Bury My Heart at the Corner of 26th and Nicollet

Alex Pretti. 37 years old. ICU nurse. Executed by U.S. Border Patrol agents in broad daylight.

Alex Pretti (Michael Pretti)

Bystander video shows Pretti holding his cellphone and attempting to assist a woman who was violently shoved to the ground by an agent when he was pepper-sprayed, pinned, and then shot ten times.

Official statements from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino claim that he was a “domestic terrorist,” “approached with a firearm,” and “violently resisted.”

All are lies.

Only eighteen days have passed since ICE Agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Good just blocks away. The official narrative for Ms. Good was identical: a “high-level agitator,” a “domestic terrorist” who allegedly tried to “viciously run over” agents with her family SUV. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance took to social media to claim she used her vehicle as a weapon.

All are lies.

But the video doesn’t lie, even when the U.S. President does. It shows Ms. Good smiling through an open window at the man who would kill her seconds later. Her final words weren’t a battle cry; they were a benediction: “It’s okay, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

The Lie Was Never the Exception

On December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, five hundred members of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, the same unit humiliated at Little Bighorn, surrounded a freezing band of Lakota men, women, and children led by Chief Spotted Elk. They were refugees, many of them sick with pneumonia, seeking sanctuary at the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The military’s orders were simple: Disarm them.

As the soldiers began their “search and seizure,” a scuffle broke out. A deaf Lakota man named Black Coyote didn’t understand the command to surrender. A struggle ensued. A single shot went off.

The 7th Cavalry didn’t just return fire; they unleashed a slaughter. From the ridgeline, four Hotchkiss rapid-fire mountain guns mowed down approximately 300 Lakota men, women, and children within minutes. Most were unarmed. Many were shot in the back while running for their lives.

The official narrative called this the “Battle of Wounded Knee.” They needed it to be a battle because, if it were, the soldiers would be heroes. If it were a battle, they didn’t have to explain why they used artillery on infants. To cement the lie, the government awarded 20 Medals of Honor, the most ever given for a single engagement in U.S. history. They didn’t just bury the bodies in a mass grave; they buried the truth.

In Dee Brown’s brilliant book, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” he cataloged not only the atrocity and the systemic cover-up, but the precise moment the American government decided that an “official story” was more valuable than the lives of the people it had just erased. Brown’s work was a post-mortem on the American Myth, proving that when the state is the shooter, the first thing it kills is the record. And the same Administration that is gaslighting the American public is the one that “restored” those Medals of Honor in 2025, under the direction of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

The Soil That Remembers

We bury heroes like Alex Pretti twice in this country. First in blood, then in language. The bullet comes before the headline. The state kills, and then the state narrates, weaving new myths from podiums and social media handles, hoping we’ll forget the footage, forget their last words, forget their names. But some coordinates refuse to be erased. Wounded Knee. Jackson, Mississippi. Kent State. Ferguson. And now, the corner of 26th and Nicollet.

So bury my heart there. Bury it where an ICU nurse tried to help a stranger. Bury it where a poet smiled through her car window. Bury it because two Americans who believed in the promise of this country I love died on those streets.

Remember their names.

Remember their stories.

Remember the courage that they had to stand up against oppression.

And remember the responsibility we all have to shape an America worthy of those we have lost.