In a heated interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash on Sunday, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said his agents were the real “victims” in the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protestor.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday. In videos of the deadly altercation between Pretti and several agents, he can be seen placing himself between an agent and several women that he was shoving. Pretti is sprayed with a chemical irritant and then wrestled to the ground, where one agent repeatedly hit him in the head with the irritant’s metal canister. Pretti, who was legally carrying a firearm, was fatally shot by agents while on the ground.
The Department of Homeland Security immediately painted Pretti as a threat, saying that officers feared for their lives because Pretti was legally carrying a firearm. Multiple videos of the shooting contradicted the official line that Pretti was threatening agents. On Sunday, Bash pressed Bovino for evidence “that he was intending to massacre law enforcement.”
When Bash repeatedly asserted Pretti’s right to carry his firearm, Bovino made the bold claim that Pretti forfeited his Second Amendment rights via his actions.
“We respect that Second Amendment right, but those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct, and impede law enforcement officers — and most especially when you mean to do that beforehand,” he said.
Bovino went on to say that Pretti was merely the suspect and that his agents were the people who truly suffered.
“The victims are the Border Patrol agents,” he said.
That party line was echoed by Trump Cabinet members across the Sunday press shows. FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News that protestors have no right to carry firearms.
“You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have that right to break the law and incite violence,” he said.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also erroneously stated that you can’t bring a gun to a protest. Bessent trampled over host Jonathan Karl’s assertion that all Americans have a right to bear arms during a stop by ABC’s “This Week.”
“I’ve been to a protest. Guess what? I didn’t bring a gun. I brought a billboard,” Bessent said.
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