Death of a good American and American goodness
Swarthmore, Pa.: In a televised interview on Sunday, Greg Bovino, the official in charge of Border Patrol agents on the streets of Minneapolis, told lie after lie. He lied about what led his agents to confront, shoot and kill 37-year-old Alex J. Pretti, an intensive care nurse. He lied that it was Pretti who instigated the sequence of events that culminated in his death. He lied that, as his boss, Department of Homeland Security chief honcho Kristi Noem said, Pretti was “brandishing a gun.” The video shows that that was a complete fabrication.
Bovino also blatantly and egregiously lied when he said, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” These Border Patrol agents, rather than take concrete steps to deescalate the situation, did the opposite and escalated it. Their gross mismanagement of the situation ultimately led to an innocent American, who was only trying to document the actions of ICE and the Border Patrol by lawfully videoing them using his cell phone, having his young life prematurely snuffed out.
This isn’t the America I love and grew up in. This is a country dangerously and seemingly inexorably morphing into a totalitarian police state led by a man whose seeming goal is to instill fear in the populace, allowing him to rule like an autocrat. I’d ask even those who supported President Trump: Is this what you voted for? Trump recently said the quiet part out loud, once again. He said, “Sometimes you need a dictator.” Is this where and how our great 250-year experiment in democracy ends? Sadly and scarily, it sure feels like it might. Ken Derow
High-risk
Manhattan: As the facts unfold through official investigations, we are all doubtlessly diminished by the death of ICE protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. However, interfering with law enforcement is a highly dangerous — not to mention illegal — business. To confront federal agents in the midst of an arrest while carrying a loaded firearm is a recipe for a toxic finale: suicide by cop. Is that what the Minnesota twins, Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz, are promoting? Susan M. Silver
Grave clarity
Brooklyn: It’s clear that U.S. citizen Alex Pretti is dead for exercising his First Amendment right to protest government acts and his Second Amendment right to carry a licensed concealed weapon, which he never pulled out or brandished, despite the lies of Noem. He was pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground by overzealous Border Patrol officers for coming to the aid of a woman protester they had assaulted and knocked down. After his holstered gun was discovered under his coat and removed while he was being manhandled, he was executed on the spot by one of the officers despite lying unarmed and defenseless on the ground. It’s a given that there will be no consequences for the officer who killed Pretti, just as there have been none for the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good. We are now living in a police state. Dennis Middlebrooks
The winds will change
Manhattan: We need accountability for the cold-blooded shooting of Alex Pretti, an honest, decent, compassionate man who served veterans as a member of the noble profession of nursing. It’s bad enough that he was brutally killed in the prime of his life, and it’s beyond deplorable, evil and vile that the monsters running our government couldn’t wait to put their propaganda machine into high gear in their usual deceitful ways, insulting the intelligence of average Americans by trying to convince them that what they saw with their own eyes didn’t really happen. Fortunately, there is no statute of limitations for murder, and we will see accountability for this heinous murder of a nice young man if Americans who supported the monster in the White House and his evil architect of hate, Stephen Miller, suffer an epiphany before the November elections and vote for Democrats. Enrico Rizzo
Fat chance
Dayton, Ohio: Trump says he thinks God is very proud of the work he is doing. Trump is almost always wrong. This time is no exception. Vic Presutti
Hands off
Bellerose: Most Americans agree that we can’t take over a country, i.e. Greenland, that belongs to someone else. This logic applies to the plight of city retirees. We were promised free health care, and the unions are trying to take that away. Retirees don’t belong to the unions or pay dues, and they can’t dictate what health plans we must accept. We’ve enjoyed the plan we have and were using for the last 60 years. To Mayor Mamdani, Gov. Hochul, the City Council and our representatives in Albany: If you don’t support our president taking over Greenland, don’t support Henry Garrido, DC37, and Michael Mulgrew, UFT, and vote to support our bill in Albany so they don’t change our health care plans. Vote for Intro 1096. Kathleen Lucas
Give nurses their due
Manhattan: It’s astounding to me that nurses who risked their lives saving ours during the COVID pandemic and continue to risk their safety every day on the job aren’t treated as the valued professionals they are by the three richest hospitals in New York. Not only are hospital CEOs paid obscene amounts of money and the hospitals are sitting on fat cash balances, but NewYork–Presbyterian is guilty of something even more grotesque. It rakes in $359 million more in tax breaks than it provides to care for New York’s highest-need communities. Nurses don’t just want their health care benefits and previously agreed-upon safe staffing levels restored, and a plan to keep them safe at work. They demand equitable care for patients across the hospital systems, from the poorest neighborhoods to the wealthiest. Kellye Rowland
Safer at home
Bayside: To all those whose occupation is education, have you listened to weather reports where we’re told not to go out because it’s so hazardous? Why would you even think of sending children to school? Not every child walks to school these days or takes a school bus. Have you ever seen the traffic on school days? Even sending out school buses is dangerous in these conditions. We’re lucky to have remote learning in the 21st century. Use your heads and utilize it! Mary Santora
Let ’em have it
Brooklyn: Hey Mayor Mamdani, it’s been awhile since the schools had a snow day. You should have let the kids have their day in the snow. Their lessons could wait, the days could be made up in June like it was years ago. John M. Corbett
Farmers no more
Ledyard, Conn.: I read with interest that Mamdani had students learn remotely after the snow storm. It seems odd to me that people worry about snow days, which are relatively rare and generally have to be made up, but not about the fact that kids only attend school for 180 days each year. It’s past time for a change. Lisa Allen
The grid does good
Kingston, N.Y.: Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado recently called the state’s approval of the NESE natural gas pipeline a “moral failure.” But New Yorkers who shivered through this week’s dangerous deep freeze should be skeptical of the policy that Delgado champions. He’s campaigning on a dangerous energy platform, demanding that the state exclusively invest in intermittent renewables and decommission our natural gas system. Yet, during Sunday night’s life-threatening freeze, wind and solar were functionally nonexistent, accounting for just a few percent of our energy. Our grid stayed online because of natural gas and oil, as well as the “false solution” nuclear plants Delgado wants to regulate out of existence. If he wants to be governor, he has to explain how solar and wind can possibly provide electricity and heat in the winter for a 20 million people across the state. A grid that disappears in 10-degree weather is a recipe for disaster. Alex Panagiotopoulos
Life-threatening act
Brooklyn: I just read in your paper that Ivan Negron was arrested for pushing a stranger onto the tracks. He was charged with attempted assault. Why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder? If a train was passing by, the victim would have been killed. Can any of your readers enlighten me? We are doomed. Dennis Burge
