Topline
The NBA Players Association said it would “stand in solidarity” with protesters in Minnesota after Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was shot and killed by federal agents on Saturday, joining scores of professional athletes and other celebrities in condemning the killing.
Key Facts
“Now more than ever, we must defend the right to freedom of speech,” the union representing professional basketball players said in a statement posted on social media, adding that it would “refuse to let the flames of social division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all.”
The Players Association called Minneapolis “a city on the forefront of the fight against injustices,” alluding to the massive protests after the death of George Floyd in 2020, and quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a post on X: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
The organization also apologized to Pretti’s family, as well as the family of Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot and killed by federal agents earlier in January.
Key Background
Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Saturday by federal law enforcement officers, who were deployed to the city as part of a large Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement operation dubbed Operation Metro Surge. The operation has sparked large protests in the Twin Cities area. The Trump administration immediately reacted by blaming Pretti, who was armed, for what chief of Customs and Border Patrol Greg Bovino called “violently” resisting arrest. “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” Bovino said on Saturday, but subsequent videos of the shooting have spread doubt as to the timeline of events and contradict the official narrative. The shooting came weeks after Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot and killed in her car by a federal law enforcement officer.