The Kill-And-Smear

The playbook takes shape.

I lack the clarity to do today’s events justice, though a proper companion piece to my recent Put Your Amygdala On Ice now feels due. Consider this contemporaneous reflection in preparation thereto.

I won’t be the umpteenth share of the video we have all seen by now. What I would like you to do presently is to search for “Border Patrol addresses fatal Minneapolis shooting” and watch the video on YouTube published by Fox 9.

The hard pivot we observe between prepared statements by Customs & Border Patrol Commander in Charge Greg Bovino and his answering unvetted questions by reporters bears attention.

From the tightly choreographed official remarks, we are given to understand that Alex Pretti “approached” officers with a firearm, an ambiguous phrasing that elides whether the firearm was at any point brandished. When a reporter presses on that detail, Bovino immediately pivots from an aggressive condemnation of the deceased, wherein he verbatim asserted that “this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement”, to a “principled” reservation of judgment, citing a need for a thorough investigation.

We should also note that federal law enforcement is repeating the tactic employed in the aftermath of Renee Nicole Good’s killing, that of locking down the scene and preventing access by state and local law enforcement, which in her case was followed by an apparent prioritization of investigating her family as opposed to diagnosing the event at hand, an approach so distasteful that half a dozen DOJ prosecutors submitted principled resignations on 13 January.

Such hypocritical behavior grossly undermines trust in legitimate law enforcement while endangering the public and trampling civil rights. If you authentically “back the blue”, believe in the rule of law, insist on presumption of innocence, and support Second Amendment rights, then you cannot be okay with today’s events.

Yes, federal law enforcement may have been conducting lawful operations to deport illegal immigrants, but if they get to launder potential misconduct under those auspices then all is lost.