Alex Pretti Was Doing The Small Stuff

It struck me over the weekend, as I toggled between NFL action and the continued occupation of Minnesota at the hands of the president's secret police, that Alex Pretti was murdered for establishing the run.

This, of course, is not to make light of ICE agents executing Pretti on the streets of Minnesota. But what Pretti was doing – helping a woman in distress as she was harassed by masked men with big guns – was exactly what I wrote about in last week's blog about establishing the run against authoritarianism.

Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU Veterans Administration nurse who enjoyed hiking, was shot through the back of the head on Saturday while defending a woman being harassed by Donald Trump's goon squad, sent to Minneapolis to terrorize immigrants and brutalize those who defend and protect them (anti-Christ politics, as I mentioned here).

Pretti was doing a little thing, a loving thing, a necessary thing, taking a face full of pepper spray in defense of the woman screaming for help outside a donut shop on a weekend morning in fascist dystopia. He was saying no, absolutely not, you may not terrify and harm this person in my community. Pretti did not know the woman shouting for help. It didn't matter. He did what was right and stood up to injustice and for that he was killed by an anonymous agent who has been told by regime officials – including the vice president – that he can maim and kill anyone he wants to, that he has "total immunity" from the laws that govern the United States.

Like the folks standing guard outside schools to stop ICE from abducting children and like the people doing laundry and cooking meals for immigrants cowering inside their homes during this anti-constitutional siege of an American city – a siege you will be told one day did not happen – Pretti was willing to do the small stuff that adds up to bigger, transformational societal and political shifts.

Pretti was a real man. He was not a coward with a mask and a gun marauding around an American city trying to start riots and bash the skulls of anyone who looked at him sideways. He was not a fearful, ignorant bastard fueled by hate. Pretti's was a positive masculinity. It was a protective masculinity. His was a masculinity that stood on the side of justice, no matter the cost. For that I'm grateful to Alex Pretti, who won't live to see the difference he made in this monstrously unjust world. He was a real man.

No one said establishing the run against authoritarian terror was going to be easy. No one said it wasn't going to be dangerous. The freedom-loving people of Minnesota, who poured onto the streets after the president's goons executed yet another American, understand this better than anyone. They made it clear to a murderous regime wobbling on its back foot: Hunt us, hurt us, kill us, it doesn't matter. We will continue doing the small stuff, establishing the run.

Follow Denny Carter on Bluesky at @dennycarter.bsky.social