‘Stop trying to protect the killer’: Scarborough blasts DOJ’s handling of Pretti case

The parents of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in January, accused the Trump administration of withholding information about the investigation into their son’s killing. On Wednesday’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough slammed the government’s inaction and said America “is not going to forget” Pretti.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Michael and Susan Pretti said that in the nine months since their son’s death, neither the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota nor the Justice Department had provided their family with the “basic information the law affords,” including the identities of the officers involved.

Alex Pretti, 37, was filming federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis when he intervened after an officer pushed a woman to the ground. Video of the encounter shows agents tackling him, removing his gun and shooting him multiple times. In the aftermath of the shooting, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti posed a threat to federal agents and accused him of domestic terrorism.

The shooting prompted federal and state investigations. However, state and local officials have said federal authorities stopped sharing evidence after initially turning some over. Hennepin County has sued the federal government for access to evidence.

In a statement, the Justice Department said investigators were following “standard practice,” adding: “Communications with family members, if any, come at a later stage of a case, such as indictment, initial appearance, plea, trial, or sentencing. Those communications do not typically occur during an investigation.”

But Scarborough wasn’t buying it. He accused the federal government of stonewalling and said officials should “stop trying to subvert justice and stop trying to protect the killer.”

“Everybody should know the killer’s name in America,” he continued. “The person who killed Alex Pretti, execution style, everybody should know his name, and everybody should know all the evidence.”

Scarborough said that despite its best efforts, the Justice Department would not be able to “wipe it all away” and “make everybody forget this.”

“The parents aren’t going to forget it,” he said, “and America is not going to forget it either.”

The MS NOW host compared the situation to the 1988 film “Mississippi Burning,” which is loosely based on the abduction and murder of three civil rights workers during Freedom Summer in 1964. “Except we are substituting bigoted Mississippi sheriffs who are trying to cover up evidence of slain civil rights workers” with “DOJ officials,” he said.

“Now it’s the Trump administration that’s literally trying to sweep a killer — a killer’s execution-style killing in the streets of America — under the carpet,” Scarborough continued. “It’s not going to happen.”

You can watch Scarborough’s full commentary in the clip at the top of the page.

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