Featured Image Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images/Fox 11 News
Topics: Barack Obama, Politics, US News, News, Donald Trump
Madison Burgess
Topics: Barack Obama, Politics, US News, News, Donald Trump
Democratic ex-presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have issued statements against the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old nurse in Minneapolis.
On Saturday (24 January), Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse and US citizen, tragically became the second person to be shot dead by federal immigration officers in the city this month.
Videos have since emerged showing a confrontation between Border Patrol agents and Pretti in the lead up to the shooting.
However, there have been differing accounts of what actually happened, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claiming the agents fired in self-defence after Pretti, who they claimed had a handgun, resisted their attempts to disarm him.
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Meanwhile, local officials, eyewitnesses and the victim's family have all challenged that account and claimed he had a phone in his hand, not a weapon.
Some of the footage that has emerged shockingly shows the ICU nurse being forced to the floor, pepper sprayed and then shot more than 10 times within just a few seconds.
Pretti’s family said they were 'heartbroken but also very angry' at authorities, including federal officials’ description of the shooting.
Their family statement said: "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 has 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."
They urged: "Please get the truth out about our son."
Pretti's death comes just weeks after Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot dead by ICE agents earlier this month on January 7, sparking outrage and protests.
And now, as we say, both Obama and Clinton have spoken out on the matter, with the latter urging Americans to do 'one thing'.
In their statement, former US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle called Pretti's death 'a heartbreaking tragedy' and 'a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault'.
Speaking about President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, they penned: "For weeks now people across the country have been rightly outraged by the spectacle of masked ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] recruits and other federal agents acting with impunity and engaging in tactics that seem designed to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city.
The political couple added: "And yet rather than trying to impose some semblance of discipline and accountability over the agents they’ve deployed, the President and current administration officials seem eager to escalate the situation, while offering public explanations for the shootings of Mr. Pretti and Renee Good that aren't informed by any serious investigation - and that appear to be directly contradicted by video evidence."
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton similarly condemned the 'horrible scenes' in Minneapolis that he 'never thought would take place in America'.
He wrote: "People, including children, have been seized from their homes, workplaces, and the street by masked federal agents. Peaceful protesters and citizens exercising their constitutional right to observe and document law enforcement have been arrested, beaten, teargassed, and most searingly, in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed.
“All of this is unacceptable and should have been avoided."
The former US president continued: “To make matters even worse, at every turn, the people in charge have lied to us, told us not to believe what we’ve seen with our own eyes, and pushed increasingly aggressive and antagonistic tactics, including impeding investigations by local authorities."
He then urged the American public to speak out and take action to 'shape history'.
“Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. This is one of them. If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back,” Clinton wrote.
He continued: “It is up to all of us who believe in the promise of American democracy to stand up, speak out, and show that our nation still belongs to We the People."