From Richard Rostron, The Response:
Bad decisions led to Good and Pretti’s deaths
But Leftists and their lapdog media have plenty of blood on their hands, too
He put his arm around his 20-something daughter’s slender shoulders and said, “Honey, you need to go out in the streets to defend our neighbors. You need to fight against ICE.”
All 105-pounds of the young lady seemed to shake as she looked up into her father’s loving eyes and asked, “Are you sure?”
“Well, we both agree that it’s fascism for Pres. Trump to deport people whose only crime is entering the country illegally,” dad assured her. “It’s time to stop talking and take action.”
Tears welled around her eyes as she fearfully said, “But what about the rubber bullets and teargas?”
Dad seemed to ponder the question. Then he said, “You know what you do? Stay in your car. Keep the windows up so the teargas won’t get you and pull your car in front of the ICE agents and their vehicles so they can’t get by?”
“But what if they try to arrest me?” she begged.
“If they try to arrest you, you just drive away,” he said reassuringly.
“What if they stand in my way?”
Dad grinned, “Trust me, sweetheart; if you drive at ‘em, they’re gonna move.”
“I don’t know, dad,” she said. “I’m scared.”
Dad seemed to ponder the question a little while. He scratched his chin and then he snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it,” he said, as he stood and walked into the other room.
When he came back, dad was carrying his 9mm Sig Sauer P320. “Here, forget the car. Just carry this with you.”
“But didn’t you put that away because some people claim it can fire accidentally?”
“Oh, what are the odds of that?” he asked rhetorically.
“What if the police try to arrest me?” she asked.
He pumped out his chest and proudly told her, “You’re small but you’re tough. Fight ‘em off.”
“What about the gun?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “It’s only in case you need it.”
What do you think of that father? Sound like a reasonable man with a reasonable idea? Even if you don’t oppose ICE, imagine that you do; would you give your child that kind of advice? If not, why not?
Of course, there’s no indication that Renne Good’s or Alex Pretti’s parents encouraged them to go out and obstruct ICE (‘obstruct’ is the precise word to describe what they were doing though another term is that they were committing a potential felony). But they didn’t make the decisions that put them in harm’s way entirely on their own. They had some encouragement.
In fact, what Minn. Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other politicians said went beyond encouragement. Their words can best be described as inciting people to go out in the streets of Minnesota and obstruct justice.
It doesn’t matter that they didn’t like the idea of ICE enforcing that particular law – immigration law; what mattered is that it is the law and, for a party that regularly uses activist judges to obstruct the Trump administration, it’s enlightening that their strategy, in this case, is to turn their supporters into cannon fodder.
Is cannon fodder too strong of a term?
Was anyone surprised when we heard about Good and/or Pretti?
In cities and states where governors and mayors cooperated with ICE, there was little violence (though the agent who shot Good was dragged by the car of an illegal alien last summer). In Minnesota, the situation was quickly recognizable as a powder keg.
It was an explosive situation where someone was bound to get hurt or, as it turned out, worse. And yet, while offering perfunctory platitudes about ‘peacefully protesting,’ these political provocateurs kept telling them to “stand up for their neighbors” and to be sure to whip out their phones to film the action as they obstructed ICE.
What were they hoping the incited and/or paid agitators would video? We’re they hoping they would catch video of ICE agents taking a 5-year-old boy to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal after his father ran off abandoning him? Of course not. They wanted … they were determined to catch politically explosive moments of chaos and violence.
And they knew it was going to happen. There is an 8,000% increase in the number of death threats against ICE agents. We’ve already had numerous incidents of agitators driving their vehicles into ICE vehicles and into ICE agents themselves. We’ve had a shooting at a facility in Texas where illegals were being detained. No doubt, the ICE agents are on their toes anticipating agitators going too far and ready to act accordingly.
Good and Pretti made very bad decisions. Good ignored an order to get out of her vehicle and then drove into an agent. It may not have helped that the agent she drove into was dragged by the car of an illegal in a prior incident.
Pretti, who was caught on video kicking out the taillight of an ICE vehicle, spitting on ICE agents and resisting when they sought to subdue him, chose to bring a firearm to a chaotic and dangerous situation. Did it ever occur to him that might not be the best idea he ever had?
Having made the decision to bring a firearm to a volatile anti-ICE rally, did it occur to him that tussling with law enforcement agents while carrying a gun could work out badly?
The anti-ICE crowd has convicted the ICE agents involved in Good and Pretti’s deaths without a trial even though there’s at least a shadow of a doubt to their contention (some would say substantial cause for doubt). But, either way, Good and Pretti made very bad decisions that put them in these dangerous positions.
But all the blame doesn’t rest with Good, Pretti or the ICE agents. The trail of Good and Pretti’s blood leads back to Walz, Frey, Omar, Klobuchar, other Leftists and, above all, the Left’s rabid lapdog media that blared the message of incitement incessantly. They wanted people taking pictures and video and they wanted something for people to see – something that would incite ‘righteous indignation.’
You need a spark to start a fire.
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If someone wants to write a rebuttal, send it to me.
