Over the past twelve months, a pattern has emerged across the United States, a pattern that is stark, consistent, and deadly. From Colorado to California, from Maryland to Minnesota, ICE agents have shot, wounded, and killed civilians with increasing frequency. This can only be described as an unchecked armed force operating inside our borders. Each incident is explained away with the same script: the civilian was the aggressor, the agents feared for their lives, and the federal government will investigate itself and declare the matter closed!
Consider the record. In July, an ICE agent in Black Forest, Colorado fired three shots into a vehicle after claiming the driver tried to ram officers. Two months later in suburban Chicago, Silverio Villegas González was killed after DHS said he attempted to evade arrest by driving at agents. In Los Angeles, a TikTok streamer was shot in the elbow during an arrest that was so riddled with due‑process violations that a judge later dismissed the charges outright. In Ontario, California, an ICE agent shot a man in the shoulder as he drove away; his lawyer said the agent escalated the encounter. In St. Paul, ICE agents shot an undocumented man during a vehicle pursuit, again claiming he struck multiple officers. In Maryland, a traffic stop ended with one man shot and another injured after ICE agents opened fire. An unnamed Mexican citizen was killed during an arrest operation at an undisclosed location.
Then came January.
In Minneapolis, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, an unarmed woman recording federal activity. DHS immediately labeled her a “violent rioter,” seizing control of the narrative and the evidence before local investigators could even begin their work. Days later in Portland, an agent shot two people during a traffic stop, prompting the city’s mayor to call for a halt to ICE operations. And then, yesterday, in Minneapolis again, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37‑year‑old ICU nurse, a U.S. citizen, a member of a neighborhood ICE‑watch group, firing approximately ten rounds.
The explanation was instantaneous and familiar: Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who arrived intending to kill law enforcement. But bystander video shows him holding a phone. A sworn witness says he never brandished a weapon. That same witness described agents shoving Pretti to the ground and then shooting him, again and again.
The violence isn’t coming from people standing up to ICE. It’s coming from ICE itself.
What makes this moment so dangerous is not only the killings themselves, but the machinery that follows them. In case after case, federal agencies seize evidence, restrict access to the scene, and shape the public narrative before local authorities can investigate. DOJ routinely declines to open civil‑rights inquiries. Victims are labeled extremists, rioters, or terrorists, language that they contend justifies lethal force after the fact.
This is not the behavior of a transparent, accountable agency. It’s the behavior of a federal force that has learned it can kill civilians and face no consequences.
Minnesota has become the flashpoint. Two killings in the same city within weeks have forced state leaders to confront what the rest of the country has tried to ignore. Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison are fighting in court to preserve evidence, challenging federal obstruction, and insisting that Minnesota, not DHS, will determine what happened on its streets. Their stance is necessary. But it also underscores the impossible position Americans now face.
We are told to protest peacefully.
We are told to trust the process.
We are told accountability will come.
But peaceful people are being killed.
And the process has been rigged.
When a federal agency can kill Americans, seize the evidence, declare the victims terrorists, and walk away untouched, the rule of law is already broken. The question is no longer whether ICE is out of control. The question is what Americans will do about it.
The violence is escalating. The pattern is clear. The danger is real.
How Americans respond now will determine what kind of country we become next.
Leave a Reply