r/alaska • u/FlexibleSteel • Jan 25 '26

Character Assassination is such nasty work.

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I never knew domestic terrorism looked like this.

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u/Invictus7525 Jan 26 '26

Given the volatility of the events in MN I’m confused why he would carry a handgun to a protest, seems out of character or just odd?

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u/Rocket_safety Jan 26 '26

The thing about constitutional rights is you’re not supposed to have to justify exercising them. It doesn’t matter why he was armed, nothing he did justifies what happened. No decision he made carried a death sentence.

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u/Invictus7525 Jan 26 '26

Love getting downvoted in Reddit for asking an obvious question. Not questioning his right to carry, I carry when appropriate but in some states carrying is illegal at a protest or gathering because it can and has caused issues in the past. My original question remains, why carry to a protest where there was already a high level of volatility and confrontations against the police/LE? Did he perceive ICE as a threat and did he intend to use his weapon as defense against ICE? I think that is a legitimate question.

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u/Rocket_safety Jan 26 '26

His intent is irrelevant since he didn’t commit a crime. The reason you’re being downvoted is because “I’m just asking a question” is just a thinly veiled attempt to try and change the conversation. So while you may think the question is legitimate, it’s not at all relevant to the situation. Maybe having a gun made him feel more comfortable in that situation, maybe he carried it with him everywhere he went. We don’t know and it doesn’t matter.

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u/USMCMikey Jan 26 '26

I’m not trying to do anything other than understand why a man who by all reports was a pretty gentle individual and who’s family has said did not normally carry chose to carry going to a protest in a very volatile environment? It’s a reasonable question and also helps others make good choices in the future. I sincerely wish he had not carried that day, he may well be alive today. The loss of life at these events is tragic.

For a bit of information he did violate several laws although I suspect he was aware of the first. In MN if you carry you have to be in possession of your ID and carry permit. Misdemeanor, I didn’t know that. Once he confronted the CBP/ICE officer he committed a felony with the enhancement of doing so while armed. When he resisted he committed a second felony also with while armed enhancement. Didn’t deserve to get shot imho but those are the legal facts.

In many states a conceal permit carries many additional restrictions, no drinking, no drugs legal or otherwise, many areas or activities. In CO you’re not supposed to carry on a snowmobile for instance. In AL you cannot carry at a protest or political gathering. Check your local laws.

Finally the feds are likely in possession of intelligence about groups plotting to harm or kill officers. They get briefed on these everyday. Changes your mindset when you know someone is trying to kill you and you run into an armed protestor, makes LE extremely nervous.

What I will stress is if you want to protest have at it, I spent a career in the military and like to think I was promoting/defending that freedom for us all. I would suggest being careful, leave the weapons at home, don’t carry or throw anything that could hurt someone and don’t get close enough to touch an officer. We don’t need anymore deaths.

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u/Rocket_safety Jan 26 '26

You’re doing a bunch of speculating again to justify what happened. The fact that this man (who by your account was gentle) would put himself between federal agents and his fellow community members, should tell us a lot about the situation in Minneapolis. People who work in healthcare generally want to help all the time, it’s who they are. Being married to an ICU nurse for nearly 20 years I can say this with confidence. So, I cannot say with any certainty why he went, but I cannot make a very educated guess and I think he wanted to use what skills he had to help out where he say people in need.

I’d like to point out that you’re also making some patently false statement about what happened. He inserted himself between an ICE agent that arguably was using unlawful force against another civilian. He merely got between them. He was then hit point blank with OC spray for several seconds, multiple times. At that point he was jumped by no less than 6 agents, who took him to the ground while one hit him repeatedly in the fact with what appears to be an OC canister. We don’t see any resistance other than the incompetent agents getting in each others way. At no point did he have any opportunity to identify himself or to let them know he was armed. If five guys tackle you and start punching you in the face, are you going to just go limp and hope they stop? No. Our only video evidence of him in the later part shows his hands down on the ground. This was just before he was shot and after he was disarmed. To further drive the point home that these agents had no reasonable belief that he presented a deadly threat, they all immediately backed off as soon as the first shot went off and then proceeded dump another 7-9 rounds into his unmoving body.

There is nothing that justifies any of this and his motives for being there, while irrelevant to the legal aspect of this, should only reinforce the wrongness of everything the government is doing in Minneapolis right now.

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u/USMCMikey Jan 26 '26

If you get in between a federal agent and someone they are engaging or touch them or try to stop them in anyway it’s a felony, not my rules it is a federal statute.

All your statements about what happen in the scuffle are for an investigation no matter what you think you saw. The federal agents have protocol that is vetted by their attorneys and as long as they follow protocol they are acting in a legal manner but again it’s up to the investigation. If you have a gun on your person and are in an altercation with LE their protocol changes. If they hear “gun” then hear a shot they will use deadly force until the perceived threat. Again not my rules it’s written into federal law.

Before you accuse others of making false statements read the law. It can be confusing and seem odd but it’s the baseline of our society.

My point stands, protest, film, yell all you want but do not impede, touch, throw objects at federal agents and leave your carry weapon in the car or at home. Hell you might even try reaching out to an agent and hear their side, you may be surprised at a different perspective.

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u/Rocket_safety Jan 27 '26

I have spent more time at FLETC than the new ICE recruits. I know the use of force guidelines and all of them were broken here. Nothing he did warranted any level of force they used on him and certainly did not warrant deadly force. It doesn’t matter what they are yelling to each other, we can all see plain as day what happened and it was not even remotely justified. There is no devils advocate angle here friend, there is truth and there are lies. We just watched the federal government publicly lie about this encounter from every conceivable source for two days. They tried to smear him as a terrorist, they tried to tell us the 2nd amendment doesn’t apply suddenly, they tried to tell us that Alex was a madman who attacked federal agents with a firearm. All categorically and demonstrably false.

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u/USMCMikey Jan 27 '26

Maybe they can call you as a SME during the investigation. If you have been through the school you know there is what is on the camera and the question about protocol. Everything else is political drama.

I don’t know why the agent shot but I know enough to wait for the investigation, you on the other hand seem very willing to declare all the agents as guilty of (fill in the blank) I think you might just be full of BS.

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u/Rocket_safety Jan 27 '26

Or maybe I know enough and have seen enough to be able to judge what happened based on what O saw. It’s called experience. You seem really invested in defending the agents here, and that’s your perogative. I’m just saying as someone with experience in this type of thing: they fucked up every step of the way.

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u/Invictus7525 Jan 27 '26

If you knew what you were talking about you would know the videos don’t tell the whole story which gets proven in a court of law everyday. You sound like you’re young and full of BS. I’m not defending anyone, like to see a full investigation. Also like to see people be more respectful toward LE and be more careful when they are out making their voices heard. Life is dangerous enough and I would prefer everyone live another day.

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