O Without video footage, George Floyd’s killing would probably not have been prosecuted as such. Without video footage, it would not be clear that Renée Good, who was shot in her car by an ICE agent, had not previously hit any of his colleagues and that he fired in self-defense. And without video footage it wouldn’t be crystal clear Alex Pretti, the youngest victim of the state-appointed violent criminals, was executed in cold blood.
The camera is a form of weaponization because it empowers us against state propaganda that seeks to distort the truth. The importance of people filming when they see government violence is currently underlined during the brutal ICE operations and protests in Minneapolis.
The most recent example of how essential eyewitness videos are is the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by ICE. It took less than a day for the US government to come up with its narrative about why his death could not be prevented. Trump called him “gunman” on Truth Social. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement on Sunday saying that Pretti approached US border guards with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol and that the agents “attempted to disarm the suspect, but he violently resisted.” That’s a lie.
The video reveals the truth
Video footage from an eyewitness shows that he stood in the way of ICE as it pushed a woman to the ground. He filmed the seven agents with one hand, raised his other, free hand in the air, then was sprayed with pepper spray, beaten to the ground and ten in dem Video killed by audible shots. It’s frightening and telling that the cell phone in his hand is now being cited as the reason why ICE agents shot him: they supposedly misinterpreted the cell phone as a weapon.
Pretti had a real firearm on his body, but on his waistband, registered and legal and not in his hand. The ICE agents took the gun from him and fired at it. Without video footage, ICE could have covered it up. In fact, you can see his cell phone as a kind of weapon – but not in the way his murderers mean it: not one that kills, but one that records the truth and holds Pretti’s murderers accountable.
ICE understands that the camera is dangerous to them, and the Trump administration understands that. After Renée Good was killed, they tried to discredit what everyone could see on various videos: that her car missed the ICE agent, that she merely drove away, that she posed no threat – that there was no reason whatsoever to end the 37-year-old mother’s life.
Alternative truths
Trump posted on Truth Social that she had “brutally run over” the agent and that it was “a miracle he was still alive.” It brings to mind Orwell’s words about the fictional dictatorial government in “1984”: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. That was its last, most important command.”
This is what the Trump administration is doing: defiance a detailed one New-York-Times-Analyse des Videomaterials MAGA and its supporters vilify Renée Good as an unpredictable, left-wing radical terrorist. They can’t see what the videos show, they don’t want to see it.
Precisely because these people question reality and try to distort it, it needs to be documented even more precisely. Because videos force us to see that what is currently happening in the USA is not a matter of opinion, that there are no excuses. Every sentence that defends ICE is deliberately spread propaganda.