The death of the protester Alex Prettiwhich occurred last Saturday at the hands of police officers Customs and Border Protection (CBPfor its acronym in English) deployed in Minneapolis to support members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has become a real headache for the president of the United States, Donald Trump. To the constant protests that have been taking place for weeks in the capital of Minnesota – fueled by the death of Renee Nicole Good on January 7 – the statements of the main immigration advisor of the White House, Stephen Millerwho this Tuesday expressed his doubts about the “protocol” followed by the agents implicated in Pretti’s death.
Miller, deputy chief of staff, advisor to President Trump and one of the ideologues of their immigration policyis one of the heavyweights within the Republican Administration. So his statements on CNN this Tuesday underpin the change made by Trump himself on Monday regarding the narrative to which the White House had initially clung. In fact, on Saturday after learning of the event, Miller himself called Pretti ““murderer” and “terrorist”and accused him of trying to “kill” the federal agents involved in that episode.
However, now Trump’s advisor has moved away from the harsh rhetoric maintained until now, to recognize that the CBP operations were responsible for possible misconduct in Minneapolis. In this sense, Miller assured that the White House had given “clear indications to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)”, so that the support personnel sent to Minnesota will be limited to “executing fugitive capture operations and creating a physical barrier between arrest teams and disruptors.”
“We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have followed that protocol,” he highlighted on the North American network, the same day that DHS delivered a report to Congress stating that at least two agents of this operation fired their weapons at Pretti. In this same writing, it is included that those involved were struggling with Pretti when one of them warned that he was carrying a weapon. However, the videos broadcast since Saturday show that the shots occurred when the victim was already immobilized and the agents had already stolen the pistol that Pretti was legally carrying.
“Honest” investigation
In this way, Miller’s statements add to those previously made by Trump, who this Tuesday promised an “honest” investigation to clarify Pretti’s death. However, he did not place responsibility on the ICE or CBP agents and, as he has been doing since Saturday, he was critical of the fact that the victim was carrying a weapon. A trend similar to that which Miller had followed until now and in line with that of other positions in the White House such as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who accused Pretti of committing “an act of domestic terrorism.”
During his intervention on CNN, Miller assured that “DHS’s initial statement was based on reports from CBP on the ground.” Likewise, the North American network, based on sources familiar with this matter, points out that on the day of Pretti’s death, Noem was in almost constant contact with White House officials, including Miller; and emphasizes that Trump privately defended an agent’s actions who had allegedly pulled the trigger.
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