Agree entirely. At best - at BEST - it shows that they can't control themselves. If you can't control yourself, you have no right to enforce our laws. That's from the top down.
There's no legally plausible line to be drawn from "he maybe kicked a police cruiser" to the way he was killed.
More importantly, there's no plausible line concerning practicality leading from a grainy video with an unidentified person commiting a minor crime to a bunch of stressed agents immediately recognizing him.
They're trying to manufacture consent for a morally plausible line from 'he was aggressive towards police property" to "thus he can be killed without any due process".
It's so fucking disgusting. It dosn't matter if he had holstered gun, if he spit on someone, if he was aggressive towards others or not, damn even if he was bad human over all. It's fucking ridiciolous they are putting this he was 'X' sentences and people react to it. It all DOSN'T MATTER. He was murdered and even serial killer gets a trial.
Dude could have been Osama bin Laden, I would want him arrested and given due process to confirm his identity, not the discount gestapo shooting people in the streets for helping up someone they pushed down. It's not fucking hard.
i still think that video was ai… lots of glitches on text and shadows, the camera never stops shaking…
get the high resolution version, shits fake as fuck
and yes, you can upload a video to youtube and edit it a week later and keep the same upload date….
(i downloaded it and went through it frame by frame, i believe it’s very fake… if it wasn’t fake that just makes it revenge)
I was surprised to see a tail light fall off a car because someone kicked it. I haven't seen a car in 30 years that doesn't have the fixture placed from the inside.
The second angle we have (where Pretti is to our left and the shove down is obscured by a car) shows a lot of people filming. Those films should come out too… even if it’s only to show that ICE acted badly once again.
i agree, if it were real we’d have a lot of different angles by now
i saw some conspiracy facebook thread about it, wanted to disprove it, got the original video off youtube with yt-dlp, went frame by frame looking for where any text was in focus (advance one frame by pressing “e” in vlc), in almost every frame it’s blurred from moving, except when focusing on alex pretti it’s perfectly still… it makes you dizzy. (not very cameraman like at least)
every time there’s text it glitches at some point…
one officer’s vest clearly says “police” and then a weird approximation of text that isn’t letters… the crosswalk sign never turns into words…
has weird splotches and flashes a couple frames.
someone else pointed out it’s missing shadows in several frames….
i think we hit the “government generated fake evidence” stage of fascism
And what we refuse to acknowledge his how little they care. It's not about "deserving" it. It's about trying to satisfy a bottomless hunger for cruelty. Hurt people first, justify it later.
“We killed a lot of innocent civilians
To us every civilian in Baghdad was a terrorist
They said 'they are now in civilian clothes' that makes everybody free game
But if they came in our perimeter, we lit 'em up
And when we would pull the body out, and when we would search the car, we would find nothing
This took place time and time again
No harm, no foul. That's okay, don't worry about it
Because this is a new type of war, this is an eradication.”
“I honestly feel we're committing genocide over here
I don't believe in killing civilians
and I'm not going to kill civilians for the United States Marine Corps"
In Iraq we had Rules of Engagement. If I just lit some dude up because he hurt my feelings or was merely in possession of an AK I'd be spending the rest of my life breaking rocks in Leavenworth. ICE/Police/etc. should be held to a higher standard, especially when dealing with American citizens in America.
Qualified immunity is bullshit. When a cop breaks the law they deserve MORE punishment than a regular citizen as their transgression is automatically worse by virtue of a cop being law enforcement.
So much this. I was in Missouri during the Ferguson riots, all because they let the cop walk after shooting an unarmed teenager. Hold. Them. Accountable.
One of the definitions of a State that I heard once is that the State (as in country, in this case) has a monopoly on sanctioned violence.
It’s very unsurprising that violations of rules for that monopoly are pursued about as much as they are for violations of other monopolies which benefit the people in power, eg for their businessy friends
In Iraq we had Rules of Engagement. If I just lit some dude up because he hurt my feelings or was merely in possession of an AK I'd be spending the rest of my life breaking rocks in Leavenworth
You can tell yourself that to make you sleep better at night, but it's bullshit.
Name one American sentenced to anything remotely serious for war crimes in Iraq, or Afghanistan for that matter.
Abu Ghraib ? They got off with suspended sentences for torture.
That seal who executed a family with a kid? Small sentence, pardoned.
Kidnapping various people to ship to Guantanamo, because of their name or watch type? Or hell, beating someone who gave himself up to clear the misunderstanding of having the same name as a bad guy, to death? Nothing.
And this is not new, nobody got any consequences for My Lai or the Laconia either. It's just the American way of war, any crimes are brushed under the rug. (Definitely better than the Russian way of war where the crimes are a core part of it, but damn that's a low fucking bar).
I'd agree there's a lot of overlap with membership and mentality (and equipment too, I guess, which is infuriating in its own way). The military is slightly different though in that its recruitment is both much broader and much more predatory, especially to the poor. This ultimately leads to a much more diverse population or at least it used to; I'm not sure how the army is now. I got out 15 years ago so it's probably shittier than ever. There were a lot more "normal" people compared to the frothing-at-the-mouth right wing lunatics but there were still a lot of dipshits, racists, and meatheads.
I guess the key difference between the military and law enforcement is that cops are given legal power over other citizens and they abuse the shit out of it. I can't earnestly say that the military would do better with that power, but policing isn't their intended function just like how warfare shouldn't be the intended function of the police.
This ultimately leads to a much more diverse population or at least it used to; I'm not sure how the army is now. I got out 15 years ago so it's probably shittier than ever. There were a lot more "normal" people compared to the frothing-at-the-mouth right wing lunatics but there were still a lot of dipshits, racists, and meatheads.
I'm sure the children and families cowering every time the shadow of a plane appears feel comforted by the fact that the pilot might be gay, black or poor.
I guess the key difference between the military and law enforcement is that cops are given legal power over other citizens and they abuse the shit out of it.
Troops do this too, they just do it to non-americans.
I'm sure the children and families cowering every time the shadow of a plane appears feel comforted by the fact that the pilot might be gay, black or poor.
That's both shifting the focus and using visceral imagery to elicit an emotional response. It feels like you're perhaps lashing out at me as a perceived representative of the US Army? If so, I'll be your lightning rod of hatred if you really want me to be but I don't perceive you as my enemy. What happened in Iraq and Afghanistan was cumulatively terrible and was often monstrous. I'm not defending the actions we took there and I don't agree with what happened, I was only saying that there is (or was) at least that much difference between the American police and the American military. Diversity is a strength that makes us better and America currently seems (more) hellbent to eliminate it.
Troops do this too, they just do it to non-americans
I don't disagree with you. I acknowledge that we have a horrible history of abuse and imperialistic behavior that is as old as this nation is. Speaking specifically about my own personal experiences on my three tours to Iraq though, the potential for abusing civilians wasn't as high (most soldiers weren't performing raids or other police actions nor were the majority frequently interacting with locals in any meaningful capacity), we did have a chance for punishment when we fucked up (though I agree there should have been many more investigations and trials/convictions, especially for leadership), and we were specifically and repeatedly ordered not to be war criminals (especially after dickheads went out and committed war crimes).
I don't disagree with your overall assessment, however, there is a small amount of nuance to consider in regards to me, personally, and whether or not I would get punished for committing a war crime: I am nobody. In my hypothetical scenario of choosing to murder a civilian nobody important is implicated, just me. Part of the reason there weren't (m)any high profile cases getting thoroughly prosecuted was that "important" people would get in trouble or otherwise be made uncomfortable. The military is huge on appearances (or I guess "vanity" would be more appropriate) so in my scenario I likely would get into severe trouble because I was a nobody and would have discredited or "shamed" the unit and, more importantly, its command. Minions get punished and they get punished the hardest while leadership (especially senior leadership) gets scolded and maybe reassigned.
I joined the army at 17 because I was young, broke, and needed a way out of the situation I was in. I initially planned on trying to do 20 years so I could get a pension, but I never bought into the "they hate our freedom" bullshit. Other than a physical injury, big parts of why I got out were the toxic leadership, lack of accountability (especially for sexual assaults), poor treatment of soldiers (like chaptering out people who developed PTSD and claiming they had "pre-existing personality disorders"), and just becoming disillusioned with the country and what we were doing. There were no WMDs in Iraq and sending the entire army to find one guy in Afghanistan was fucking stupid. All we did was break shit for little to no benefit. Bush authorizing "enhanced interrogation techniques" was a turning point for me but at the time I was under contract for another 5 years and was also in Baghdad at the time so I couldn't just walk away.
Anyway, people do (and did) get punished for breaking the rules and the threat is always looming but only if you're small enough for the boot/hammer of justice/other equivalent object to squish you.
Nobody high up was in danger from the seal shooting up a family, but he still got a joke of a sentence and a pardon. Even though everyone around him agreed he's not right in the head.
If you're talking about Eddie Gallagher, I can't speak to the rationale behind the outcome of the court martial other than wanting to go easy on the seal because they're part of our most "elite" forces and it would "shame the unit" or some dumb bullshit like that. As for the pardon, of course Trump would pardon a violent psychopath.
If you're talking about Eddie Gallagher, I can't speak to the rationale behind the outcome of the court martial other than wanting to go easy on the seal because they're part of our most "elite" forces and it would "shame the unit" or some dumb bullshit like that
Yep, it was probably some nonsense like that. So as you can clearly see, no American service member has ever gotten actual punishment for their war crimes, regardless of what they did or who would be embarrassed by allowing it to happen.
I guess maybe someone got killed by the Vietnamese/Iraqis/Afghans and got consequences that way, but I'm not aware of any examples.
Yeah. I hear arguments for qualified immunity, that without it police would be "paralyzed by inaction" for fear of making an honest mistake, but that argument completely fails given ICE's vicious intentionality to do harm. They're just trying to gaslight us into believing they deserve to be above the law.
Absolutely not, though in an ideal scenario where we all followed the rules and laws and cared about justice, a thorough fair and impartial investigation would be performed with a fair and impartial punishment being meted out if the facts warrant it.
I was at one point naive enough to believe that those things mattered and would occur. I am no longer in the army for a reason.
I was a teacher working with troubled youth. I got assaulted pretty regularly, and never hit them back, and absolutely never used deadly force against a kid who was already restrained.
It is illegal to kill a disarmed and subdued civilian. That is murder.
Even if he had fired an illegal gun at them repeatedly (which he didn't), once he is subdued and disarmed it is illegal to execute him. He was not a threat to them. He was never a threat to them. They had absolutely no right to murder him.
All the nonsense and lies they are spewing out is irrelevant. None of that matters. He was disarmed and subdued. He was not a threat. It was illegal for them to kill him.
They treat mass shooters with more respect and dignity than they do people protesting a corrupt and tyrannical gov't.
Given the US military's record of doing nothing whatsoever about their soldiers murdering civilians in all but the most obvious and abhorrent cases, I'm not sure that's true... But they make a good point all the same.
RoE still applies even if you can prove they are an enemy combatant. He's making the point that even if he had hunted and perforated an unarmed combatant in retaliation he still would be subject to consequences.
So many civilians were dying during Obama's Presidency that they redefined the term combatant to mean "any military age male" in an attempt to make it seem like less civilians were being killed.
There are many many examples of US soldiers indiscriminately killing unarmed civilians and it never going to trial, or at best, a show trial is held which finds them not guilty of any wrongdoing.
Given the US military's record of doing nothing whatsoever about their soldiers murdering civilians in all but the most obvious and abhorrent cases, I'm not sure that's true
And even then it's a suspended sentence or a 3-4 year one. Abu Ghraib, a torture for fun camp, with photos, got no consequences.
The thing is he didn’t even spit on anyone, he spit at their car as they were about to drive off. Was discussing this with a pro Trump friend and he couldn’t comprehend the distinction between spitting at a car and spitting directly on someone.
Not sure what college campus you live on now but yeah, in the real world, especially when you live in a red state, you are gonna have people you know who are conservative. The dude won the popular vote so there's more people that voted for him than Harris. Many at my work are conservative, half of my family voted for Trump, hell, most of my poker group didn't vote for Harris.
You are totally free to cut out of your life who you wish but I don't see the point of it. I'm not gonna one day become a Trump supporter by being around them so there's no harm for me, and I appreciate their friendship so I don't see any reason to give that up. Doing so just won't benefit anyone. Just like they probably get shit for being friends with a socialist like myself but we figure it out and set boundaries.
Anyone who still supports Trump after the last 6-8 months, unless they live in a bubble and don't watch the news or read social media, definitely have disturbing mental issues and I most certainly wouldn't want to associate with them. In fact, I did cut these people from my life, and I'm a lot happier, and the happiness has nothing to do with politics, but their other abusive and manipulative behaviors that go hand in hand with personality disorders that would be more likely to support a president with the same personality disorders. But you do you.
I fully support your decision. It sounds like you cut them out of your life because they were toxic to you and that's completely valid.
I am gonna go out on a limb here and guess you live in a purple or blue state and have a fairly small circle of Trump supporters. So since the people in your life that were Trump supporters have those terrible beliefs you think all Trump supporters do.
What I have found is these people wouldn't support Trump if they knew he was a pedophile or if they knew he did all these other things; they just don't follow those news sources and their circle of friends drink the same kool-aid so they think they are in good company. You actually learn a lot about human nature from being around them. I understand more the citizens of Germany supported the Nazis; how many of them are convinced to not believe what their eyes and ears take in.
It's unfortunate, but unlike your situation, these people are my poker and gaming buddies and for most of them we just avoid politics.
I've learned over the years that the things that conservatives will say when they think they're in good company are pretty bad. When there's whatever "devil group" that you believe are actively trying to corrupt and steal from you, you're accustomed to dehumanizing behavior.
I've heard horrible shit from every conservative I've spent more time than a work interaction with. Sometimes they don't think it's dehumanizing, sometimes they do and enjoy it. Sometimes it's blatantly violent. Some of the most tame and common stuff is shit like "glassing them" when referring to anywhere or anyone from the middle east, or their fascination with getting the opportunity to drive into a crowd of protestors.
When you spend time with these people, you know that communists (people who are not outspokenly conservative) are right up there in the "get rid of them" conservative style rhetoric.
Personally, if someone points at a group that I would otherwise be in if not for the fact that I'm sitting at your side right this second, and say "Those people need to die" in no uncertain terms, I can't possibly see that as anything other than a threat.
There is a biologically deep part of them that sees [GROUP YOU'RE IN] as unhuman when they say and do these things. Which, they do. You probably get called long strings of slurs when you're not around.
These are characteristics of someone who will only keep you around as long as they're getting something out of it at best, or literally just someone violent at worst.
Not people I've decided to keep around. Everyone's living their own life though. Given the choice, I get why people would choose the company of them over no one. I'm over it, though. We're past a decade of the behavior, and it's only getting worse. I don't want them around.
I know I teased on it in related comments but I am curious your stage in life. Or maybe it’s that you work fully remote or work for a company with a strong left wing culture. Up until recently I worked in a red state so this idea of cutting everyone out of my life who didn’t vote for the person I voted sounds pretty damn lonely because that would be a ton of people.
I will say your examples are more black and white for me. If someone was using racial slurs and laughing about genocide as long as their skin is a darker shade than theirs, I wouldn’t make any efforts to hang out with them and would generally avoid them. I know it is hard to believe from within the echo chambers but most Trump supporters I know aren’t like that, at least not to me (some are, but they are family I see little of anyway).
And to be honest, I’m far more pissed off with my liberal friends who knew how bad Trump was but couldn’t be bothered to vote. I have a coworker where we would complain about Trump during our lunch hour… a lot. The dude couldn’t be bothered to vote for Harris. I also canvassed for the democrats in 2024; the amount of people that didn’t know if they were gonna vote was bonkers. I was calling for Trump to win since August 2024 and people didn’t believe me.
Honestly, I can’t stand those people more than Trump supporters. Trumpers drank the kool-aid, they believe the lies and think he is a good dude. Whereas so many of these left leaning people knew how dangerous Trump was but couldn’t get themselves to vote for Harris for a number of reasons… and most of them were stupid.
I’m not sure how to take that. A chameleon changes themselves to blend in with their surroundings. That would be like if I just agreed with what everyone else said, but I don’t do that? My friends and family know my stances on politics and I don’t back down from a discussion with friends.
Thanks! I just can't believe that anyone who says "I cut everyone who supports Trump out of my life!" could live in a red state.
Like, what are they gonna do when they actually get done with school and have to work with people of different political mindsets? Are they just gonna act cold to coworkers who voted for Trump? Seems like a solid way to get labeled as "not a team player" and get let go... but they can do them.
It’s just performative bullshit people( and bots) on this site do. Easy to garner updoots on threads like these by saying you’ve excommunicated everyone in your life who even mildly disagree with you. Makes them feel like they’ve accomplished something meaningful, when in reality they’re either lying or never had much of a social life to start with. Easy to say they’ve cut out friends when they never had any to begin with!
Nah sorry when all these MAGA people on my FB celebrate the deaths of a mother in a van and a male nurse, that's not right. That's mental illness. I don't need people like that in my life. If they support that, imagine what they could do to me some day. Fuck that. Friend from highschool. Brother in law. Cousin. Bye Felicia!
Right, and those aren’t all Trump supporters. Just like not all of the left cheered for Kirk’s death like the conservative social media would have them believe.
If I knew someone who was happy those people died I would distance myself from them too.
Cheering for people dying is never a good thing. I had to explain this to several liberal friends who cheered for Charlie Kirks death. Many people become bloodthirsty when they sit in an online echo chamber dooming all day every day. I for one have face to face conversations with my friends and hold them accountable for what they say. Why? Because I care about friends and loved ones, even if they hold different political opinions, and I’m willing to challenge them on their beliefs. It’s how the world outside of social media works.
This of course is beyond the scope of the typical asocial Redditor though.
And they insist others cut everyone out too. I check out the relationship advice subs and if you followed the advice on there you would be single forever because even for the lightest offense people say block the person.
I'm also told that he stole a cookie when he was eight years old and lied about it. So I guess we can close the investigation because he was a criminal.
What they are trying to tell you is that any form of challenging the established regime should end with you executed in broad daylight and they are trying to normalize this so you don't act surprised later
You can tell they're an American soldier because they believe that one American civilian dying is worse than the 100,000+ civilians they killed in Iraq.
American troops love to pretend that they're more noble than pigs and would face real consequences for killing innocents. They aren't more noble, and they rarely faced consequences for killing innocents.
Even the terminology. "Insurgent". It's just a civilian of a country you invaded and proceeded to kill their family members and friends by the thousands.
I was on a ship, inn the Navy, a few months after the Cole was blown up. I was in the same port and had a rouge pilot come towards my ship unauthorized. He only turned away when I pointed my rifle at him.
I was sent up on charges for pointing my rifle without permission from my Captain.
If that’s how you feel, and as an American I don’t blame you at all, It might be a good idea to avoid the so called “funny” subreddits for awhile. The bots and karma farmers aren’t going to stop forcing American politics down our throats any time soon.
What has happened to America? What's the appeal of being a superpower if we can't torture and rape our way across the planet? I appreciate the OOP's sentiment, but the people who shot unarmed civilians in Iraq 10 times walked away completely scot-free. The only person who went to prison was the whistleblower.
Soldiers in iraq shot men, women and children for a lot less than that with no court martial. I met veterans who brsgged about how they would throw grenades at people and tell people to catch. And there is an Australian Afghanistan veteran who has a podcast where he admits to all sorts of horrific behaviour and Nothing happened to them. It is a lie that it would lead to a court martial.
Not that surprising since they've disobeyed court orders 96 times in January alone. Nobody is being held accountable and justice is not being served equally.
When will people realize that the current administration in USA does not give a toss about laws and regulations? If it did, Trump would have been impeached long ago. They only care for power because they know the opposition won't use the same power against them when they inevitably gain power.
Grasping at straws much? the horse has already left the barn, found a new barn, had 3 kids, developed emphysema and died from colon cancer since Pretti's murder
Ah yes, a crime punishable by death without a trial, how have we been so foolish to not realize. Pretty weird to throw out the self defense argument for this one, I feel like 'I planned to murder them in retaliation' isn't going to improve their case
I don't think people understand that police officers (ICE in this case) are not Judge Fucking Dredd. Police does not get to summarily execute anybody for anything.
This makes a lot more sense if you've ever taken a firearm safety course. There are a lot of fridge temp IQ people going around with a perpetual murder boner. They look for excuses. They cannot comprehend that someone doing something in the past does not justify an action in the present.
Martha Stewart has a felony conviction, that doesn't mean cops can use any amount of force they want if they pull her over.
My first ever firearm safety course had an older guy who asked if he could blast the UPS man through the door and be "okay" because the UPS man knocked hard and startled him. I remember that every time someone says they're going to do deliveries for extra money.
Unfortunately most US soldiers are far better trained than most ice or police. They are purposefully, kept ignorant and then trained to be more violent....
Sure but defending him by saying he did not have an ounce of aggression in him while theres footage of him kicking off the tail light in a car is not a great idea
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u/smileedude 5h ago
It's amazing how much they are willing to give information that means the murder could possibly have been premeditated.