Below is my column in The Hill on the recent controversies over enhanced images of Alex Pretti and his shooting in Minnesota. As seen throughout our history, Pretti has achieved mythic status — even having an ice cream invented after him by one of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. Reality recedes when politics demand the perfect hero.
Here is the column:
“Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy.”
That statement, from F. Scott Fitzgerald, has never been truer than with the posthumous treatment of Alex Pretti, killed in a confrontation with federal officers in Minneapolis. He has been called a “hero” and a “martyr” by the left as a rallying cry for protests around the country. In the process, many have “enhanced” both his story and his image.
MS NOW has admitted that it used an AI-enhanced photo of Pretti that made him look more handsome. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was criticized for bringing to the Senate floor an altered image, featuring a headless immigration agent, that made it look like officers executed a kneeling Pretti with a shot to the head.
Pretti needs to be be inviolate to make the government seem vile in the eyes of the public. He is being described as the combination of Florence Nightingale and Crispus Attucks.
A CNN panelist and co-host of “The View,” Ana Navarro, voiced the new orthodoxy that Pretti was the “perfect guy … the guy you’d want to date your daughter, the guy you want your son to grow up to be, a decent human being who was serving humanity.” She added that he was so perfect that “there is nothing that has been said about that man that isn’t wonderful. And so they can’t malign him.”
The point is that any skepticism, let alone criticism, is no longer acceptable.
In fairness, Pretti was vilified before he was canonized. Many of us objected that the videotape evidence did not support the original description of Pretti’s conduct. Pretti did not threaten officers or approach them brandishing a weapon.
But he did disobey police orders and he did resist arrest. Indeed, eleven days earlier, he had spat at officers, damaged a police vehicle by kicking out its taillight, and again resisted officers.
The remaking of Alex Pretti by both sides is strikingly familiar. On Tuesday, my book on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution will be released. “Rage and the Republic” looks at both the American and French Revolutions to explore why one became the world’s oldest democracy and the other became a blood-soaked terror.
At the height of the social unrest of the French Revolution, the Jacobins also “enhanced” the images of their martyrs. One of the most famous paintings by Jacques-Louis David was called The Death of Marat, the depiction of the murder of one of the architects of the Reign of Terror. David was an ardent supporter of the radical faction that carried out the mass executions of the period.
Marat was a vile human being who had delighted in his summary executions. Covered by painful sores from a rare skin condition, he was stabbed in his bathtub by a young woman who gained access by promising him a list of new traitors to be executed. David portrayed the slain Marat as a flawless martyr with alabaster skin, laid out like a religious Pieta.
Pretti was no Marat. He was described as a caring nurse at the Veterans’ hospital. He also vehemently opposed immigration enforcement and was a member of a group committed to filming and disrupting ICE operations.
What occurred on that day will be resolved in the ongoing investigations. However, few are waiting for such findings. He is now a figure to be enhanced while dehumanizing law enforcement.
As with the French Revolution, establishment figures are fueling the mob to ride the rage wave to the midterm elections. Walz even repeated the debunked story of the “bait boy” and said that undocumented persons being sought for removal were like Anne Frank, an assertion that drew a rebuke from the Holocaust museum.
Protesters responded to such rhetoric with signs reading, “Kill Nazis.”
Deification and demonization have long been methods used to push a populace to embrace radical action, or even revolution. As we celebrate our Declaration of Independence, “Rage and the Republic” asks whether the American Republic can survive the 21st Century with the pressures of civil unrest and economic upheaval.
Yet, when I wrote the book, I never anticipated how we would hear many of the same voices calling for revolution and resistance in the U.S. Walz has even referred to this as a Fort Sumter moment, a reference to the fight that led to our civil war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
The history of the American and French Revolutions shows that heroes can be discovered or created for political purposes. They can produce true tragedies when they are used to radicalize some and dehumanize others.
Pretti needs no enhancement. Neither he nor the officers on that day were “perfect” beings. The facts of what happened on January 24, 2026, are likely to be as conflicted and subjective as the political environment itself. Any shooting of this kind is imperfect — events that could have been changed by a myriad of different actions or movements. That is the true tragedy.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of the Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
He was not a practicing nurse. He had been fired from his job, and was a professional rioter. He was not a good man.
All I can say is “Simple as that.”
He’s the left’s ‘white George Floyd’. Once they are done rioting and looting, they will erect a statue to honor him.
See “Wag The Dog,” and the rehabilitation of psychotic killer William Shoeman into “Good Old Shoe.”
sweepy joey facing allegations he lied and plagiarized constantly
Mr. President! Mr. President! Your dogs are attacking staff and guests!
Huh? Who’s stacking my chest?
No. No. Your dogs! Dogs biting staff!
Huh? Half Mast? Someone die? Not me! Lol!
No! Mr. President! Mr. President! People are being bitten and injured by your dogs!
Wha? We don’t have hogs. Sausage and hogs. You kidding me. I’ll fight you right here. Secret Service!! Get my dogs You idiots. I’ll show em
Here is another “ICE abduction victim” made into an overnight hero. Turns out. He was in progress of carjacking, while a suspect in robbery spree:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15523479/Truth-video-ICE-police-California-teen-arrest-jewelry-heist-carjack.html
Puff. As Turley noticed, woke can’t find heroes withstanding scrutiny.
Billie Eilish, you are living on stolen land. You have no right to it.
You didn’t spend a dime on security for the 4 ladies murdered by illegals. You spend a fortune protecting yourself.
Probably a stolen brain, as well.
Liberals in show business are provably the dumbest people on earth.
Alex Pretti, by showing up at an ongoing police arrest operation while armed shows the poor state of the nursing profession and management thereof. I am sure an ICE officer and his family would regret the officers admittance to Pretti’s ICU ward as a likely malfunction and subsequent officers death would be highly likely.
that’s ridiculous and i’m maga
He worked for the VA hospital, not a general hospital
Let’s see proof.
I love it how you brainlets will call up and down the street that he was a nurse, a good nurse, a VA nurse (MSM all said it), but the moment Mr. Off says anything, suddenly you play fuken stupid. stop acting so fuken stupid, and we might at least give you a moment on the floor.
The director of the VA hospital made a statement that he was fired months earlier due to complaints from family members that he engaged in perverted behavior with the patients. Such a good nurse!
I checked out the site that claim is made on. I could find no other record of the VA director’s statement online, nor any of the other claims.
I have inquired elsewhere where it is stated Pretti was unemployed for more evidence. No reply.
I have to put those claims into the Fake News file until evidence other than wishful thinking is presented. We don’t need to be caught in the misinformation trap.
If anyone here has different / better to offer I’m open to look. “Trust but verify” (which, btw, before Reagan used it is a Russian proverb).
“the fact that Ketanji Brown Jackson stood and applauded when people were shouting abolish ice at the Grammys last night should be enough to get he removed from the bench.”
could not agree more.
The conservatives aghast at a justice expressing a personal opinion on a potential legal matter *surely* were quick to condemn Samuel Alito when he regularly does the same or the open bribery from Clarence Thomas.
To do otherwise would almost suggest partisanship and hypocrisy.
Ketanji should not have even been there. She should have watched it on TV.
She could have, and should have, remained seated.
But instead of showing restraint, she actually stood up and applauded along with the F*ck ICE crowd.
Shocking display of partisanship for a Supreme Court Justice. But really it’s no surprise considering Ketanji’s ignorance about her role on the court. “I get to share my opinions and feelings about the issues.” She actually believes that’s her “job” on the court.
She is a disgrace and an embarrassment.
Judges are required to refrain from showing any public display that could be interpreted as partisan. It is in their job description.
LOL.. Tell that to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
She was known for showing up for display and fund raising. (Books too)
When the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted a $1 million prize from a liberal billionaire’s foundation, she pledged to pass the money to a list of designated charities. Four years later, it is unclear where Ginsburg sent that money—an ambiguity that experts say raises conflict of interest concerns.
Still stealing text eh dustoff.
so dumb
Poor Ano. All of the Supreme justices collect funds from books and meetings.
Funds? The definition of “funds” is “financial resources”. A lot different than money per se. Try harder.
Dusty
I believe Mark Twain said something about arguing with idiots long ago. Great advice!