Fresno professor: Who will be held accountable for Alex Pretti’s murder? | Opinion
How we got to the Minneapolis crisis is fairly obvious. Where we go now will say everything about the kind of nation we are and our respect for the rule of law. This is not some far-away crisis. This tests our San Joaquin Valley.
What is happening in Minneapolis is a moral and Constitutional crisis. The right “of the people to peaceably assemble” is guaranteed in the Constitution’s First Amendment as a means to protest the actions of government. Moreover, the freedom — and the duty even — to protest against government is an essential part of a representative democracy.
It is refreshing to see hundreds of thousands of Americans answering the call to what they clearly feel is a moral obligation to speak out against the recent immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and other cities around the country. Americans need to be able to exercise this right, and to document and share what is happening in their communities without fearing that it might cost them their lives.
Unfortunately, our leaders do not seem to be upholding their obligations to protect this right. Consequently, two people, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have died. Hundreds of others have been hurt through beatings and tear gassings. Thousands — including many American citizens — are now too terrified to leave their homes or send their children to school.
It is abundantly clear from video evidence that Good and Pretti were doing nothing more than engaging in peaceful assembly. Perhaps the federal officers involved were poorly trained and panicked. Perhaps they felt they had been given free-reign to use lethal force by the Trump administration — or at least from the rhetoric coming from that administration.
Perhaps both explanations are true, but that doesn’t matter: People lost their lives exercising their Constitutional rights and doing what their moral conscience demanded of them. Those responsible at the highest level must now be held accountable or the rule of law is meaningless.
Lethal state violence
Certainly, this is not the first time lethal state violence has been used against protesters in American history. Most of us know that when civil rights marchers tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, so they could register to vote, marchers were beaten by state troopers, and Jimmie Lee Jackson lost his life.
But it has also happened right here in the San Joaquin Valley. In 1973, as farm worker protests grew in the wake of the Delano Grape Strike, organizer Nagi Daifallah was beaten to death by a Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy while he was running away. Juan de la Cruz was also murdered during the strike, though likely by strike-breakers and not government officers. Hundreds of other strikers were shot by law enforcement, and while they survived, none should have had to put their lives at risk for exercising their rights.
Who is held accountable?
Nobody is above the law — not even the president. So, if Americans are killed for peacefully exercising their Constitutional rights, who will take responsibility? The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers? Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem? President Donald Trump himself, who, despite recent efforts to walk back his statements regarding the killing of Alex Pretti, has praised this aggressive enforcement?
The worst possible outcome is for nobody to be held accountable, which sends the terrible signal that federal officers may act without impunity or fear of consequences.
Perhaps more importantly, will these killings scare people away from protesting? It doesn’t appear to be the case in Minneapolis, but what about in our San Joaquin Valley if ICE decides to expand its enforcement operations here? The threat is not an idle one since the administration appears to have a preference for aggressive enforcement in Democratic states, and no state has come in for the president’s ire more than California.
The bottom line is simple: Protesters must have a right to protest aggressive immigration enforcement without fear of being attacked and losing their lives. Can they be arrested? If they are truly breaking the law, yes. But no government that calls itself democratic and respecting the rule of law can be allowed to brutally suppress free expression — especially expression directed against government.
Tom Holyoke is a professor of political science at California State University, Fresno, where he specializes in studying (among other things) political advocacy.
This story was originally published February 1, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fresno professor: Who will be held accountable for Alex Pretti’s murder? | Opinion."