Well, the left is now deeply concerned about their 2A rights, so we're clearly leaps and bounds beyond clown world.

6 minutes ago, busdriver said:

I think both incidents change in my mind depending on where I put the "start of the incident."

In the second case (keep this shortish). If I just focus on this: a dude gets in a physical altercation with cops. One sees he's has a gun, then a gun shot is heard. Pretty hard. I think by most precedent, that's a lawful shoot. BUT. I think in this case, you could argue that the cop started the physical altercation by shoving the woman into the ground. If you buy that, then the premise of self defense falls apart. Basically, what is a proportionate response by law enforcement to people standing in the street and getting in the way?

All that said, the protestors are clearly engaging in civil disobedience, not just protest. Given the the history of successful civil disobedience hinges on getting the state to respond with disproportionate force, this should have been entirely predictable. ICE has handled all of this very poorly. If the goal was lots of deportations, this will end up being a failure. If the goal was a political show of force, it has backfired.

In any event, physically getting in the way of law enforcement and not expecting force is just dumb.

I think your absolutely right that "start of the incident." is where a lot of opinions diverge. Was filming "interference"? The statute on interference seems to leave a lot of room for interpretation. Kind of like "disorderly conduct". Pretty easy to charge but in the end will it stick? From a cop's perspective it just made somebody's life miserable justified or not and nothing will happen to the cop. You can beat the rap but not the ride. I don't see any justification for shoving the woman to the ground and Mr. Pretti came to her defense and right or wrong it cost him his life. Either way I don't see shooting Mr. Pretti in the back while he was on the ground as justified and certainly not the next multiple rounds. Of course, the agent(s) has probably already sat with an attorney to come up with his statement on what he needs to say and not say and what he "perceived" at the moment. No way to prove otherwise and it really can justify just about any use of deadly force. I'll tell you this I trust federal law enforcement no matter who they are a lot less now. Very hard to hold them accountable. Not absolute immunity but from a practical standpoint pretty close. State and local law enforcement have their leadership in reasonable proximity to who they serve and can answer to the actions of their employees. Federal not so much. I don't see any federal charges against these agents if for no other reason than I'm sure they'll get a pre-emptive pardon. In my mind DHS is coming very close to a national police force that can be used against anyone depending on the political winds.

To go more macro, there are cities with more deportations than Minne, but none of the Minne BS going on. Why is that? Well, it’s because these aren’t grassroots protests. This isn’t normal Americans who just really love illegal aliens. This is a calculated insurgency-style operation that is well organized, equipped, and funded. There are big actors behind this with the ultimate goal of delegitimizing the gov and hoping to instill increased support for communist/marxist values.

The agitators are useful idiots. They’re petulant children who didn’t get their way in the election, and despite a vast majority of Americans demanding deportations and voting for it in Nov 24, these people don’t care. The left either gets their president/policies, or they’ll hold cities hostage via riot and unrest until they get what they want…or hopefully for all of us reasonable people, they get what they deserve this time around (held accountable for breaking the law).

On the ICE actions front, I’ll say this: I’m always skeptical of the fed gov and our rights - I am far from a “worship the gov” guy. But I also know what it’s like to be in situations where you have milliseconds to make life/death decisions. So while there are issues and bad apples in any organization, including ICE, I also have to say a big GO FUCK YOURSELF to every douche bag out there who hasn’t been in a situation like mentioned above and has the luxury of freeze framing videos from multiple angles over and over.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by brabus

6 hours ago, brabus said:

The agitators are useful idiots. They’re petulant children who didn’t get their way in the election, and despite a vast majority of Americans demanding deportations and voting for it in Nov 24, these people don’t care. The left either gets their president/policies, or they’ll hold cities hostage via riot and unrest until they get what they want…or hopefully for all of us reasonable people, they get what they deserve this time around (held accountable for breaking the law).

I assume you have mind tricked yourself into thinking that Charlottesville, Michigan, DC, etc are different. OUR GLORIOUS WARRIORS, THEIR PETULANT CHILDREN.

6 hours ago, brabus said:

I also have to say a big GO YOURSELF to every douche bag out there who hasn’t been in a situation like mentioned above and has the luxury of freeze framing videos from multiple angles over and over.

Calm down. Man who is videotaping tries to help woman who is aggressively pushed, killed 10 seconds later. Don’t need to freeze frame to see why people are upset. It’s unfortunate that the freeze frame clearly shows that ICE doesn’t unholster until the man is disarmed, though, and that he had nothing in his hands. Also doesn’t help that he’s a 37 year old white dude who works at a VA hospital as a nurse with absolutely zero record.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Negat0ry

7 hours ago, FUSEPLUG said:

Well, the left is now deeply concerned about their 2A rights, so we're clearly leaps and bounds beyond clown world.

Whether you think this is ironic or not is irrelevant. The more interesting thing here is that the right doesnt want to engage at this time on first, second, or fourth amendment suppression - something that should be a matter of principle, and something the right has pretended for years to be the biggest supporters. You just want to say “that’s crazy” #clownworld. The self-proclaimed party of the constitution should not be selective about who gets those rights.

Wilhoit’s law?

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect“

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Negat0ry

9 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Neither of these people would be dead if they were holding signs on the sidewalk and chanting anti-ICE slogans.

Interestingly, Alex Pretti, Renee Goode and Laken Riley would ALL be alive if not for Joe Biden's open border policy.

Interesting take........

Former Special Forces Warrant Officer gives his take on Minnesota protests: "What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t 'protest.' It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook."

[As a former Special Forces Warrant Officer with multiple rotations running counterinsurgency ops—both hunting insurgents and trying to separate them from sympathetic populations—I’ve seen organized resistance up close. From Anbar to Helmand, the pattern is familiar: spotters, cutouts, dead drops (or modern equivalents), disciplined comms, role specialization, and a willingness to absorb casualties while bleeding the stronger force slowly.

What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t “protest.” It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook.

Signal groups at 1,000-member cap per zone. Dedicated roles: mobile chasers, plate checkers logging vehicle data into shared databases, 24/7 dispatch nodes vectoring assets, SALUTE-style reporting (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment) on suspected federal vehicles. Daily chat rotations and timed deletions to frustrate forensic recovery. Vetting processes for new joiners. Mutual aid from sympathetic locals (teachers providing cover, possible PD tip-offs on license plate lookups). Home-base coordination points. Rapid escalation from observation to physical obstruction—or worse.

This isn’t spontaneous outrage. This is C2 (command and control) with redundancy, OPSEC hygiene, and task organization that would make a SF team sergeant nod in recognition. Replace “ICE agents” with “occupying coalition forces” and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted in the mid-2000s.

The most sobering part? It’s domestic. Funded, trained (somewhere), and directed by people who live in the same country they’re trying to paralyze law enforcement in. When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid-response network against federal officers—complete with doxxing, vehicle pursuits, and harassment that’s already turned lethal—you’re no longer dealing with civil disobedience. You’re facing a distributed resistance that’s learned the lessons of successful insurgencies: stay below the kinetic threshold most of the time, force over-reaction when possible, maintain popular support through narrative, and never present a single center of gravity.

I spent years training partner forces to dismantle exactly this kind of apparatus. Now pieces of it are standing up in American cities, enabled by elements of local government and civil society. That should keep every thinking American awake at night.

Not because I want escalation. But because history shows these things don’t de-escalate on their own once the infrastructure exists and the cadre believe they’re winning the information war.

We either recognize what we’re actually looking at—or we pretend it’s still just “activism” until the structures harden and spread.

Your call, America. But from where I sit, this isn’t January 2026 politics anymore.

It’s phase one of something we’ve spent decades trying to keep off our own soil.]

- Eric Shwalm

12 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

Interestingly, Alex Pretti, Renee Goode and Laken Riley would ALL be alive if not for Joe Biden's open border policy.

Interestingly, they would ALL not have been killed if the founding fathers had never formed America. The more you think 🤔

1 hour ago, slc said:

Interesting take........

- Eric Shwalm

Eric Shawlm is exactly right.

I read a good op ed in the Washington Post that talked about where this began. The author pointed to bipartisan legislation around 2010 dealing with climate change. The groups looking for policy changes related to the issue gave up on the democratic process after the bipartisan legislation fell apart. They intentionally changed their tactics and began setting up non profits and other organizations to fund and organize radical activism to achieve their goals. Those goals aren’t limited to climate change. They intentionally use issues like racial equality (BLM riots), COVID, anti Israel/free Palestine, anti capitalism/pro socialism, anti police/defund movements, no kings, etc as excuses to cause chaos and mayhem in an effort to destabilize our system. They are very well funded and organized. There’s a second part going on beyond the riots and that is elections. Zoran in NYC is a product of this movement so is the mayor in Seattle.

I think they got exactly what they wanted with these 2 shootings in Minneapolis. They know if you blow whistles, honk horns, spit on, scream through bullhorns, park your car blocking the roads, dox, threaten officers and their families and constantly interfere with law enforcement operations for days on end that you’ll eventually get an officer to make a bad split second decision. Neither of those activists had any business being there other than to be a part of the chaos. I think the Alex Pretti situation was a bad shoot. But, the chaos was designed to get that exact outcome.

Edited 45 minutes ago45 min by lloyd christmas

I'm not defending pulling a gun after the guy was on the ground and apparently disarmed. I'm also not accusing, as it all happened very quickly. Just like some of the anti-police people back in the late 90's and early 2000's that were run through police training simulators and all ended up shooting unarmed people in the sim. Easy to hit pause on a video and say 'at this exact point, the individual is no longer a threat, so the shooting that took place 1/2 second later is unjustified'.

Pretti approached law enforcement in the situation where a hostile mob was developing. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that's a terrible idea. If you want to protest and film, stand on the other side of the street and use the zoom function on your phone. I'm a big 2A guy, but I also keep in mind when I'm armed and am in proximity to law enforcement and that affects my actions. If possible, I avoid being in any situation where I'm armed and within 20 feet, let alone walk up to them with a hostile attitude or insert myself into what they're doing. If the situation gets out of control and I find myself in a bad situation with law enforcement (armed or not) and they are yelling commands at me, that is not the time to show how tough I am. You comply as deliberately and calmly as possible and wait for vindication in court. To do anything else, especially while armed, is stupid and you are putting your own life at risk.

Not saying that it is entirely his fault, but Pretti apparently made a series of poor decisions that put his life at the mercy of another person's single decision. A person that was likely very stressed after being constantly targeted by hostile mobs and was probably minimally trained.

Or if MN as a state would cooperate with the Feds like most states are, the Feds wouldn't feel the need to do a surge like this.