Vermont officials reacted to both the shooting by a Border Patrol agent of a protestor in Minneapolis on Saturday and to statements by federal officials afterward.
According to the Associated Press, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Alex Pretti, a nurse with the Veterans Administration, attacked officers, and Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said Pretti wanted to do “maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” In posts on X, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, called Pretti “a would-be assassin.”
The Associated Press reviewed multiple bystander videos of the incident, a scuffle that lasted about 30 seconds.
“The videos appear to contradict statements by the Trump administration, which said the shots were fired ‘defensively’ against Pretti as he ‘approached’ them with a gun,” according to the AP. “In the videos, Pretti is seen with only a phone in his hand. None of the footage appears to show him with a weapon. During the scuffle, agents discovered that he was carrying a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, and they opened fire with several shots. Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.”
In Vermont, both Governor Phil Scott and the state’s Congressional delegation reacted to the shooting.
“Enough…it’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government,” Scott said in a statement posted on his official Facebook page on Sunday morning.
“At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership,” he added. “At worst, it’s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans. Again, enough is enough.”
Scott called for the federal government to back off and calm the situation.
“The President should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government’s focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants,” Scott said. “In the absence of Presidential action, Congress and the Courts must step up to restore constitutionality.”
Lieutenant Governor John Rodgers, also a Republican, issued a statement and thanked Scott for what he called courageous leadershhip.
“I stand with you, as all law-abiding Americans should, in calling on the President to suspend the operations of federal agents in our communities, ‘de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government’s focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants,’” Rogers said in his statement. “I urge my colleagues in the Judiciary and Congress to assert your constitutional authority to restore order and calm if the Executive will not.
“Everyone’s constitutional rights must be protected. Not one more American should die at the hands of federal government agents,” Rogers said. “Not a single one.”
Vermont’s senior U.S. Senator, Bernie Sanders, an independent, noted on X that this was the third shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis this month.
“NO MORE,” he wrote. “All federal agents – ICE and Border Patrol – must be withdrawn immediately from Minneapolis and other cities. NOW.”
Sanders also put on Facebook a widely shared statement by Alex Pretti’s parents, Michael and Susan.
Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat, expressed similar sentiments in two Facebook posts on Sunday morning.
“Under Secretary Noem, ICE is no longer about immigration enforcement. It’s about terrorizing communities. Noem must go. Congress must stop giving even more money to this agency on a rampage,” Welch wrote.
“No more blank checks from Congress, and no more excessive force.
Secretary Noem must resign, and the Trump Administration needs to be held accountable,” Welch wrote.
Rep. Becca Balint, a Democrat, spoke in an interview with MSNOW, which she posed on her Facebook page.
“I am filled with just white-hot rage,” she said. “And I know that I speak for my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle, as well as my constituents back in Vermont, and watching Christie Noem in that press conference, she’s essentially saying to us, your government will kill you in order to keep you safe, because she keeps saying they’re there to keep people safe and secure. And what I see is that they are not only willing to kill us, they are willing to lie about it shamelessly.”
State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, a Democrat, also condemned the shooting in a statement.
“I am deeply disturbed and outraged by the events that unfolded yesterday in Minneapolis. There are no words that do justice to what happened,” he said. “The Trump administration’s explanation for the shooting is not rooted in fact, truth, or any available information. They are lying to our faces, without a shred of evidence. We can see with our own eyes what happened. We can see with our own eyes how Trump and his enablers have so fundamentally lost their way.”
Pieciak also called for answers and accountability in the matter.
