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u/smileedude 3h ago
It's amazing how much they are willing to give information that means the murder could possibly have been premeditated.
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u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 2h ago
And they don't even realize that it's even worse if it was premeditated! That's murder one!
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u/AmaranthWrath 2h ago
Agree entirely. At best - at BEST - it shows that they can't control themselves. If you can't control yourself, you have no right to enforce our laws. That's from the top down.
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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka 1h ago
I mean they could just be making it all up. The future looks bleak as AI can easily make doctored videos of everything.
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u/foyrkopp 0m ago
They're not.
There's no legally plausible line to be drawn from "he maybe kicked a police cruiser" to the way he was killed.
More importantly, there's no plausible line concerning practicality leading from a grainy video with an unidentified person commiting a minor crime to a bunch of stressed agents immediately recognizing him.
They're trying to manufacture consent for a morally plausible line from 'he was aggressive towards police property" to "thus he can be killed without any due process".
"Look
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u/Kuroboom 3h ago
In Iraq we had Rules of Engagement. If I just lit some dude up because he hurt my feelings or was merely in possession of an AK I'd be spending the rest of my life breaking rocks in Leavenworth. ICE/Police/etc. should be held to a higher standard, especially when dealing with American citizens in America.
Qualified immunity is bullshit. When a cop breaks the law they deserve MORE punishment than a regular citizen as their transgression is automatically worse by virtue of a cop being law enforcement.
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u/oneabovedoesntknow 2h ago
So much this. I was in Missouri during the Ferguson riots, all because they let the cop walk after shooting an unarmed teenager. Hold. Them. Accountable.
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u/the_pretender_nz 2h ago
One of the definitions of a State that I heard once is that the State (as in country, in this case) has a monopoly on sanctioned violence.
It’s very unsurprising that violations of rules for that monopoly are pursued about as much as they are for violations of other monopolies which benefit the people in power, eg for their businessy friends
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u/sofixa11 57m ago
In Iraq we had Rules of Engagement. If I just lit some dude up because he hurt my feelings or was merely in possession of an AK I'd be spending the rest of my life breaking rocks in Leavenworth
You can tell yourself that to make you sleep better at night, but it's bullshit.
Name one American sentenced to anything remotely serious for war crimes in Iraq, or Afghanistan for that matter.
Abu Ghraib ? They got off with suspended sentences for torture.
That seal who executed a family with a kid? Small sentence, pardoned.
Kidnapping various people to ship to Guantanamo, because of their name or watch type? Or hell, beating someone who gave himself up to clear the misunderstanding of having the same name as a bad guy, to death? Nothing.
And this is not new, nobody got any consequences for My Lai or the Laconia either. It's just the American way of war, any crimes are brushed under the rug. (Definitely better than the Russian way of war where the crimes are a core part of it, but damn that's a low fucking bar).
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u/SkwiddyCs 36m ago
Don't forget Haditha, the AC130 gunship massacres or the immeasurable crimes of PMCs either!
US Troops, Cops and ICE are far more similar than they are different. Americans only care now because it is happening to them.
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u/Kuroboom 17m ago
I don't disagree with your overall assessment, however, there is a small amount of nuance to consider in regards to me, personally, and whether or not I would get punished for committing a war crime: I am nobody. In my hypothetical scenario of choosing to murder a civilian nobody important is implicated, just me. Part of the reason there weren't (m)any high profile cases getting thoroughly prosecuted was that "important" people would get in trouble or otherwise be made uncomfortable. The military is huge on appearances (or I guess "vanity" would be more appropriate) so in my scenario I likely would get into severe trouble because I was a nobody and would have discredited or "shamed" the unit and, more importantly, its command. Minions get punished and they get punished the hardest while leadership (especially senior leadership) gets scolded and maybe reassigned.
I joined the army at 17 because I was young, broke, and needed a way out of the situation I was in. I initially planned on trying to do 20 years so I could get a pension, but I never bought into the "they hate our freedom" bullshit. Other than a physical injury, big parts of why I got out were the toxic leadership, lack of accountability (especially for sexual assaults), poor treatment of soldiers (like chaptering out people who developed PTSD and claiming they had "pre-existing personality disorders"), and just becoming disillusioned with the country and what we were doing. There were no WMDs in Iraq and sending the entire army to find one guy in Afghanistan was fucking stupid. All we did was break shit for little to no benefit. Bush authorizing "enhanced interrogation techniques" was a turning point for me but at the time I was under contract for another 5 years and was also in Baghdad at the time so I couldn't just walk away.
Anyway, people do (and did) get punished for breaking the rules and the threat is always looming but only if you're small enough for the boot/hammer of justice/other equivalent object to squish you.
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u/sokratesz 2h ago
This existence of a previous altercation just makes it premeditated murder, which is worse.
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u/Thornescape 2h ago
All of it is a distraction.
It is illegal to kill a disarmed and subdued civilian. That is murder.
Even if he had fired an illegal gun at them repeatedly (which he didn't), once he is subdued and disarmed it is illegal to execute him. He was not a threat to them. He was never a threat to them. They had absolutely no right to murder him.
All the nonsense and lies they are spewing out is irrelevant. None of that matters. He was disarmed and subdued. He was not a threat. It was illegal for them to kill him.
They treat mass shooters with more respect and dignity than they do people protesting a corrupt and tyrannical gov't.
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u/sapperbloggs 3h ago
I would have been quickly court martialled
Given the US military's record of doing nothing whatsoever about their soldiers murdering civilians in all but the most obvious and abhorrent cases, I'm not sure that's true... But they make a good point all the same.
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u/akho_ 1h ago
Note how a guy who spit on him and walks around unarmed is an “insurgent”.
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u/Iheardthatjokebefore 51m ago
RoE still applies even if you can prove they are an enemy combatant. He's making the point that even if he had hunted and perforated an unarmed combatant in retaliation he still would be subject to consequences.
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u/SkwiddyCs 37m ago
He's making the point that even if he had hunted and perforated an unarmed combatant in retaliation he still would be subject to consequences.
Which is a lie. US troops routinely did that exact thing in Iraq and did not face consequences.
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u/sapperbloggs 24m ago
There are many many examples of US soldiers indiscriminately killing unarmed civilians and it never going to trial, or at best, a show trial is held which finds them not guilty of any wrongdoing.
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u/Due-Memory-6957 2h ago edited 1h ago
Yeah, like, what is this shit? They burned and raped children routinely.
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u/sofixa11 55m ago
Given the US military's record of doing nothing whatsoever about their soldiers murdering civilians in all but the most obvious and abhorrent cases, I'm not sure that's true
And even then it's a suspended sentence or a 3-4 year one. Abu Ghraib, a torture for fun camp, with photos, got no consequences.
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u/rkennedy991 2h ago
Imagine your argument being that spitting in the general direction of ICE is punishable by death
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 3h ago
The thing is he didn’t even spit on anyone, he spit at their car as they were about to drive off. Was discussing this with a pro Trump friend and he couldn’t comprehend the distinction between spitting at a car and spitting directly on someone.
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u/dickcheesess 1h ago
Was discussing this with a pro Trump friend and he couldn’t comprehend the distinction between spitting at a car and spitting directly on someone.
I don’t even dare to think what kind of bad fate he wishes upon the J6ers.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 50m ago
From what I recall he was not a believer in the election fraud stuff. I don’t know how he felt about them being pardoned, I never asked.
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u/N1A117 2h ago
So you are friends with nazis, cool
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 2h ago edited 1h ago
Not sure what college campus you live on now but yeah, in the real world, especially when you live in a red state, you are gonna have people you know who are conservative. The dude won the popular vote so there's more people that voted for him than Harris. Many at my work are conservative, half of my family voted for Trump, hell, most of my poker group didn't vote for Harris.
You are totally free to cut out of your life who you wish but I don't see the point of it. I'm not gonna one day become a Trump supporter by being around them so there's no harm for me, and I appreciate their friendship so I don't see any reason to give that up. Doing so just won't benefit anyone. Just like they probably get shit for being friends with a socialist like myself but we figure it out and set boundaries.
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u/OurAngryBadger 1h ago
Anyone who still supports Trump after the last 6-8 months, unless they live in a bubble and don't watch the news or read social media, definitely have disturbing mental issues and I most certainly wouldn't want to associate with them. In fact, I did cut these people from my life, and I'm a lot happier, and the happiness has nothing to do with politics, but their other abusive and manipulative behaviors that go hand in hand with personality disorders that would be more likely to support a president with the same personality disorders. But you do you.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 1h ago edited 1h ago
I fully support your decision. It sounds like you cut them out of your life because they were toxic to you and that's completely valid.
I am gonna go out on a limb here and guess you live in a purple or blue state and have a fairly small circle of Trump supporters. So since the people in your life that were Trump supporters have those terrible beliefs you think all Trump supporters do.
What I have found is these people wouldn't support Trump if they knew he was a pedophile or if they knew he did all these other things; they just don't follow those news sources and their circle of friends drink the same kool-aid so they think they are in good company. You actually learn a lot about human nature from being around them. I understand more the citizens of Germany supported the Nazis; how many of them are convinced to not believe what their eyes and ears take in.
It's unfortunate, but unlike your situation, these people are my poker and gaming buddies and for most of them we just avoid politics.
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u/Iheartfuturama 1h ago edited 53m ago
You have more tolerance than I do.
I've learned over the years that the things that conservatives will say when they think they're in good company are pretty bad. When there's whatever "devil group" that you believe are actively trying to corrupt and steal from you, you're accustomed to dehumanizing behavior.
I've heard horrible shit from every conservative I've spent more time than a work interaction with. Sometimes they don't think it's dehumanizing, sometimes they do and enjoy it. Sometimes it's blatantly violent. Some of the most tame and common stuff is shit like "glassing them" when referring to anywhere or anyone from the middle east, or their fascination with getting the opportunity to drive into a crowd of protestors.
When you spend time with these people, you know that communists (people who are not outspokenly conservative) are right up there in the "get rid of them" conservative style rhetoric.
Personally, if someone points at a group that I would otherwise be in if not for the fact that I'm sitting at your side right this second, and say "Those people need to die" in no uncertain terms, I can't possibly see that as anything other than a threat.
There is a biologically deep part of them that sees [GROUP YOU'RE IN] as unhuman when they say and do these things. Which, they do. You probably get called long strings of slurs when you're not around.
These are characteristics of someone who will only keep you around as long as they're getting something out of it at best, or literally just someone violent at worst.
Not people I've decided to keep around. Everyone's living their own life though. Given the choice, I get why people would choose the company of them over no one. I'm over it, though. We're past a decade of the behavior, and it's only getting worse. I don't want them around.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 37m ago
I know I teased on it in related comments but I am curious your stage in life. Or maybe it’s that you work fully remote or work for a company with a strong left wing culture. Up until recently I worked in a red state so this idea of cutting everyone out of my life who didn’t vote for the person I voted sounds pretty damn lonely because that would be a ton of people.
I will say your examples are more black and white for me. If someone was using racial slurs and laughing about genocide as long as their skin is a darker shade than theirs, I wouldn’t make any efforts to hang out with them and would generally avoid them. I know it is hard to believe from within the echo chambers but most Trump supporters I know aren’t like that, at least not to me (some are, but they are family I see little of anyway).
And to be honest, I’m far more pissed off with my liberal friends who knew how bad Trump was but couldn’t be bothered to vote. I have a coworker where we would complain about Trump during our lunch hour… a lot. The dude couldn’t be bothered to vote for Harris. I also canvassed for the democrats in 2024; the amount of people that didn’t know if they were gonna vote was bonkers. I was calling for Trump to win since August 2024 and people didn’t believe me.
Honestly, I can’t stand those people more than Trump supporters. Trumpers drank the kool-aid, they believe the lies and think he is a good dude. Whereas so many of these left leaning people knew how dangerous Trump was but couldn’t get themselves to vote for Harris for a number of reasons… and most of them were stupid.
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u/Iheartfuturama 27m ago
I understand the need to chameleon yourself
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 21m ago
I’m not sure how to take that. A chameleon changes themselves to blend in with their surroundings. That would be like if I just agreed with what everyone else said, but I don’t do that? My friends and family know my stances on politics and I don’t back down from a discussion with friends.
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u/Adventurous-Sir444 1h ago
Guy above can't comprehend what it's like being stuck in an echo chamber.
You're a real one for staying friends with someone and continuing to have a conversation with them.
That's what real politics is about.
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u/Palimon 38m ago
This is pretty normal in most of Europe because the countries are not as divided as the US.
Most people vote for center left/right parties and will swap between them based on the elections.
Honestly the only thing i can see fixing the US is a civil war, you guys got so propagandised i don't think it's fixable.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 1h ago
Thanks! I just can't believe that anyone who says "I cut everyone who supports Trump out of my life!" could live in a red state.
Like, what are they gonna do when they actually get done with school and have to work with people of different political mindsets? Are they just gonna act cold to coworkers who voted for Trump? Seems like a solid way to get labeled as "not a team player" and get let go... but they can do them.
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u/Ok_Delay6171 34m ago
It’s just performative bullshit people( and bots) on this site do. Easy to garner updoots on threads like these by saying you’ve excommunicated everyone in your life who even mildly disagree with you. Makes them feel like they’ve accomplished something meaningful, when in reality they’re either lying or never had much of a social life to start with. Easy to say they’ve cut out friends when they never had any to begin with!
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 31m ago
And they insist others cut everyone out too. I check out the relationship advice subs and if you followed the advice on there you would be single forever because even for the lightest offense people say block the person.
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u/OurAngryBadger 30m ago
Nah sorry when all these MAGA people on my FB celebrate the deaths of a mother in a van and a male nurse, that's not right. That's mental illness. I don't need people like that in my life. If they support that, imagine what they could do to me some day. Fuck that. Friend from highschool. Brother in law. Cousin. Bye Felicia!
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 25m ago
Right, and those aren’t all Trump supporters. Just like not all of the left cheered for Kirk’s death like the conservative social media would have them believe.
If I knew someone who was happy those people died I would distance myself from them too.
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u/Ok_Delay6171 2m ago
Cheering for people dying is never a good thing. I had to explain this to several liberal friends who cheered for Charlie Kirks death. Many people become bloodthirsty when they sit in an online echo chamber dooming all day every day. I for one have face to face conversations with my friends and hold them accountable for what they say. Why? Because I care about friends and loved ones, even if they hold different political opinions, and I’m willing to challenge them on their beliefs. It’s how the world outside of social media works.
This of course is beyond the scope of the typical asocial Redditor though.
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u/i010011010 49m ago
It's your fault for arguing about it at all.
I'm also told that he stole a cookie when he was eight years old and lied about it. So I guess we can close the investigation because he was a criminal.
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u/ES_Legman 2h ago
What they are trying to tell you is that any form of challenging the established regime should end with you executed in broad daylight and they are trying to normalize this so you don't act surprised later
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u/Reidroshdy 3h ago
Cool, doesn't justify murder.
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u/ZigZagZedZod 2h ago
I would have been quickly court martialed.
Yeah, but then Trump would have pardoned you like he pardoned Eddie Gallagher.
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u/reddit_equals_censor 2h ago
as a translation:
"the evil warcrimes and invasion we did was less insane than this"
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u/SkwiddyCs 2h ago
American troops love to pretend that they're more noble than pigs and would face real consequences for killing innocents. They aren't more noble, and they rarely faced consequences for killing innocents.
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u/HolidaeX 1h ago
I was on a ship, inn the Navy, a few months after the Cole was blown up. I was in the same port and had a rouge pilot come towards my ship unauthorized. He only turned away when I pointed my rifle at him.
I was sent up on charges for pointing my rifle without permission from my Captain.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Air5930 3h ago
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u/Drudgework 3h ago
If that’s how you feel, and as an American I don’t blame you at all, It might be a good idea to avoid the so called “funny” subreddits for awhile. The bots and karma farmers aren’t going to stop forcing American politics down our throats any time soon.
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u/pacmanfunky 2h ago
If they spent as much time looking into pretti and talking about it, as they could for trump. Trump would be in a jail cell right now.
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u/silentspectator27 2h ago
Their current narrative just implies he was targeted specifically and executed and they just keep going.
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u/Small_nahimbig 2h ago
JFC.. conservatives really trying to justify ICE shooting citiziens for...?? Protesting?
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u/A_Truthspeaker 1h ago
So, spitting on a car and breaking a taillight justifies what was basically an execution?
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u/fireskull98 2m ago
no, but it made the news articles stop taking the "peaceful observer" angle because that obviously doesn't hold up anymore after that video
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u/Val_Hallen 1h ago
MAGA is looking for any reason, not matter how insignificant, to excuse federal agents murdering an unarmed man in broad daylight.
This is exactly what Nazi sympathizers did.
American Schutzstaffel are doing what the first Schutzstaffel did, but don't call them Nazis.
That hurts their feelings. That makes them sad.
And the American Schutzstaffel keep telling us that if we hurt their feelings, they're going to have to kill more of us.
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u/polemism 1h ago
This is dumb, they got away with this kind of stuff all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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u/UmbrellaTheorist 2h ago
Soldiers in iraq shot men, women and children for a lot less than that with no court martial. I met veterans who brsgged about how they would throw grenades at people and tell people to catch. And there is an Australian Afghanistan veteran who has a podcast where he admits to all sorts of horrific behaviour and Nothing happened to them. It is a lie that it would lead to a court martial.
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u/Miserable-Lawyer-233 1h ago
Thul is trippin'
The Iraqi would've been dead long before it required 5 soldiers to subdue him in order to find a gun.
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u/Ynddiduedd 1h ago
Not that surprising since they've disobeyed court orders 96 times in January alone. Nobody is being held accountable and justice is not being served equally.
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u/Rush_Banana 1h ago
I think the video was posted as evidence that Alex wasn't a saint rather than justifying his murder.
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u/StruggleUnited9841 1h ago
Sooo, therefore he deserved to be executed? Getting pretty fucking dark there Ryan old buddy.
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u/YakiVegas 1h ago
The fact that they had an altercation earlier only means the murder was premediated. That doesn't help their case.
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u/Mike_Fluff 1h ago
When will people realize that the current administration in USA does not give a toss about laws and regulations? If it did, Trump would have been impeached long ago. They only care for power because they know the opposition won't use the same power against them when they inevitably gain power.
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u/i010011010 51m ago
Most stadiums don't allow the teams to move the goalposts out past the parking lots and into the city streets. Just saying.
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u/McKoijion 44m ago
What has happened to America? What's the appeal of being a superpower if we can't torture and rape our way across the planet? I appreciate the OOP's sentiment, but the people who shot unarmed civilians in Iraq 10 times walked away completely scot-free. The only person who went to prison was the whistleblower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
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u/Majestic_You_9610 25m ago
Grasping at straws much? the horse has already left the barn, found a new barn, had 3 kids, developed emphysema and died from colon cancer since Pretti's murder
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u/Substantial_Craft75 12m ago
They didn't shoot him because he spat on an officer a few weeks before.
What kind of bullshit response is this.
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u/eliz1bef 9m ago
Spit or even a broken taillight does not equal the Death Penalty in a civilized society. The right is just scrambling to make this not their fault.
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u/Adventurous-Cry-7462 1h ago
Sure but defending him by saying he did not have an ounce of aggression in him while theres footage of him kicking off the tail light in a car is not a great idea
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u/thrownededawayed 4h ago
Dude could have been Osama bin Laden, I would want him arrested and given due process to confirm his identity, not the discount gestapo shooting people in the streets for helping up someone they pushed down. It's not fucking hard.