There is a tragedy which I have attempted to write about on three separate occasions now. With each attempt a fear grows in me that half of the readers who are reading this article will set it down as its contents will be regarded as “team blue!” or, "doesn't go far enough against team red!" Rah Rah! I do not write this article as a centrist, but as an American, whose heart is red, whose veins are blue – who believes that a nation divided is a nation that will fall. Then where will we be, but for the first time in our nation's history, at the mercy of others?

I have been writing for some time now about the information war going on in the United States right now – that one third of all internet traffic is from malicious bots and bad-faith actors from Iran, China, or Russia; all of them pretending to be purple-haired, screaming, extreme feminists, or pretending to be truck-driving, overweight, callous and belligerent racists with red hats on. That one-third is not on hobbyist websites, nor on porn websites or on tech-bros forums. It is solely concentrated in political forums and memes, all designed to stoke your hatred for your countrymen; to frame some tragedy as entirely preventable and entirely the fault of the other side. 

As long as people keep engaging with the internet, believing the men or women spouting the same (or adjacent) beliefs as they are real people, the flames of hate will only fan harder, and we will only face a mounting number of real and preventable tragedies. Take the current tragedy of the week, (and it is a real one), between ICE and a protestor in Minneapolis: where Kristi Noem says things like, “a man approached ICE with a 9mm handgun. An agent tried to disarm this individual, but this individual reacted violently. Fearing for his life and the life of those around him, this agent fired defensive shots. Medics were on the scene immediately, but the suspect was pronounced dead immediately.” 

Nearly every single word Kristi Noem said was misinformation. It wasn’t exactly false, but it certainly was disingenuous. As a writer I can confirm that the way you frame things can change what they look like. As an example: here is the same event as transcribed from multiple videos, from multiple angles – just a bullet point list of exactly what happened, as per me: 

“An ICE agent was being filmed by a woman, and he shoved her. A man, who had also been filming (and had a holstered handgun) stepped up between the agent and the woman, blocking the agent from pushing her a second time. The man turned away from the agent and asked the woman if she was okay. The Ice agent pulled out pepper spray and sprayed the back of the man's head, then the side of the man's face. Several other ICE agents came over and tried to force the man to the ground, a man who seemed to refuse to kneel. In one video, it can be seen that an ICE agent unholsters the protestors sidearm, and walks away from the confrontation with the man’s gun.

Then, in another video from the other side of the altercation, it can be seen that after the protestor, who is on his hands and knees, is disarmed. An ICE agent who is standing behind the man (with two or more feet between them), draws his pistol and brings it close to the base of the man’s spine, inches away from the protestors back, then fires. The first shot from the agent scatters the other agents and the people who are filming from either sidewalk. Then as the man falls, the agent steps to the side and fires down again, and again. Several more shots can be heard as other agents draw their gun, firing at the corpse.”

There is a video, and reports that an agent could be seen clapping after it all transpired, as well as the agent who disarmed the protestor, dropping the protestors gun and fleeing. The protester whose last words to a woman were, “Are you okay?" 

Aye, it is true, Ms. Noem that he did have a gun on him. But so do conservatives at protests. President Trump made sure to note that the protestor had two magazines on him. However as per ex-military and intelligence expert Ryan McBeth on that topic: the most common cause of malfunctions in guns with magazines is the magazine, and it is quicker to reload than to try and figure out what is wrong with your magazine. Two magazines is common.

Then Ms. Noem said that "medical attention was given right away.” 

What really happened, (as per people.com from an interview) is there was a doctor (the unnamed interviewee) in the protest who stepped up and asked to assess and attend the protestor who had been shot. She was refused, citing that she wasn’t carrying any sort of proof of medical license. During a back and forth with ICE, she pressed them while she watched ICE turn a still living man on his side to count bullet wounds, rather than to administer any sort of medical treatment at all. 

Yet once more Ms. Noem was misinforming the public: ICE did not immediately allow for medical attention, nor did they (as per the watching doctor) attempt any sort of standard-practice or otherwise medical care on the protestor. 

What happened was inexcusable. This is coming not from a conservative or a liberal, but an American. There is no law in Minneapolis about not carrying firearms at protests, and the Trump Administration's portrayal of the protestor was even condemned by the NRA. 

The protestors name was Alex Pretti, who had a legal permit to carry a firearm.  He was an Intensive Care Nurse at a veterans hospital. His coworkers emphasize that caring for critically ill veterans was core to his identity, and that he championed civil liberties. A lost American who has been blinded by foreign actors might think that I was speaking about a Conservative man, but no, no I am writing about a true American murdered while exercising his constitutional liberties. Namely the Amendments which protect his right to protest, his right to bear arms, and his right to free speech. 

Dr. Dimitri, a coworker of his said of Alex:

“He lived to help." 

Alex’s last words were to a woman he was shielding with his body, 

"Are you okay?”

A man who helped Veterans, who was practicing his civil liberties, was forced onto his hands and knees and was shot at point blank in the back, and then while still breathing was rolled into his side as the jackboots counted the bullet holes in his body. 

His last act was caring for a woman, and showing non-violent defiance in the face of tyranny; there is nothing more American than that. 

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.