With different videos and angles emerging, many are wondering if the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal officers was legally justified.
Andrew Branca—an attorney, author, and internationally recognized expert on self defense—joined Liz Collin on her podcast and explained some of the details that he included in his own viral video analysis of the incident.
Branca explained that, “fundamentally, all the videos are pretty consistent with each other and really nothing’s inconsistent with this being a lawful use of force by the officers.”
He said that overall, “the legal question is, did the officers who shot Alex Pretti have a reasonable, not necessarily correct, but a reasonable perception that he was presenting as an imminent, unlawful, deadly force threat?”
“That’s presumed to be the case. A prosecutor would have to disprove that proposition beyond any reasonable doubt. So it’s a very high burden to overcome that justification,” Branca added.
He also identified how “Alex Pretti interfered with the arrest of the woman” and then makes physical contact with a federal law enforcement officer.
“The moment he [Pretti] makes contact with that officer, he’s just committed a federal felony, good for eight years in a federal penitentiary,” Branca said.
“That’s why they were seeking to make his arrest, because they saw him commit a forcible felony against a fellow officer. Then he’s non-compliant with arrest. He’s fighting them. Then they discover he has a gun on his person,” he added.
Getting further into the details, Branca explained how the officers “take that gun—there’s cries of ‘gun, gun, gun!’—the officers call to each other,” and how Pretti was “still non-compliant.”
“They hear a gunshot go off and Alex Pretti’s right hand comes from his waistline with a black object in his hand. That combination of facts is going to get you shot 999 times out of 1,000 by law enforcement—and justifiably so. They’re making all these perceptions, all these decisions in a violent, chaotic melee caused by Alex Pretti,” Branca explained.
When it comes to the legal justification for self-defense, Branca said the decisions made by the officers involved in the shooting “don’t have to be correct.”
“The law of self-defense does not require us to make perfect decisions. It requires us to make reasoned decisions, meaning you’re applying your powers of reason to the facts presented to you. You’re not making things up. You’re not speculating someone could have a weapon,” he said.
“Now, probably the item in his hand would turn out to be maybe one of his spare magazines or maybe a cellphone, but it doesn’t matter what it actually was; it matters how it would be reasonably perceived given that combination of facts and reasonably perceiving as a weapon is well within the realm of reason,” Branca explained.
With regard to Pretti’s engagement with federal officers, Branca said, “he was shot fundamentally for one reason: he violently fought the law and the law won.”
Media propaganda, officer-involved shootings, and ‘justice’ in Hennepin County
Branca was also critical of the media: “most of what most journalists publish is simply propaganda. They have a political agenda, a narrative they want to advance and they write their stories and do their news reports to advance that agenda.”
“Most journalists—most lawyers, by the way, too—don’t really know the law of self-defense. They don’t really know use-of-force law,” Branca said.
Although he explained the legal justification for the shooting, Branca said that in light of what happened in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the so-called murder of George Floyd, a fair trial for the federal officers in Hennepin County would be unlikely.
“If the officers involved in this shooting, or the officer who shot Renee Good, were to be tried in Hennepin County, they wouldn’t get a fair trial either. It would be the same railroading that Derek Chauvin got,” Branca said.
‘SignalGate’ and the Insurrection Act
The case could become even more complicated considering the recent developments with what has become known as “SignalGate“— the stalking of ICE agents in Minnesota by activists, and possibly elected officials, who have been using an app called Signal to secretly communicate and coordinate their anti-ICE efforts.
When Collin asked if SignalGate could amount to state-sanctioned insurrection, Branca said, “Yeah, it’s certainly looking that way … We’re well beyond protest. We’re even well beyond impeding federal law enforcement by aggressive anti-ICE protesters. This begins to look more and more like a well-structured, well-organized, command and control paramilitary operation.”
“We keep inching closer and closer to the point where Trump would not only be appropriate in invoking the Insurrection Act, but would be in violation of his duty to the Constitution to see that the laws are faithfully executed if he does not invoke the Insurrection Act,” Branca added.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter, news anchor, and producer who cares about Minnesota. She is the producer of The Fall of Minneapolis and Minnesota v We the People documentary films, and author of the Amazon best-selling book, They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and The Death of George Floyd. Her work has prompted important state laws. Yet perhaps most of all, Liz has been giving a voice to the truth—and helping others tell their stories—for more than 20 years.
Dr. JC Chaix
Dr. JC Chaix is an editor, educator, and an expert in media studies. He wrote and directed the Alpha News documentary "The Fall of Minneapolis" and "Minnesota v We the People."
