The final report on Alex Pretti’s death leaves almost nothing for officials to hide behind. A peaceful protest, a phone in his hand, pepper spray in the air, a woman shoved to the ground—and then an ICU nurse, veteran, and son shot multiple times by federal agents. The medical examiner’s ruling of homicide, with no contributing conditions, starkly undercuts early claims that painted him as an armed “domestic terrorist.”

For his family, the document is both vindication and torment. It confirms what they screamed from the start: Alex was not the monster they made him out to be. Yet it offers no comfort, only a colder, more clinical description of the violence that took him. Now, with civil-rights and criminal investigations underway, the question is no longer whether Alex was killed unjustly—but whether anyone with power will dare to be held to account.