1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

I write to you today with a profound sense of horror and indignation regarding the killing of Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. As a physician who has spent my career in the ICU—the very same environment where Mr. Pretti served as a dedicated nurse—I am shaken by the senselessness of this travesty. I am a man of the mind, one who believes in logic, reason, and the sanctity of truth, yet every shred of evidence suggests that our federal agencies have abandoned these principles in favor of a violent and opaque authoritarianism. The bystander videos, analyzed meticulously by the New York Times, reveal a reality that stands in direct opposition to the official narrative. Mr. Pretti was not an aggressor; he was a citizen holding a cellphone, attempting to assist a woman who had been shoved to the pavement by federal agents. He was a lawful gun owner with no criminal record, yet he was tackled, pepper-sprayed, and executed with ten shots in five seconds while lying on the ground. To see a man who spent his life saving others be "judged and condemned" on a sidewalk is a stain on this country’s soul. What is perhaps more galling is the immediate and calculated campaign of disinformation launched by the administration. To label an ICU nurse a "domestic terrorist" who intended to "massacre" law enforcement—without a shred of evidence—is a reprehensible lie. These inflammatory comments, posted before the facts were even gathered, were designed to poison the public discourse and shield rogue agents from accountability. I have written to various offices over the years regarding the erosion of our civil rights, but this is an inflection point. If we allow federal agents to kill with impunity and then permit administration officials to lie about the victims to justify the carnage, the America I believed in no longer exists. I urge you to take immediate action: the ICE Director and the Secretary of DHS must resign for their roles in this cover-up, the officials who disseminated these sickening lies must be fired, and the agents involved must be held for murder. Please, for the sake of the transparency and decency we owe every citizen, stop this madness.