Ten Shots

American skin, 2026

Alex Jeffrey Pretti was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. He spent his days caring for American veterans—the men and women who served this country and came home broken in body or mind. He wanted to make a difference in this world. That is what his parents said, in a statement released hours after federal agents killed him on an American street.

Ten shots.

His phone was in his right hand. His left hand was raised above his head. He was being pepper-sprayed. He was trying to protect a woman that ICE had just pushed to the ground.

Ten shots.

The Department of Homeland Security told the nation he was armed and dangerous. They said he had a gun and two magazines. They said this justified what they did.

His parents say the administration is telling “sickening lies.” The video shows no weapon drawn. His hands were visible. He was not a threat. He was a nurse. He was a caregiver. He was a citizen of the United States, exercising his right to exist in public, and they executed him for it.

Ten shots.

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Bruce Springsteen wrote “American Skin” after police fired forty-one shots at Amadou Diallo in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building. Diallo was reaching for his wallet. They thought it was a gun. It wasn’t. He died in a doorway, guilty of nothing but living in a body that power had decided was dangerous.

Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet? This is your life.

The song was about what it means to be Black in America. About teaching your children how to survive an encounter with police. About the terror of knowing that compliance might not save you. That your hands can be up and empty, and you can still die. That the story they tell afterward will have nothing to do with what happened.

Twenty-six years later, the principle has expanded. The American skin now belongs to anyone who stands between federal power and its chosen targets. Anyone who does not move fast enough. Anyone who tries to protect their neighbor. Anyone who makes the mistake of believing their rights are real.

You can get killed just for living in it.

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They said Renee Good was a domestic terrorist. They said she weaponized her vehicle. They said she tried to run over an agent.

The video shows her trying to slowly drive away. They shot her through the windshield, point-blank, in the face. She was a mother. She was a poet. She was trying to leave.

They said Alex Pretti was armed and resisting. They said he physically intervened. They said he was a threat.

The video shows a man with a phone in his hand and his other hand raised. His parents say he was trying to protect a woman. He was a nurse. He cared for veterans. He died in the street outside a donut shop.

This is the pattern. Kill first. Lie second. Let the Community Notes and the spokespeople and the Fox News chyrons do the work of making the murder disappear.

Stephen Miller called him a domestic terrorist. After he was dead. The label applied retroactively, to justify what had already been done. This is how it works. This is how it has always worked. The power to kill and the power to define are the same power.

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Here is what we know:

Three thousand federal agents occupy Minneapolis. They wear masks. They operate without meaningful oversight. They have killed two people in less than three weeks. They have shot another. They deploy tear gas on crowds, including children. They refuse to let local police secure crime scenes. When a police chief insists on preserving evidence, they try to order him away.

The Attorney General of the United States has sent a letter to Minnesota officials: ICE will leave if the state turns over its voter database.

Ten shots in the back.

Federal paramilitaries are killing citizens in the streets of an American city. And the price of their departure is control of the state’s elections.

This is not immigration enforcement. This is not public safety. This is extortion. This is the use of state violence to seize election infrastructure in a swing state. This is the thing itself, undisguised, in plain sight.

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I am watching the tech executives I used to work alongside post about AI, tariffs, and founder mode. I am watching them calculate the angles. I am watching them decide that this is not their problem, that the adults will handle it, that surely someone will restore order before it affects them personally.

There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than over masked federal agents executing civilians in the streets.

That tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry. That tells you what the costume was worth. That tells you what “freedom” means to the people who claim to love it most.

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Forty-one shots for Amadou Diallo.

Ten shots for Alex Pretti.

The math is not the point. The math is never the point. One shot would have been enough to end a life, to orphan a future, to prove that none of us are safe when power decides we are in the way.

Alex Pretti’s parents asked the public to get the truth out about their son. He was a good man, they said. He cared for veterans. His last act was trying to protect a stranger.

This is the truth: your son was murdered by agents of the federal government. They lied about why. They will not be held accountable unless we make them accountable. The system designed to prevent this has failed, and the people with the power to stop it are afraid to use that power.

The wire still holds. Because some of us continue to insist on holding it.

But the wire is fraying. And the hands that hold it are bleeding. And the only question that matters now is whether anyone with power will do anything other than issue statements of concern while the bodies accumulate.

Forty-one shots. Ten shots. Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a phone? Is it your life?

You can get killed just for living in your American skin.

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