American Fear
Homage to Renee Good and Alex Pretti
January 25, 2026
It was supposed to be a tranquil weekend of snow, writing, art, and some rearranging of the papers that shift from one place to another on my floor, but never really disappear. Like everyone else, I’d gone to the supermarket. Twice. That’s what you do when you don’t have a car and have to do the urban trek in shifts. Monday was going to be a bonus day, as everyone accepted nature’s blanket of temporary stillness and the world slowed down.
Except it didn’t.
When Ali Velshi announced at around 11 a.m. on Saturday that there was breaking news out of Minneapolis, I figured it would be bad. But I wasn’t ready for how appalling it would be. He announced that another resident of that city had been shot.
The first video came in. He had a gun. He didn’t have a gun. He was shot five times. A white male, 37 years old. No identification as of yet. He had threatened ICE officers, according to regime accounts. Witnesses said he hadn’t. Images presented him on the ground being punched repeatedly.
That was it. I was tethered to the television for the next five hours, up until the point where I’d seen the latest phone camera angle, learned the name of the murdered man, listened to the experts, heard the press conference with Minnesota’s leaders, and absorbed all the reactions from the talking heads on MS Now and CNN. Eventually, I was back at the beginning of the loop with a variation on what I’d heard in the morning. By now, even I knew the proper physical and legal protocol for restraining a person during a demonstration.
“This can’t be happening,” I said to family and friends on telephone calls. The lies were coming in fast on Truth Social and other platforms, via the usual demagogues—Steven Miller, Kristi Noem, and the thoroughly despicable Gregory Bovino. Other Republican flacks weighed in as well.
Soon it was confirmed. The executed man was Alex Jeffrey Pretti. He was an ICU nurse who worked with veterans at the local VA hospital. He had come to the street to be a helpful member of the community. Originally, he was trying to direct traffic. When he saw a woman forcefully shoved by an ICE operative into the snow, Pretti tried to assist her in getting up.
Then they went after him, like a pack of jackals. First it was the chemical spray. Then he was pummeled by their fists. Shots rang out. Originally, they said there were five. Later, it was changed to ten.
I’d already viewed another person being abused by a group of agents. He was on the pavement, screaming his name, saying, “I have done nothing wrong. I’m a United States citizen. You wanna kill me on the street?” A woman, his wife, was crying hysterically. She explained to a man in a clerical collar, trying to calm her, that she and her husband were running away from the tear gas. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
Watching, I had that heavy weighted feeling on my chest that I get when something makes me anxious, and I feel like I can’t breathe.
My fear was combined with anger.
Where are our leaders? Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Then I heard Rep. Seth Moulton, a former Marine, being interviewed. He qualified Pretti’s death as a “murder” and referred to ICE as “pathetic cowards” and “criminal thugs.” He underscored, “ICE needs to be prosecuted.” His fury was palpable, and I started to feel better.
AOC was interviewed by Jake Tapper, and that was helpful as well. She vigorously pushed back against Noem’s account of the episode and called on Americans to watch the video for themselves. She took exception to Noem’s false use of the word “incitement,” which Ocasio-Cortez viewed as laying the groundwork for taking actions against a blue state. “We have to fact-check them in real time,” she said, adding that the people of Minnesota have a “city sanctuary” ordinance.
It took for what seemed like forever, but by the end of the day, more comments were coming in. On Sunday, Chuck Schumer stated that Democratic Senators would not vote for the upcoming appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill was not excised.
Still, all I could think about was the murder of Renee Good and the assassination of Alex Pretti. Two original all-American snuff movies, brought to the nation by Donald J. Trump, and directed by Steven Miller.
Pretti left his home on Saturday morning to support his community. I’m sure it never entered his mind that he would not come home.
Image: “American Fear”
Marcia G. Yerman
January 2026
Paper, Fabric, Thread, Beads