Sharp as a Bowie

Sharp as a Bowie | Daily Tribune

The first time that line drifted out of the speakers in 1985, it felt like vintage David Bowie moodiness.

This is not America.

Back then it belonged to the Cold War, to trench coats, spies, and the suspicion that something hollow lived beneath polished surfaces. Now it plays like a news bulletin set to music.

This, because Minneapolis, in a span of less than three weeks, watched two of its own die at the hands of federal agents, developments that matter to Filipinos, too, with nearly five million living as immigrants or working in America.

Alex Pretti was 37, an ICU nurse, the sort of profession people clapped for not long ago. He was on an icy roadway, cellphone in hand, filming Donald Trump’s “patriots” (God, how mangled the definition of the word has become) during an operation that had already drawn protests.

Video circulating widely showed him directing traffic in the snow-lined street. When an agent shoved a woman protester to the sidewalk, Pretti stepped in. He was sprayed in the face with pepper spray. Then came the takedown — bodies slipping and grappling on frozen asphalt. Seconds later, an officer appeared to pull a gun from Pretti’s pants.

A New York Times analysis showed that it was the agent himself who, showing a lack of proper training, accidentally discharged Pretti’s gun. Then, all hell broke loose. Agents opened fire at Pretti as he was lying on the ice. There were 10 shots in all. He would have been dead three times over.

Authorities said a 9mm pistol and ammunition were found on him. Homeland Security officials said he was there “to perpetuate violence.” A senior White House aide used the word “assassin.”

His parents and those who knew of his service to veterans called him a “kindhearted soul” and accused the government of telling “sickening lies.” Between those descriptions lies the new American fault line: podium versus pixel.

This is not America.

It was not even the first such death this month. Renee Good, also 37, had been shot and killed in her car by an ICE officer weeks earlier. Federal authorities blocked local investigators from jointly probing that case. Now Minnesota’s governor has demanded that the state lead the Pretti investigation, saying the federal government could not be trusted to police itself.

Trust, that soft, invisible thing, is the snowman melting from the inside.

The political class has reacted on cue. One senator said the credibility of ICE and DHS was at stake. Others threatened to withhold votes on spending bills, raising the specter of a government shutdown. Trump has accused local leaders of “inciting insurrection” and floated invoking the Insurrection Act to send troops.

Meanwhile, in the cold, hundreds gathered in a park. A five-year-old boy’s earlier detention had already inflamed tempers. A local resident said communities felt “attacked and terrorized.” Police described an “incredibly volatile scene,” so tense that even securing the site for investigation became a struggle.

Threaded through it all was another collision of American ideals: Pretti was described as a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. Gun rights advocates warned that legal possession was being rhetorically converted into presumed intent to kill.

The right to bear arms met the reality of armed federal agents on city streets, and the Constitution seemed less like a shared foundation than clauses aimed at one another.

Or maybe it is, just not the brochure version.

The map still says United States. The flags are still up. Congress still argues under its dome. But on a frozen road, with a nurse dead and officials and family describing two different men, the old story of who we are strains against what people can see.

Bowie sang it like a sigh, not a slogan — not rage, but recognition. The uneasy sense that the country in the anthem and the country in the footage are drifting apart. And in that gap, widening quietly in the cold, the refrain lingers.

This is not America.