In the days after the shooting, Alex Jeffrey Pretti’s name moved from hospital whiteboards to handmade posters lit by candlelight. Patients’ families remembered the calm voice at their most terrifying moments; coworkers remembered the colleague who stayed late, took extra shifts, and treated every veteran like someone worth fighting for. His parents, still stunned, spoke of a son who recycled obsessively, marched quietly, and believed the point of protest was to keep others safe.

That belief now collides with the official narrative. Federal authorities describe a “targeted enforcement action” and a “confrontation,” but offer little about how a U.S. citizen nurse became a fatality in an immigration raid. The earlier death of Renee Nicole Good already had Minneapolis on edge; Alex’s killing has turned unease into insistence. At vigils and meetings, one demand echoes: not vengeance, but visibility—body-camera footage, clear timelines, independent review. Until then, the silence feels like its own kind of vi.