The American Federation of Government employees held a nationwide vigil for its union member Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital in Minneapolis.
SEATTLE — A modest vigil honoring the life of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a Minneapolis VA hospital, took place late Sunday afternoon outside the Seattle Veteran Affairs Medical Center.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union representing over 820,000 federal employees, including VA workers, held the vigil. It was one of several demonsration the union put on across the country.
“He was not a domestic terrorist as people have said at the national level. He was an American,” Alton McDonald, president of a local AFGE chapter.
“We’re going to continue to keep Alex alive so that the American people will never forget what happened to him,” he said.
Patty Lyman, a retired physician assistant with the Seattle VA, was one of about 20 people who attended the vigil.
“It was like a gut punch when I heard that he died,” Lyman said. “We need to support our nurses within the VA.”
The vigil comes eight days after federal border patrol officers shot and killed Pretti at a protest in Minneapolis, and continues nationwide demonstrations protesting ICE.
Initially, federal officials, and the President and his administration, quickly tried portray Pretti as an armed instigator, but multiple videos taken by witnesses at the scene seem to contradict that characterization.
In the videos, Pretti appears to be coming to get in between border patrol officers and a woman pushed to the ground. Officers can then be seen shoving, pepper spraying and pinning Pretti to the ground before shooting him ten times, killing him.
Additionally, the videos show Pretti is holding his cell phone, not a handgun, as federal officials initially claimed.
“People say that’s not what happened, but I saw the video. He was actually murdered,” said.
On Friday, the Justice Department opened a federal civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death.
For McDonald and Lyman, the news does not bring any comfort.
“Well, I think the department of justice is under control of the executive branch right now,” Lyman said. “They executive branch is out of control.”
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