Extra News Alerts
Get breaking updates as they happen.
‘We saw lies, absolute lies’: Healey slams Trump administration’s efforts to smear victim in fatal Minn. shooting
"Here we are celebrating 250 years of American history, and we've got a federal administration that's ready to throw out the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment," Healey said.
Alex Pretti:
-
Who was Alex Pretti? What we know about the man killed by a federal officer in Minneapolis.
-
Federal and state officials both claim moral high ground in immigration crackdown after shooting
-
‘They are unprofessional, pathetic, cowards’: Moulton calls for ICE to be defunded, prosecuted after Minneapolis shooting
In response to the fatal shooting of a man in Minneapolis this weekend, Gov. Maura Healey condemned the actions of federal officials in the killing and efforts to “smear” the public’s knowledge of the victim with “lies, absolute lies.”
The governor’s comments came early Monday afternoon during a winter storm press conference with other state officials. After providing the latest details about the state’s response to this weekend’s snowstorm, Healey addressed a question from the press about the Minneapolis shooting and whether the state or other governors had plans to respond the situation further.
Minnesota and federal officials have shared conflicting accounts of what led to the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, on Saturday in Minneapolis where tensions are already high amid protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the Associated Press reported.
Advertisement:
Videos from bystanders of Pretti’s encounter with federal agents have also called into question statements from the Trump administration about agents firing “defensively” in the situation, according to the AP, which also reviewed the footage.
In approaching the situation “as a prosecutor, as a former attorney general, as somebody who investigated police-involved shootings and other criminal matters,” Healey decried what she saw as “immediate efforts to smear Alex Pretti and who he was.”
“We saw lies, absolute lies,” she said. “Look at the videos. We saw lies. And now more has come out.”
She called out FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who have come under fire for comments about the Second Amendment.
Advertisement:
Healey called this weekend’s shooting and the aftermath in Minneapolis “just an example of how out of control ICE is.”
“It’s why I call on Kristi Noem to resign. It’s why I call on ICE to get out of these cities and these states. Donald Trump needs to rein this in and take this back,” she said.
The governor also slammed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for its training and recruiting methods, which have included signing bonus offers of up to $50,000.
“Some of the training is online training,” she said. “Online training. You would never run a law enforcement agency, or any agency, frankly, with online training. And what we have seen happen in Minnesota now, week after week, is action and conduct that is not consistent with good law enforcement practices.
“It is harming public safety,” Healey said. “It’s not helping public safety.”
The governor encouraged people to read the statement issued by Pretti’s parents, saying “think about who this man was, an ICU nurse who served our veterans,” and to then watch any video of his encounter with federal agents.
“Watch any of the versions of the video,” she said. “I know what I see. I know I see somebody who’s standing with a cell phone — which, by the way, is a First Amendment-protected right in this country — and I see him also looking to protect a woman who ICE was coming after.”
Advertisement:
Healey also brought up the recent disclosure of an ICE memo, seemingly authorizing federal immigration officers to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, as reported by the AP and other news organizations.
“As governor of Massachusetts, that infuriates me, because 250 years ago, it was a lawyer named James Otis who stood before a court here in the Commonwealth and said it is wrong for British soldiers to be able to go into people’s homes without a warrant and ransack their property,” Healey said. “That’s what led John Adams to write the Massachusetts Constitution.”
She noted how those actions led to the creation of the Fourth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
“Here we are celebrating 250 years of American history, and we’ve got a federal administration that’s ready to throw out the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment,” Healey said.
Watch Healey’s press conference on the winter storm below, which features her comments on Minneapolis around 11 minutes, 50 seconds into the video.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com