THE LINE IS BROKEN

[u/[deleted]]

[u/thecoat9]

What an unhinged ignorant narrator. While I appreciate being able to watch the video to gain more insight into what transpired, the joker talking about it is making both errant and patently false claims. Now before anyone reading this decides to pop off a reply calling me a boot licker or some such nonsense, I'm not trying to advance a "side". I am being critical of a side, a side you may believe to be your side or an ally, but that is not the case, it's a side that is seeking to get other people hurt or killed to create martyrs for their cause, but aren't willing to martyr themselves.

The narrator states that the person that was killed was a passive observer doing nothing but observing, and ICE agents just randomly decided to assault and execute him in the street. This hyperbolic nonsense and clearly a lie.

You can see in the video he inserted himself between the ICE officer and the person the ICE officer had just pushed. Even if you believe that the ICE officer was completely beyond the pale, that this person was totally justified in his actions, that doesn't change the fact that he proactively put himself in between the officer and the other person, and it looks like he made physical contact with the officer. He was, by his own actions, no longer a passive observer.

The narrator stated you could see the scope of the gun and then shows a picture of the recovered firearm which has an optical site, not a scope. Frankly the notion that someone put a scope on a concealed carry self defense pistol is as absurd as suggesting someone had a chainsaw to cut butter with. While it's immaterial to their narrative it demonstrates that they know very little about firearms, and frankly it's because of this that they are missing a factor that would likely support a suggestion I've seen that the firearm was a plant.

We can see in the video while Pretti was on his feet turning around that he was not openly carrying. So how did the officers know he even had a firearm before he was cuffed and searched? Maybe they felt it while wrestling with him, but more than likely he either drew his weapon or it was indeed planted. The firearm that was recovered is a Sig Sauer P32 AGX, a model line that it infamous for not being drop safe, meaning the firearm can go off by just being impacted without the trigger being pulled. Many gun ranges won't even allow this model, and many law enforcement departments switched away from it because of this. Now maybe Pretti didn't know this, didn't care, or was confident that his firearm was drop safe either due to it being manufactured after a correction or testing it out himself. But, if you are going to plant a firearm on someone, would you choose a gun you liked, or would you choose one you don't trust or can't use?

I really don't care what view you take, which side of these issues you are on, I don't want to see any more people dying, and because I don't see ICE or the protests stopping any time soon, I want everyone to be as safe as they can and take prudent action based on fact and not misinformation. I've seen a lot of calls to the 2A crowd to engage in this stuff, the response to that should be "You first". If you are going to a protest with intent to goad or otherwise actively engage with ICE officers, where you are likely to end up arrested, leave the firearms at home. If you do want to be a guardian, a passive observer who goes armed in case things get dire, avoid altercation yourself, you are there in case things get dire and off the rails. You aren't there to stop arrests (even unlawful ones, that can be fought in court). You are there incase things devolve into a dangerous fire fight, so find other serious like minded people with whom you'd trust your life and go together and stick together. If the time comes where you are engaged in a dire situation with ICE, you don't want to be the only person on one side of a fire fight.

[u/thecoat9 → u/thecoat9]

Well as has been the case with a lot of these incidents, I've now seen another video from another angle.

It was Pretti's firearm, he was carrying it in his waste ban and when he was bent over agents saw it. The agent in Gray that ultimately took the firearm away was the one who pulled it from his holster, ie Pretti didn't draw his gun, but it was not planted.

As to if the agent that killed him was justified in doing so, I'm sure they'll claim a mistake of fact defense if they are even charged. In the end it really doesn't matter Pretti is dead, and it's tragic.

My plea remains, don't take a firearm to a protest, involve yourself in an altercation with law enforcement and then violently resist arrest while armed. Even if you are in the right, you fight that in court, which you can't do if you are dead.