Episcopal leaders call for action after latest federal killing of Minnesota resident
People gather during a vigil for 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an American citizen who was shot dead by a federal agent during a protest on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo: Adam Gray/AP
[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal leaders are amplifying widespread calls for the Trump administration to de-escalate its deployment of federal immigration authorities to American cities and for Congress to block new Homeland Security spending after those authorities on Jan. 24 killed a second U.S. citizen in three weeks in Minnesota.
Amateur video of the latest killing shows 37-year-old Alex Pretti using his cellphone camera to record federal agents patrolling a Minneapolis street. Those officers can be seen roughing up residents at the side of the street and attacking them and Pretti with a chemical spray, then tackling Pretti to the ground and, seconds later, opening fire on him.
“Fellow Americans, things are impossibly hard in Minnesota right now. We are a state that feels under siege, and the people of this place are doing everything possible to resist,” Minnesota Bishop Craig Loya said in a written statement released after Pretti’s killing. “The campaign of reckless brutality being waged by the federal government has been well documented, including today’s killing of a citizen who was restrained and immobilized.”
Loya also highlighted what he described as “something much more powerful” as his diocese joins efforts at “mobilizing for revolutionary love.”
“Vast networks of care, compassion, and solidarity, organized by churches to deliver food and supplies to those who cannot leave their homes,” Loya said. “People are documenting the violence being used against us in a way that puts their own lives at risk. … A rich web of underground care and hidden love is taking deep root, and it’s amazing to think what fruit that might bear when this occupation ends.”
He added calls to action for all Episcopalians. “Minnesotans cannot do more than we are doing,” he said, but others interested in helping can “flood your U.S. senators with appeals to not to further fund ICE,” organize peaceful demonstrations in their own communities and “nurture the Diocese of Minnesota’s primary engine of underground care and subversive love by donating to Casa Maria,” an Episcopal ministry that is providing food and supplies to “those rightfully afraid to go about their daily lives amidst the violence.”
The killing of Pretti, a nurse who worked at a Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital, occurred one day after a major anti-ICE demonstration in downtown Minneapolis that was attended by Episcopal clergy from across the country. Those developments follow the Jan. 7 shooting death of Renee Good, another 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, at the hands of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
As news spread of Pretti’s killing, other Episcopal bishops released statements offering solidarity with Loya and Minnesota Episcopalians and outrage at the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive tactics targeting both legal and illegal immigration.
“Once again, the policies and practices of this administration have led to the loss of life, the spilling of blood, and the sowing of fear in Minneapolis and beyond. The blatant disregard for human dignity and the willful cruelty of deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement further erode the democratic principles upon which our nation was founded,” Missouri Bishop Deon Johnson said in a Facebook post.
“As people of faith, particularly those who claim the faith of Jesus, Christ calls us to act. Act for justice, act for peace, act for mercy, act for the protection of the vulnerable, and act for the restoration of human dignity,” Johnson said. “The time for standing in the sidelines in silence has passed.”
Northern Indiana Bishop Douglas Sparks also posted to Facebook about Pretti, saying he had been “murdered by ICE.”
“What will it take for the members of Congress to address this criminal activity by our government?” Sparks said. “The officials who are in charge from top to bottom need to be held accountable and if guilty of crimes be tried and incarcerated. Please flood your senators and congress persons to address Alex’s death.”
In Washington, D.C., Democrats in Congress have responded to the latest killing by refusing to help advance spending bills favored by Republicans that include about $64 million for the Department of Homeland Security, including $10 billion specifically for ICE. That raises the possibility of another government shutdown when current spending bills expire at the end of January.
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.
