Right-Wing Gun Enthusiasts and Activists Work Overtime to Justify Alex Pretti’s Killing
Brandon Herrera, a well-known gun enthusiast with more than 4 million followers on YouTube, said in a video posted this week that while it’s unfortunate that Pretti died, it was his fault.
“Pretti didn’t deserve to die, but it wasn’t just a senseless killing,” Herrera said, adding without evidence that Pretti’s intent was to interfere with ICE operations. “If you interfere with an arrest or something like that, that’s a crime. If you get in the way of a police officer, that’s going to end up being more powerful, whether it’s arresting you or taking you out, which can lead to an altercation, which if you’re armed, can lead to people being shot.” He described the situation as “legal but bad.”
Herrera was joined in the video by former police officer and fellow gunslinger Cody Garrett, known online as the Donut Operator.
Both men used the opportunity to taunt immigrants, Herrera saying “all the news is going to get into this because it’s a current thing and they’re going to ignore the 12 drivers who killed you know, American citizens yesterday who weren’t illegal or H-1Bs or whatever.”
Herrera also talked about his “friend” Kyle Rittenhouse, who has become the center of a lot of controversy about the shooting.
On August 25, 2020, Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, walked from his home in Illinois to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, brandishing an AR-15 rifle, saying he was there to protect local businesses. He killed two people and shot one in the arm that night.
Critics of ICE’s actions in Minneapolis were quick to highlight what they saw as hypocrisy in protecting the rights of Rittenhouse and the attack on Pretti.
“Kyle Rittenhouse was a strong fighter for going into a protest with a weapon, but this guy who had a valid permit to carry it and had a gun taken out from other people is an instigator, when in fact he is going to help a woman,” said Jessica Tarlov, a Democratic strategist, Fox News said this week.
Rittenhouse also got into the conversation, writing about X: “The right way to go to law enforcement when armed,” above a photo of him raising his hands in front of police after he killed two people. He added in another post that “ICE messed up.”
The claim that Pretti was guilty was repeated in private Facebook groups run by the armed forces, according to data shared with WIRED by the Tech Transparency Project, and in extremist Telegram channels.
“I’m sorry for him and his family,” wrote one member of a Facebook group called American Patriots. “However, my question is, why did he go to these riots armed with a gun and extra magazines if he was not planning to use them?”
Some extremist groups, such as the right-wing Boogaloo movement, have strongly criticized the administration’s comments on arming the protest.
“To the ‘don’t bring a gun to a protesting crowd’ crowd, agree,” one member of the independent Boogaloo group wrote on Facebook this week. “For changing jackets, I think disarming is the answer and don’t think it will happen to you too, stop yourself. In the federal government I have watched citizens kill people just because they say no to them, play with you. You will not break the law.”
