Minneapolis Mourns Hero Nurse Killed By ICE, Condemns DHS Gaslighting

In today’s daily, we’ll look at another ICE killing of a US citizen in Minneapolis, and the federal government’s ensuing firehose of lies and propaganda – something researchers have long said is characteristic of authoritarian regimes past and present as they attempt to psychologically intimidate a population.

In other news, a proposed California law would force insurers to disclose how often they deny care.

But first, the story of college senior Joey Romano, who broke his wrist skateboarding and made the fateful decision to take an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance. Driver Beni Lukumu insisted on driving him to the emergency room for free. When Lukumu found Romano had no local relatives – Lukumu was also  far from family, having moved to the U.S. from the Congo at 25 – he sat next to him in his hospital room for 6 hours. In this story shared online by the Today show, Romano credits Lukumu’s kindness “with helping him see good in the world again” – Romano had been struggling after losing his little brother to leukemia;  When Romano’s grandmother arrived, the three of them went out to dinner – the beginning of a seven-year friendship.

Minneapolis Protests DHS Gaslighting, Mourns ‘Hero’ Nurse Killed By ICE

On Saturday, ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a Veterans Administration nurse. He had been trying to help a woman up after agents shoved her to the sidewalk, at a protest in below-freezing weather. His last words, spoken to her, were “Are you ok?”

ICE claimed Pretti had been attacking officers, but video evidence clearly shows him simply holding his phone and filming – something he had every right to do. Despite that, ICE agents yanked him to the ground, hit and kicked him, then shot him more than 10 times in five seconds, as widely-circulated videos depict.

Agents then blamed the shooting on the fact that Pretti was carrying a concealed gun in a holster – which was legal, given he had a permit – but it is clear from footage that Pretti never reached for the weapon, let alone used it. Agents removed it from his holster before they killed him in front of a horrified crowd.

The Department of Homeland Security propaganda machine started up almost immediately, with claims that a gunman trying to shoot ICE agents was killed – claims similar to those made just weeks earlier after ICE agents killed  Minneapolis mother and poet Renee Good after she dropped her six-year-old off at school. Trump falsely claimed that she deliberately ran over an ICE agent – video shows him, at most, brushed by the vehicle as she attempted to turn away from the agents – and DHS secretary Kristi Noem accused her of being a “domestic terrorist.”

These encounters with ICE were recorded from a number of angles, which show that the agents were not in danger in either case; instead, they meted out what California lawmakers, the NAACP and many others have called “public executions.” Yet the lies continue, with some DHS officials claiming, with no evidence, that it seemed like Pretti was there to “kill” and “massacre law enforcement,” and Stephen Miller calling Pretti a “would-be assassin.” 

Trump’s tone has become more careful, however, and some in the DHS have criticized the remarks. “When we gaslight and contradict what the public can plainly see with their own eyes, we lose all credibility,” one ICE agent told CBS News.

“What the videos depict is that this guy did not walk up to anybody from CBP in a threatening manner,” said John Cohen, former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence, who now trains police. “For (DHS)  to construe that he arrived at that location with the intent to shoot those border patrol officers, there’s nothing in the video evidence that we’ve seen thus far that would support that.”

Experts say that fascist movements typically use gaslighting and propaganda to disconnect a society from reality – psychologically overwhelmed and emotionally lost, people are then more likely to give in to authoritarianism. For this reason, some psychologists see fascism not simply as a political regime, but as a mental health crisis – one typified by collective anxiety, fear and a subsequent desire for order at any cost. This week seems to have marked a turn in commentators’ willingness to apply the ‘F’ word to  our current government – including former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Jonathan Rauch of The Atlantic (in a piece entitled “Yes, It’s Facism.”) But it also seems to be backfiring as more people stand in solidarity with those who are protesting the actions of ICE and the policies of the administration.

The government’s widespread gaslighting is clearly visible in the Trump regime’s penchant for character assassination, which has enraged people nationwide, especially in Minnesota. Pretti’s family put out a statement calling out the brazen dishonesty:

We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends, and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital.

The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.

Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

In addition to Good and Pretti, who were American citizens, ICE has shot 11 people since Trump returned to office, and six people have already died in ICE custody this year, following seven in December 2025, the worst month on record. In the case of Renee Good, her last words to the agent who killed her were “I’m not mad at you, dude.” After he fatally shoots her, the tape records a man’s voice calling her a “fucking bitch.” 

In other news

“When Insurance Says No, Children Pay the Price,” Capital & Main reports. Surveyed last year, 94% of California youth aged 14 to 25 reported struggling with mental health challenges in an average month. But the paucity of providers and federal defunding of Medicaid and Affordable Care Act policies mean that more and more of them are at risk of going without care – a problem worsened by insurer denials. “But,” says writer Mark Kreidler, “there’s some movement in the State Legislature to address one aspect of this equation.” The Health Insurance Accountability Act, introduced last year by state Senator Scott Wiener, “would force insurers to publicly disclose how often they deny care – and to face fines if their denials are overturned too often upon appeal.” This legislation might have helped some of the people, many of them young, who were denied coverage by health insurers as they sought treatment for their eating disorders, as reporter Melanie Haiken documented in Deadly Denials, a MindSite News series published last year. 

---

Inside an Exploding Marriage: Belle Burden in Her Own Words. That’s the title of an episode of the “Modern Love” podcast, in which Burden discusses her recent memoir  about the sudden end of a relationship. “I remember the first time I read Belle Burden’s Modern Love essay, ‘Was I Married to a Stranger?’ about her husband blindsiding her by suddenly leaving their marriage of 20 years,” says podcast host Anna. “And I remember the second time I read it, just a few minutes later. I ended up reading her essay three times in a row. It was almost like I was searching for clues that I might’ve missed, about why this happened to her. How a life that seemed so perfect could fall apart in one night.” Burden’s book, “Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage” promises to expand that story – since I’m also consumed with curiosity, it seems I’ll have to buy it to find out more.