"If they gun me down
in my own street someday
may my crime be compassion."
These are the opening lines of a powerful poem by Michael Dubois entitled "If They Call Me a Domestic Terrorist" and featured by Joyce Vance today. See below for the entire poem.
A poem entitled "If They Call Me a Domestic Terrorist" by Michael Dubois shared by Joyce Vance today; the poem focuses on the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis
“DHS officers have fired shots during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations 16 times since July, and as in the recent shootings in Minneapolis, in each case the Trump admin has publicly declared their actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed."
"Most of the incidents involve officers firing at drivers during enforcement stops in cities like LA and Chicago. At least 10 people have been struck by bullets - including 4 US citizens. Three people have been killed.”
"At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025. ICE facilities across the country have faced allegations from human rights groups, immigration lawyers and lawmakers about overcrowding and poor conditions, such as rotten food, which the agency has denied."
"A plurality of Americans now want to abolish ICE, a position that before this year was considered a crazy lefty idea no smart Democrat would want to associate themselves with. Both privately and publicly, Republicans have been telling Trump that he’s losing the public relations battle over Minneapolis."
"In social media spaces devoted to everything from knitting to football, conversations have been taken over by outrage at ICE. Yet still, Republicans don’t quite understand how this happened."
"The killing by federal agents of two Americans in Minneapolis this month — Renee Good on Jan. 7, 2026, and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 — has created a backlash to the administration’s policy of mass deportations and 'immigration enforcement' that is causing voters (in all parties) to move against the president’s agenda."
"As a student of public opinion, I see these events as constituting a classic 'tipping point' in how voters see immigration — and how they evaluate their leaders on the issue."
"Meta has started blocking its users from sharing links to ICE List, a website that has compiled the names of what it claims are Department of Homeland Security employees, a project the creators say is designed to hold those employees accountable."
"In Minneapolis, we watched a man die in front of the world, and yet we still do not know who pulled the trigger. Not by name. Not by badge. Not by face. Not by the accountability that is supposed to define a democratic society."
"In law enforcement departments across the country, badge numbers are visible on uniforms precisely so that when force is used, especially lethal force, the public can know who was involved. That transparency is not a nicety. It is a safeguard."
David Kurtz warns us not to fall for Trump regime claims, echoed by compliant media, that DHS are probing Pretti's murder:
"As MSNow has since confirmed, the Trump DOJ has decided not to open a civil rights investigation into the Pretti shooting, the same decision it made in the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good."
"A week before the government murdered Alex Pretti, they dogpiled him in their usual fashion, and broke one of his ribs. The news says he was 'protesting' the detention of 'other individuals.' That's a fine thing to do."
"I didn’t realize, in the hours before his name was released to the public, that the man millions of people had seen lying facedown on the pavement from multiple angles of eyewitness video was my childhood best friend."
"about a week before his death, he suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals."
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that “DHS law enforcement has no record of this incident.”
It sure looks like they knew who he was, but don't want to reveal it was an #ICE#execution
"Donald Trump is reportedly 'furious' with the way the Department of Homeland Security has handled the events in Minnesota over the past several weeks. He is not upset with the immigration enforcement activities. Rather, he is upset that Americans are seeing them."
"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."
"Based on what our own eyes can see, the lies and smears of the Trump White House, which continue apace, are both disgusting and dangerous. ... The lies and slanders will not be what we remember of these brave souls. It will be their humanity, and the courage of their convictions, that will shine bright in our memories and help light the way forward."
"Kristi Noem’s lies about what happened — to say nothing of Greg Bovino’s even worse lies (the Star Tribune’s fact check is worth reading) — make them both co-conspirators in this murder.
Kristi Noem’s goons are responsible for two of three murders committed in the state of Minnesota this year, effectively tripling the murder rate with their reckless and cowardly actions."
"Imagine having to watch the videos of your son being murdered in the street so you could scream NO, NO, THESE ARE LIES against the disgusting monsters saying it was your child who was there to do murder — and who never informed you of your son’s death at all."
"We should also call what happened to Pretti an execution because, as we learned in the hours that followed, the monstrous Trump regime essentially sanctioned this killing in the rush to exonerate the perpetrators and blame the victim."
"This should be all the evidence that lawmakers in a position to deny ICE funding need—indeed to abolish this death squad that commits extra-judicial killings in broad daylight with our tax dollars."
"Put simply, the Trump administration’s narrative around the killing of Alex Pretti has collapsed. Administration officials were deployed to defend it on television this morning, but even conservative media was openly skeptical."
"These Republican authorities murder because they intend to murder, and if you listen to them you'll hear them say as much. They lie about the murders and their intent in order to justify the murder, because they intend to murder some more—much more, as much as they will be permitted.
This means that we're dealing with a massive national gang of lying murderers."