In a heated interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash on Sunday, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said his agents were the real “victims” in the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protestor.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday. In videos of the deadly altercation between Pretti and several agents, he can be seen placing himself between an agent and several women that he was shoving. Pretti is sprayed with a chemical irritant and then wrestled to the ground, where one agent repeatedly hit him in the head with the irritant’s metal canister. Pretti, who was legally carrying a firearm, was fatally shot by agents while on the ground.
DHS immediately painted Pretti as a threat, saying that officers feared for their lives because Pretti was legally carrying a firearm. Multiple videos of the shooting contradicted the official line that Pretti was threatening agents. On Sunday, Bash pressed Bovino for evidence “that he was intending to massacre law enforcement.”
When Bash repeatedly asserted Pretti’s right to carry his firearm, Bovino made the bold claim that Pretti forfeited his Second Amendment rights via his actions.