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Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

1. I am a resident of the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am over 18 years of age. I am a children's entertainer who specializes in face painting.
2. On Saturday, January 24, 2026, at about 8:50 am, I was getting ready to go to work when I heard whistles outside. I knew the whistles meant that ICE agents were in the area, so I decided to check it out on my way to work. I've been involved in observing in my community because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors. Connecting to your local community and knowing who your neighbors are is something I profoundly value.
3. I drove to Nicollet Ave. and 26th where I could hear the whistles coming from. I turned south onto Nicollet. There were already several ICE agents there and they'd set up a sort of vehicle convoy on Nicollet and 28th. There were also about 15 observers there, recording and observing ICE.
4. I saw ICE agents surrounding cars and punching car windows. I also saw them stopping vehicles further down Nicollet, so I backed up because I didn't feel safe continuing on.
5. I noticed a man sort of acting to help traffic move more smoothly. He helped me find a place to park. I got out with my whistle and my camera. I went over to him and said something like, "I'm going to film and use my whistle."
6. It seemed like most ICE activity was happening a little farther down the street from us, near 27th. Someone was being thrown to the ground.

7. I started recording. There was an agent by a car across the street. Two observers were a few feet away from the agent, blowing their whistles. One was wearing a backpack.
8. I and the man who was observing and helping direct traffic were standing in the street. There was a phone in the man's hand recording a video.
9. An agent approached and asked us to back up, so I moved slowly back onto the sidewalk.
10. The man stayed in the street, filming as the other observers I mentioned earlier were being forced backward by another ICE agent threatening them with pepper spray. The man went closer to support them as they got threatened, just with his camera out. I didn't see him reach for or hold a gun.
11. Then the ICE agent shoved one of the other observers to the ground. Then he started pepper spraying all three of them directly in the face and all over. The man with the phone put his hands above his head and the agent sprayed him again and pushed him.
12. Then the man tried to help up the woman the ICE agent had shoved to the ground. The ICE agents just kept spraying. More agents came over and grabbed the man who was still trying to help the woman get up. All three of the observers looked to have been badly affected by the pepper spray. I could feel the pepper spray in my eyes.

13. The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn't see him touch any of them-he wasn't even turned toward them. It didn't look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn't see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times.
14.1 don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.
15. The video I recorded of what happened accurately depicts the events leading up to the agents shooting him and several minutes afterwards. The video is attached as Exhibit 1.
16. I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.
17. I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me and I don't feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don't know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they're not telling the truth about what happened. I've heard that other witnesses might have been arrested and taken to the Whipple Building.
18. I am disgusted and gutted at how they are treating my neighbors and my state. I keep alternating between crying and feeling determined it is important to remember the value of documenting injustice. We show up for the people who need us to bear

witness, because it can't just be one group of people bearing the brunt of their tyranny. This is a struggle to protect our freedom and democracy, those things are on the line. He lost his life for those values.
I declare under penalty of perjury that everything I have stated in this document is true and correct.

Dated and signed on Jan 24, 2026 in Hennepin County, State of Minnesota.

January 25, 2026 at 1:15 AM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

Fuck ICE

Aaron Stewart-Ahn @badideas.bsky.social · 21h

A video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son.

January 25, 2026 at 2:19 AM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

Not impressed with this politics-as-usual from Janet Mills

@janetmillsforme.bsky.social

www.axios.com/2026/01/23/j...

Scoop: Mills flew to California fundraisers while ICE raided Maine

Mill's precise whereabouts from Tuesday to Thursday of this week were a source of speculation.

www.axios.com

January 25, 2026 at 2:19 AM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

nilay patel

@reckless.bsky.social

We have been pounding the table about fake imagery in these moments for years - execs at the big tech companies have all told me we are right about it. But they have done appropriately nothing to manage the death of visual reality www.theverge.com/2024/8/22/24...

No one’s ready for this

The photograph is now meaningless as evidence. We are not prepared.

www.theverge.com

January 25, 2026 at 1:01 AM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Alt National Park Service

@altnps.bsky.social

We are incredibly proud of the resistance for preserving and releasing this footage so the truth cannot be buried. Alex Pretti. A 37-year-old ICU nurse at the VA. Murdered by Trump’s regime. This is not okay. He spent his life helping people. He was an American hero.

January 24, 2026 at 11:17 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Carl Quintanilla

@carlquintanilla.bsky.social

“.. He cared about people deeply ..,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong ..”

@washingtonpost.com
www.washingtonpost.com/national/202...

January 24, 2026 at 10:22 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Ron Filipkowski

@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social

Chief Strategist for Rand Paul.

January 24, 2026 at 9:14 PM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

Who will you believe?

Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 1d

NEW VIDEO: this appears to be the footage from the woman in the pink coat.

January 24, 2026 at 9:52 PM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

So much repeated material #totp

Dave Bagpuss Forsey 🍺 @bagpuss.org · 2d

So much repeated material #totp

Meepy @floweroflondon.bsky.social · 2d

So much repeated material #totp

January 23, 2026 at 7:56 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Kate Ruane

@kateruane.bsky.social

The TikTok deal has improved the privacy of exactly no one and has done nothing to improve national security. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...

TikTok Strikes Deal for New U.S. Entity, Ending Long Legal Saga

www.nytimes.com

January 23, 2026 at 4:15 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Simon Rosenberg

@simonwdc.bsky.social

Please share widely

Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com · 3d

This video filmed by Ben Luhmann shows the moment a federal agent sprayed chemical irritants directly into a man's face in south Minneapolis.

Three agents already had the man pinned to the ground when a fourth agent walked up and sprayed the irritants.

January 22, 2026 at 1:50 AM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Disco

@discosaurus.bsky.social

This picture making the rounds on reddit, Columbia Heights. I'm not OK.

Kid in a hat and backpack, maybe 5, getting detained

January 21, 2026 at 6:52 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Marisa Kabas

@marisakabas.bsky.social

ICE kidnapped a 5-year-old and sent him alone to a facility in Texas. Hell isn't hot enough.

Joe @joealv.bsky.social · 4d

Here’s the report from KARE. The boy is five-year-old Liam Ramos.

January 21, 2026 at 11:14 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Musicology Duck

@musicologyduck.bsky.social

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

January 20, 2026 at 1:57 AM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

👀

Matt McDaniel @themattmcd.bsky.social · 5d

Remembering David Lynch, born on this day in 1946, with some of his most memorable works streaming on demand for free on Pluto TV.

TWIN PEAKS: pluto.tv/us/on-demand...
BLUE VELVET: pluto.tv/on-demand/mo...
INLAND EMPIRE: pluto.tv/on-demand/mo...

a man wearing ear buds is saying " got these things crooked up to the max "

Alt: David Lynch as Gordon Cole with his hearing aids in his ears in TWIN PEAKS: Got these things cranked up to the max!

media.tenor.com

January 20, 2026 at 7:02 PM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

January 18, 2026 at 6:37 PM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

If I had a nickel for every time I said "someday I'm going to have a cat named Odie" I'd be Jim Davis

January 18, 2026 at 6:25 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Kevin M. Kruse

@kevinmkruse.bsky.social

Terrific syllabus language about the dangers of Generative AI

Hester Blum @hesterblum.bsky.social · 7d

Yes in thunder. My syllabus statement:

Generative A.I.
This class helps you to be a better writer and thinker. Generative AI (ChatGPT, Copilot, and other platforms) is neither writing nor thinking. Any use of Al in this class (whether to write, brainstorm, outline, or summarize) will be considered a violation of academic integrity. It undermines your intellectual development, for one: AI content is often inaccurate or hallucinatory and is always boring, banal, and average. This is by design, as generative Al works by predicting the most obvious or basic sequencing of words. Good writingwriting that is persuasive, powerful, lively, funny, surprising, rousing, insightful, transformative, provocative-requires human work. Human creativity is weird and variable and uneven, but it holds the capacity for growth, revelation, empathy, and brilliance. We urge you not to abandon the glorious experiential potential of human messiness and transformation for the tedium of robot sentences.
One further reason to abjure generative Al, especially in a class on environmental literature: in addition to its counterproductivity to your work as a writer and thinker, Al is enormously environmentally destructive.

January 17, 2026 at 11:34 PM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lon...

Big Lonely Doug - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

January 17, 2026 at 9:26 PM

"New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

@frishermansfend.bsky.social

Here's Laura Cat. Years ago, we adopted three feral cats from the local shelter and set them up to live in our yard. (It's very rural.) The years took two of them away, and since it's just her now, those outdoor winters are colder. So, she's moving in.

#caturday

Laura Cat laying on a pink donut pillow inside a warm house while it snows outside

January 17, 2026 at 3:40 PM

Reposted by "New Year, new" Mr. Scunthorpe

Michelle Swope

@redheadfrommars.bsky.social

“No one really dies, they just drop their physical body, and we’ll all meet again, like the song says. It’s sad, but it’s not devastating if you think like that. It’s a continuum, and we’re all going to be fine at the end of the story.”

~ David Lynch - January 20, 1946 - January 16, 2025

#filmsky