US Politics
MTG defends protester shot by DHS and says people need to lose their ‘blinders’: ‘You are all being incited into civil war’
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Marjorie Taylor Greene has urged fellow MAGA supporters – and other Americans – to “take off their political blinders” over the death of protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, warning that they are being “incited into civil war.”
“I unapologetically believe in border security and deporting criminal illegal aliens and I support law enforcement,” Greene wrote on X Sunday, the day after the fatal shooting. “However, I also unapologetically support the 2nd amendment.
“Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm.”
Despite video showing that 37-year-old Pretti was filming federal officers but did not have a weapon drawn, the Trump administration has claimed he had tried to assassinate agents in an act of “domestic terrorism.”
The incident was captured from multiple angles, including one that showed Pretti being sprayed with mace and wrestled to the ground while attempting to help a woman who had just been sprayed herself and had fallen to the ground. After being swarmed by around seven officers a shot rings out, followed by at least nine more, and Pretti falls still.
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“There is nothing wrong with legally peacefully protesting and videoing,” Greene said.
The former Congresswoman asked MAGA to consider another scenario in which she replaced the protesters in Minnesota with those who supported the action on January 6, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
“We lost our minds when we watched Biden’s FBI track down and aggressively carry out home invasions and arrest… peaceful J6’ers who walked in the Capitol through open doors,” she said.
“Imaging [sic] if one of our MAGA independent journalists or even just a MAGA supporter stood in the street outside a J6’ers house while Biden’s FBI carried out a law enforcement operation, home invasion, and arrest.
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“Then Biden’s FBI goes to the MAGA guy videoing it all and shoves a woman with him to the ground and sprays them with bear spray then throws the MAGA guy to the ground as MAGA guy was trying to help the woman off the ground. Then Biden’s FBI beats MAGA guy on the ground, disarms MAGA guy, and then shoots him dead.
“What would have been our reaction? Both sides need to take off their political blinders. You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.”
Pretti’s death is the second fatal shooting to involve federal agents in Minneapolis in less than three weeks, following the killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good on January 7. Tensions and clashes between demonstrators have increased, as well as those between state and federal authorities.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said earlier Sunday that residents, as well as his own police department have “had enough.”
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“This police department has only 600 police officers. We are stretched incredibly thin. This has taken an enormous toll trying to manage all of this chaos on top of trying to be the police department for a major city,” O’Hara told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
O’Hara noted that he has received no official information from the federal government related to Saturday’s shooting. “Even when our officers initially responded to the scene, our watch commander was not given even the most basic information that is typical in a law enforcement-involved shooting,” he said.
While the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was blocked from the scene of the shooting Saturday by federal officials, they were allowed access Sunday to canvas for witnesses.
Greene’s comments represent the latest instance of her breaking from MAGA orthodoxy. Previously a firebrand Trump loyalist, she has publicly broken from the president in recent months over issues including the Epstein files and foreign policy. She stood down from Congress earlier this month.
