Trump administration’s salacious story continues to circulate alongside it. Ultimately, we are forced to acknowledge an alarming but familiar pattern: when we see violence, we are discouraged from believing what we see.
Across social media, I have witnessed outrage over Pretti’s execution, but have interestingly noticed radio silence from one particular group.
Let me be clear — no one is obligated to post political content on social media. In fact, in 2024, I wrote an article titled “People shouldn’t be pressured into posting political content” and my opinion remains the same. However, in my experience, those who do choose to be vocal frequently contradict themselves, which drives me up the wall.
The same people on my timeline who took to social media after the assassination of right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk to condemn killing others for their political ideology don’t seem to have anything to say for those being executed by ICE agents. And to those individuals, I ask one simple question — “Why?”
I don’t mean to be accusatory here — or maybe I do — but I’m wondering if killing people for their political ideology is only wrong when you share the same ideology with the victim?
Part of what made Kirk’s assassination so shocking was not just who he was, but how we saw it. The uncensored footage spread rapidly across social media, forcing viewers to watch a man be violently killed without the sanitizing blur of traditional news coverage.
That same unfiltered clarity exists in the footage coming out of Minneapolis, yet the response has been markedly different due to the mental gymnastics being used to cover up a state-sanctioned murder. If you are not infuriated by these scenes, regardless of your political affiliation, you are not paying attention.
Social media makes this contradiction impossible to miss. Bringing a gun to a protest is suddenly reprehensible, although just a few years ago, Kyle Rittenhouse was made a hero by the right for shooting three people, killing two, during a protest. Kirk, a media personality, received a moment of silence at major sports games across the country, while Pretti, a frontline worker whose job was quite literally helping people, received just a few in the state where he was killed.
I believe part of the problem with this cognitive dissonance is not that people are entirely unaware of the escalation in Minneapolis, but rather that some forms of violence are easier to engage with online than others. Condemning a rogue assassin such as Tyler Robinson, the man who allegedly killed Kirk, costs nothing. Confronting federal agents, government narratives and state power is far more uncomfortable.
Additionally, there is always the “red versus blue” binary that pits everyday people against each other, even when the true perpetrator is the state. Our government is literally waging war on our own people, and I think their deaths deserve the same amount of outrage, even if they weren’t your favorite podcasters.
It is objectively not self-defense, as the Trump administration has claimed, to shoot at someone 10 times after disarming them, and it is not self-defense, as the Trump administration has also claimed, to shoot a woman in her car because you claim she was going to run you over when video footage clearly shows her turning the steering wheel away from you and into the direction of traffic.
I don’t know about you, but I would never take the word of a politician, even one I liked, over what I saw with my very own eyes, and you shouldn’t either.
George Orwell wrote in his dystopian totalitarian novel “1984,” “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” That image is becoming increasingly relevant.
We may not be entirely under Big Brother’s control yet, but I worry we are not far off. We are quite literally watching civilians being killed on video and then being told, repeatedly, that they were the aggressors and not the masked men with guns. We are scrolling past proof while politicians insist the opposite is true.
Our president warns us that murderers are crossing the border to kill citizens, but the citizens being murdered are killed by ICE — the evidence is visible, recorded and shared. The question is no longer whether we are seeing it. The question is why so many, including those who were outraged in September, are closing their eyes or choosing not to respond.
My plea is simple — we cannot pretend to unsee such violence just because it’s not what the politicians in our party are telling us to do.
I wish I had more to say, but for once, I might actually be at a loss for words.
Jordan Ori, a senior majoring in English, is Pipe Dream’s assistant opinions editor.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.