Justice for Alex Pretti: Thousands Join Veterans, Nurses and Unions at Manhattan VA
Photo by Derek Charles French
This past Thursday, the sidewalk outside the Margaret Cochran Corbin VA Campus in Manhattan couldn’t hold the crowd. As the temperature dropped into the teens and the wind whipped off the East River, over 2,000 New Yorkers, nurses, veterans, labor leaders, and neighbors, spilled into the snow-covered roadway of East 23rd Street.
We were there to hold candles for Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA who was shot and killed by federal agents on January 24th.
The event, hosted by a coalition including National Nurses United (NNU), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and 1199SEIU, served as a massive display of community solidarity.
Alex Pretti was a nurse, a union worker (AFGE Local 3669), and a lifeline for veterans in their most vulnerable moments. On that Saturday morning, Alex was doing what he was trained to do, providing aid. Bystander video and eyewitness accounts show Alex stepping in to help a woman who had been shoved to the ground and pepper-sprayed by federal agents.
Despite the domestic terrorist labels used by the administration to describe those observing these operations, the facts caught on film tell a different story. Alex was holding a cell phone, not a weapon, when he was tackled. While he was a legal gun owner with a permit to carry, the video shows an agent removing the holstered firearm from his person while he was pinned. Seconds later, he was shot at least ten times while lying motionless on the ground.
Five Borough President, Michael Matos, stood before the sea of flickering candles and spoke the truth of the moment:
Five Borough Veterans joins National Nurses United, AFGE, and 1199SEIU in calling for a comprehensive and independent investigation into the actions of the federal agents involved. We owe it to our caregivers and our veterans to demand the highest level of accountability and to ensure that such a failure of justice is never repeated.
In Service,
The Five Borough Veterans Team