She thought she’d spend Sunday blending colors on small cheeks, not watching life drain from a stranger in the street. The whistles, the stalled cars, the strange choreography of bodies pulled her from the safety of her vehicle. She saw a man steadying a fallen woman, not lunging, not threatening. Her instincts told her to film, even as her hands trembled and the officer’s weapon cleared its holster. In that instant, the distance between citizen and state collapsed into a single, shaking frame.

When the government rushed to label Alex Pretti the aggressor, her footage quietly waited online, protected by friends and neighbors who understood its danger. Then it exploded into public view, and with it, the carefully rehearsed narrative of a powerful administration unraveled. Gregory Bovino fell. Investigators came calling. Stella still doesn’t trust their conclusions, but she trusts what she saw—and what her camera proved: power can lie, but pixels rarely do.