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Some weeks the weight of this country feels almost too heavy to carry. This is one of them. After federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti — a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen — on a Minneapolis street this weekend, I’m left with a grief that feels too big for language. Rage, sorrow, numbness — they blur together until there’s no clean word for what’s sitting in my chest.
And I want to make this personal for a second — because on Saturday, Alex’s family released a statement. It was more gracious, more restrained than anything I could imagine writing if my own son had been murdered by the federal government.
“I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.”
I had just had dinner with my wife and son when I read the statement. I pulled it up on my phone, read it on the couch, and I just broke down in tears.
I’ve gone live this whole weekend — writing tweets, talking to clients, trying to stay useful, trying to hold it together. But that moment broke me. That statement — somehow beautiful, somehow composed — coming from people living a nightmare.
My son came over and asked me what was wrong. He’s seen me upset before, but this was different. This time, I sat down and told him what happened.
We talked about ICE. About people being terrorized on the streets because of their skin color and where they come from. About Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and a human being who was shot and killed by federal agents while documenting what was happening. I told him about Renee Good, and I told him we were safe — but that there are bad people doing bad things.
It was hard. Emotional. And he just hugged me and said he loved me. Turns out, my six-year-old son has a higher EQ than the President of the United States.
But you know… every time something like this happens, some piece of innocence dies. For my son, for me, for all of us. They steal it from us. They take our empathy, our compassion, our love of country and of each other — and twist those things into justifications for violence and chaos on American streets. In our schools, communities, homes.
And that’s not even the worst of their crimes.
I believe Trump, JD Vance, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, and the rest of these MAGA bootlickers — who treat the Constitution as circumstantial — are guilty of a hell of a lot. But this is a crime I won’t forget.
No family should ever have to write a statement like that. No parent should be forced to process the murder of their son at the hands of the U.S. government. That death lies at the feet of the President of the United States — a man who, more likely than not, spent the week golfing or schmoozing at some party with crooks handing him cash for pardons.
No American should have to witness the violence we saw in Minneapolis. Minnesotans don’t deserve this. Immigrant communities don’t deserve to be hunted and terrorized. No one should have to see what happened to Renee Good. Or Alex Pretti. Or anyone.
And I honestly don’t know how we heal from this — because this isn’t the bottom. It’s going to get worse.
Tim Walz has called in the National Guard to protect his people. Kristi Noem, now head of DHS, is straight-up lying — smearing his name within hours of his murder, calling him a “domestic terrorist,” saying Alex “attacked” federal agents with his gun. A gun he legally owned and had a permit and concealed carry license for. Videos and witness accounts show beyond reasonable doubt that he was filming with his phone and trying to help someone before he was tackled, beaten, and shot multiple times.
He was a good man. A caregiver. Someone who helped people every day as an ICU nurse. Who did more for this country in his single final act of service than Noem, Bovino, Vance, and all of Trump’s sycophants will ever do in their entire lives. Alex’s last act was documenting and trying to assist a woman who had been assaulted — shoved to the ground and pepper-sprayed by an ICE thug — not threatening law enforcement. And he paid the price for it.
And some of the ICE agents celebrated.
They celebrated.
This tells us everything. These people aren’t the good guys. They’re not keeping anyone safe. They’re not heroes. They’re small, insecure men, cosplaying as cops, treating this like a video game, serving chaos and cruelty for the sake of their orange god.
Every single one of them should have been immediately stripped of their duties and fired — not retrained, as some Democrats like to say.
And the ones who killed Alex Pretti — and who killed Renee Good — should be prosecuted. To the fullest extent. They should never see sunlight again.
I don’t know where we go from here. But I know this: they want you afraid. They want you paralyzed. They want you to believe you don’t matter.
But the people of Minneapolis are showing us something else. They are not backing down — they are doubling down. And the rest of the country is following suit. In Chicago, neighbors took to the streets, and an outpouring of organizing actions is surging this week — from a vigil being held by the Nurses Unions at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, to community meetings on organizing general strikes, to local leaders and organizations ramping up Rapid Response & ICE Watch trainings.
Yes, it’s scary. Yes, resisting does mean putting your body on the line against people who want to hurt you — and who will lie about you if you die.
But we have to keep showing up. Keep speaking out. Keep reaching out to one another. This doesn’t stop.
A million small acts of resistance. Every single day.
No, you might not be able to show up at a protest every day. But you can still do something. We all have something to give.
If you have time, give it — volunteer with a local mutual aid group, help a neighbor with childcare, deliver groceries to a family that’s scared to leave the house. If you have money, support organizations doing legal defense work or back candidates who are actually fighting for people, not just tweeting about it.
If you’ve got a printer, print flyers. If you’ve got a car, offer a ride. If you’ve got a platform and a voice people listen to, use it to lift up organizers, share verified information, and point people toward ways to help.
And don’t underestimate the quieter work, either. Have the hard conversation with your dad who voted for Trump — like I did this weekend. Sit down with your kid and explain what’s happening, and what kind of person you hope they grow up to be. Check on your neighbors. Let people know they’re not alone.
Not everyone’s role is to stand on the front lines. But everyone has a role. And this is the moment to keep finding yours.

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