Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Iowa City on Sunday to mourn the death of Alex Pretti, the second Minnesota resident killed by federal immigration enforcement officials.
Videos show ICE agents swarming the V-A hospital nurse and shooting him several times in Minneapolis. It’s just weeks after another federal officer shot and killed Minnesota resident Renee Good.
Jeimy Panduro Orellana says she’s alarmed by the how the White House and certain news outlets have framed the shooting based on the video evidence.
“It’s just inhumane, it’s not even a political issue. It’s a human rights issue,” Orellana says. “I just think anybody that can think logically can see that what’s going on is so disgusting right now that it feels wrong not to speak up, not to say something, not to be out here fighting.”
Many people said they had relatives or other ties to the Twin Cities.
Lily Froehlich is a student at the University of Iowa. She says she was horrified seeing online comments implying that Pretti’s death was justified.
“I was just devastated by the fact that we have gotten to this point as a country where we’re excusing this, where we’re seeing this man who spent his life helping veterans, helping others, helping a woman who had been tear gassed, and we have members of our community saying that this is something that’s not a problem.”
A federal immigration judge has barred federal officials from destroying or altering evidence related to Pretti’s shooting, as some Congressional Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for an independent investigation.
