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The Responsibility That Only Runs One Way

•10 min read
accountabilitygovernmentjusticeauthorityiceprotestdeconstruction
A conservative legal argument about Alex Pretti's death sounds compelling—until you notice it only applies scrutiny to one side of the equation.

I saw a video that was re-posted by Mike Rowe.

It was a commentary about Alex Pretti—the ICU nurse killed by federal agents at a Minneapolis protest six days ago. The video is making the rounds on social media, shared as a sober, legally-grounded counterpoint to what its viewers see as emotional overreaction from the left.

I watched it. And honestly? I found parts of it compelling.

What the Video Gets Right

The commentator isn't some frothing partisan. He presents himself as reasonable, measured. He makes points that aren't wrong:

  • Minnesota has a duty-to-retreat law
  • Carrying a firearm increases your responsibility to avoid confrontation, not seek it out
  • The right to film police doesn't extend to interfering with their operations
  • Rights come with responsibilities

He acknowledges uncertainty about whether the shooting was ultimately justified. He doesn't claim to know everything.

And there's something to his core argument: if you're armed, you have a heightened obligation to de-escalate and avoid volatile situations. That's not unreasonable. I believe it myself.

I initially watched the video nodding along at certain points. These are coherent legal principles. This isn't the work of an irrational person.

But then I noticed something.

"Circumstances Are Everything"

The commentator's refrain is that "circumstances are everything." Context matters. You can't judge the shooting in isolation—you have to look at the full picture.

And then he proceeds to examine only Alex's circumstances.

Alex chose to approach the scene. Alex chose not to retreat when agents arrived. Alex chose to resist when they grabbed him. "You have 100% control over all of those factors."

But here's what's missing from this analysis of "everything":

Why was a woman pushed into a snowbank in the first place? The video never asks. The sequence that led to Alex stepping forward is treated as a given—an immutable starting condition, not itself a choice that agents made.

Were the agents' initial actions justified? The pepper spray deployed at people who were filming. The physical force used before Alex ever allegedly reached for anything besides his phone. These aren't examined.

What about the agents' 100% control over their choices? They chose to push. They chose to spray. They chose to tackle. They chose to fire. Ten times. Into a man on the ground.

The commentator applies his "circumstances are everything" standard to one side only. Alex must account for every choice in his chain of decisions. The agents' chain of decisions? Invisible. Mechanical. Inevitable.

The Passive Voice That Hides Agency

Listen to how the shooting itself is described:

"Their decision to fire never would have been made if Alex had simply retreated."

Read that again. The agents' decision to fire is rendered passive—something that "was made" rather than something they did. It's framed as a mechanical output triggered by Alex's inputs.

This is how you make ten bullets sound like physics rather than choices.

The entire framework treats citizen behavior as the independent variable and state violence as the dependent one. Citizens act; agents react. Citizens have agency; agents have protocols.

But agents aren't automatons. They made decisions too. At every step of that encounter, someone with a badge chose what to do next.

What the Supreme Court Actually Says

Here's where the legal argument becomes not just incomplete, but inverted.

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Lombardo v. City of St. Charles that you cannot evaluate a use-of-force incident by looking only at the final moment. You must examine the entire lead-up—including the actions of law enforcement that may have created or escalated the situation.

The commentator's own framework—"circumstances are everything"—is precisely what Lombardo demands. But the video does exactly what Lombardo says not to do: it examines only Alex's lead-up, not the agents'.

If circumstances are everything, then we need to ask:

  • What were agents doing that prompted the interaction in the first place?
  • Was the force used against the woman in the snowbank proportionate?
  • Did officers escalate when de-escalation was possible?
  • Were the commands clear and consistent, or conflicting?
  • Was lethal force necessary against a man already on the ground?

These aren't abstract philosophical questions. They're what the Supreme Court says you must consider. And the video sidesteps all of them.

Abstract Rights vs. Concrete Behavior

The commentator's sharpest line is this: people are "using abstract rights language to excuse concrete behavior."

It sounds clever. But watch what happens when you flip it.

The video uses abstract legal frameworks—duty to retreat, reasonable belief standards, the limits of First Amendment protections—to excuse the concrete behavior of shooting someone ten times.

Alex's actions are examined concretely: he approached, he resisted, he allegedly reached. But the agents' actions are examined abstractly: they were operating under threat, they had "reasonable belief," their response was within the bounds of what the law permits.

If we're going to demand concrete accountability from citizens, shouldn't we demand it from agents too?

What, concretely, was the threat at the moment ten bullets were fired into a body on the ground?

The Question That Never Gets Asked

The video is sophisticated. It provides an intellectual framework that makes Alex's death feel explicable, even reasonable.

But it never asks or answers the question I've been asking since January 24:

What crime did Alex Pretti commit that carries a death sentence?

Even if Alex violated his duty to retreat. Even if he shouldn't have approached. Even if he made every wrong choice the commentator describes—what crime warranting execution did he commit?

The video provides a roadmap of how Alex arrived at the moment of his death. It never justifies why death was the appropriate outcome.

Because that's the question that would break the framework. Once you ask it, all the legal scaffolding about duty to retreat and reasonable belief collapses. You're left staring at the concrete reality: a nurse, on the ground, shot ten times.

The January 13 Footage

Since my first post about Alex, new information has emerged.

Eleven days before his death, Alex was at another protest where he kicked and broke the taillight of a federal vehicle. Agents tackled him, broke his rib, but didn't arrest or detain him.

This footage is now being used by Donald Trump Jr., Megyn Kelly, and others to retroactively justify his killing. The argument seems to be: see, he had a pattern. He was trouble. He had it coming.

But this is exactly backwards.

If Alex was such a threat on January 13, why wasn't he arrested? Why wasn't he charged? Why was he free to return to another protest eleven days later?

Either he was a dangerous criminal who should have been detained—in which case, someone failed to do their job—or kicking a taillight isn't actually the kind of threat that warrants the treatment he received on January 24.

You can't have it both ways. You can't say "he was clearly dangerous" while also explaining why he was released without charges. Unless the point isn't consistency—the point is constructing a narrative that makes his death feel earned.

The White House Response

Rather than calling for an investigation into whether the shooting was justified, the administration immediately labeled Alex a "terrorist" who intended to "assassinate" federal agents.

No investigation. No evidence. Just the label.

This is authoritarian narrative control: establish the conclusion before the facts can complicate the story. Once someone is a "terrorist," their death requires no justification. The label does the work.

And if the facts later contradict the label? By then, the narrative has calcified. The label sticks. The questions stop.

What I Recognize

I left a church and religion that asked me to trust the framework over my own observations.

When I saw things that didn't add up, I was told to trust the prophets. When church history contradicted what I'd been taught, I was told to have faith. When my conscience said one thing and the institution said another, I was taught to be obedient.

Leaving that system was learning to trust what I saw, even when an elaborate framework told me I was seeing it wrong.

I recognize this commentary video for what it is: an elaborate framework.

It's intellectually sophisticated. It appeals to law and order and responsibility. It makes Alex's death feel explicable.

But it requires you to unsee what's on the videos where Alex was shot. A man stepping forward to help someone who'd been pushed. Pepper spray. A tackle. Gunfire into a body on the ground.

The framework says: look at all the ways he failed to comply.

My eyes say: I watched someone get killed for helping a stranger.

"Rights Without Responsibility Aren't Liberty"

The commentator's closing thesis is that "rights without responsibility aren't liberty—they're license for chaos."

I agree. Rights do come with responsibilities.

So here are some responsibilities I'd like to see discussed:

  • The responsibility of agents not to escalate situations unnecessarily
  • The responsibility of the state not to execute citizens without trial
  • The responsibility of those who use lethal force to justify it, concretely, moment by moment
  • The responsibility of officials not to label victims as terrorists before any investigation
  • The responsibility of a democracy to ask hard questions when its agents kill

Why does the responsibility only run one way?

Why must Alex, or those who see an ujustified killing, account for every choice, while the agents' choices are invisible, mechanical, beyond scrutiny?

The Choice Before Us

George Orwell wrote: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

We saw a man help someone who'd been pushed. We saw him pepper-sprayed, tackled, and shot.

We're being told to accept a framework that explains why he chose this outcome.

But he didn't choose to be shot ten times. The agents chose that.

And until someone can explain—concretely, not abstractly—why that choice was justified, I'm going to keep trusting what I saw.

A week ago, I asked what crime justified the bullets. The conservative legal response has arrived: it wasn't about his crimes. It was about his failures to retreat, his failures to comply, his failures to exercise his speech properly. The bullets, in this framework, aren't a choice—they're a consequence. But consequences still require someone to pull the trigger. Ten times.

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