What's missing from Minneapolis shooting coverage
The danger fueling deadly split-second decisions
The killing of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis is awful and tragic. And there’s something the media is leaving out of its coverage: a big part of the context for what can drive heat-of-the-moment decisions by federal officers.
Initial indications are that Pretti never brandished the gun he had on him, and that one of the officers who surrounded him took it away before another officer shot Pretti. But in the melee, that officer may not have known Pretti was disarmed. An officer is heard on video after the shooting, looking at Pretti and apparently asking, “Where’s the gun?”
Tracking the media coverage, I see that dozens — likely hundreds — of stories reference Renee Good, who was killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. As I reported then, people rushed to cast the officer and Good as villain and hero, with opposite takes on which was which.
But virtually no reports on this latest shooting reference Sarah Beckstrom.
Beckstrom, 20 years old, was one of two National Guard troops shot in Washington, D.C., by an immigrant from Afghanistan. The other, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, is apparently on a long road to recovery. They were part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
It doesn’t take a genius to see why this is significant to the Minneapolis story, or any similar incident. Federal agents sent to carry out the administration’s orders know they’re in danger. Fear and the desire to protect fellow agents can easily contribute to a split-second choice to shoot.
There have definitely been other attacks on federal agents, although the number is unclear. “The men and women of DHS have been attacked, shot at, doxed, had their family members threatened,” Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said Saturday after Pretti was killed.
“We have seen more than 100 vehicle rammings over the past year against federal law enforcement,” he added. But Big Media should not run with that figure without telling you it cannot be confirmed. To its credit, local station FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul reported on why DHS officials’ claims, in general, are untrustworthy.
Still, the threat against these troops is real. YouTuber Ami Horowitz regularly exposes far-left activists’ support for violence. Recently in Minneapolis, people offered up money to help him kill ICE agents.
To tackle this problem, the nation must focus not only on violence by federal agents, but also on violence against them. That requires the media reminding people of Beckstrom’s death.
In our bifurcated media ecosystem, a big swath of the country is told daily that ICE and Border Patrol agents are pure evil and must be stopped; another swath is told that far-left activists want dangerous illegal aliens to be free to roam the streets.
A media doing its job would tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But instead, the media works to make money off of public rage.
As I explained in Episode 90:
People have gotten so used to seeing their own anger reflected in the media that at this point, audiences can get angry if they don’t see it. It’s possible some people will hear me discuss the Renee Good shooting and say, “How dare he not say that this is as simple as the ICE agent was justified in self-defense?” Or, “How dare he not say this is as simple as she was murdered in cold blood?”
Because in news, that’s not the job.
The job is to provide truth: facts + context.
JL
P.S. Supporters, share your thoughts, questions and feedback here:
It's all so awful and has to stop. It's combustible, and things are getting even more dangerous. A listener and reader sent me this forgotten story from September- https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-09-25/joshua-jahn-motivation-shooting-notes
Videos show he was shot in the back while face down on the ground. He was obviously no threat to anyone. ICE and border control agents are out of control.