XPost: alt.law-enforcement, alt.politics.republicans, az.politics   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: deathpenalty@illegal.aliens   
      
   PRESCOTT VALLEY — Arizona Republicans are standing by President Donald   
   Trump’s immigration crackdown after a federal agent shot a second   
   protester in Minneapolis.   
      
   Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Border Patrol   
   agent during a protest there on Jan. 24.   
      
   “FAFO,” said Kingman activist Barbara Carpenter, 76, an acronym often used   
   by the White House, which stands for the phrase “(Expletive) around, find   
   out.”   
      
   The Pretti shooting marked the latest escalation in Trump’s immigration   
   operation in Minneapolis, which is playing out in dramatic clashes between   
   protesters and federal agents on the streets of the Minnesota city.   
      
   Department of Homeland Security officials said the Pretti, a VA nurse, had   
   approached officers with a handgun and an officer fired “defensive shots”   
   after Pretti resisted an attempt to disarm him.   
      
   However, video circulating on social media appeared to show officers had   
   disarmed Pretti before he was shot. Pretti was a U.S. citizen with a   
   license to carry a firearm, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian   
   O’Hara.   
      
   An ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis protester Renee Nicole Good some   
   17 days earlier.   
      
   Immigration issues top of mind at Arizona GOP meeting   
   Roughly 1,600 miles away, Republicans gathered at the Findlay Toyota   
   Center in Prescott Valley for the state Republican Party’s annual   
   mandatory meeting.   
      
   Immigration was top of mind for border state Republicans who spoke with   
   The Republic in interviews during the meeting. They voiced support for   
   federal immigration agents and said they’d like to see more undocumented   
   immigrants deported, a promise Trump had made on the campaign trail.   
      
   Protesters are getting in the way of ICE agents doing their jobs, said   
   Carpenter, a Republican activist and retiree who lives in Kingman. She   
   serves as the secretary for the Kingman Republican Women and the second   
   vice chair for the Mohave County Republican Central Committee.   
      
   “I’m sorry, they’re trying to do their job. Let them do their job. Stay   
   home, stay out of the way. Then you won’t have people that aren’t supposed   
   to be involved in this getting in trouble. They’re doing it to   
   themselves,” said Carpenter, who is also a state committee member and   
   works in the GOP office in Kingman.   
      
   Leigh Collins, the first vice chair in Arizona's 8th legislative district,   
   echoed that view.   
      
   “Anybody who’s been maced, how do you get maced? Because you’re in their   
   face. I’m sorry, if you’re at home and not interfering, you don’t get   
   maced,” Collins said. “Let them do their job. They’re just federal workers   
   doing what they’ve been asked to do.”   
      
   DHS, which oversees the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs   
   Enforcement, has deployed thousands of agents to Minneapolis in recent   
   weeks. The Trump administration called “Operation Metro Surge” its largest   
   operation ever.   
      
   “I’m 100% behind ICE because I think that if Biden hadn’t had the borders   
   open, we wouldn’t have to have all this going on. And if all the blue   
   states would do their job instead of harboring them and have sanctuary   
   cities, ICE wouldn’t need to go in,” Collins said.   
      
   Trump accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey,   
   both Democrats, of inciting insurrection and called on police to protect   
   ICE officers in a Truth Social post that included a photo of Pretti’s gun.   
      
   “Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE   
   Officers? The Mayor and the Governor called them off? It is stated that   
   many of these Police were not allowed to do their job, that ICE had to   
   protect themselves — Not an easy thing to do!” Trump said. “The Mayor and   
   the Governor are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and   
   arrogant rhetoric!”   
      
   Joe Reyes, a 74-year-old retired risk manager who lives in Fountain Hills,   
   said places like Minneapolis and his former home state of California “want   
   to impede progress.”   
      
   “They do everything to make things difficult and then they continue to   
   want to be throwing stones at Trump, saying he’s not doing anything, doing   
   the wrong things, and on and on and on. Bottom line is, the results speak   
   for themselves. And if it’s going to take a little inconvenience to get   
   that level of results, I and many others are all-in,” Reyes said. “After   
   all, we, the American public at large throughout the U.S., we put him in   
   office to do the things that he’s doing now.”   
      
   Some people at the GOP meeting said they were suspicious about the   
   backgrounds of protesters in Minneapolis.   
      
   “If somebody blocks traffic for hours, like that gal did that got shot,   
   she was not just a common citizen. I don’t know if she was paid to be   
   there, but the news ought to tell us that,” said Steve Billheimer, 73, of   
   Tucson.   
      
   Billheimer hadn’t seen the latest shooting but said he suspected the   
   person killed had been paid to protest and would like to see the press   
   investigate his background. There hasn’t been any evidence that Good or   
   Pretti were being paid to protest DHS agents.   
      
   Former Yuma County Republican Committee Chair Greg Wilkinson is originally   
   from Minnesota and has family and friends who live in Minneapolis. He   
   compared the city with Memphis, another city that has been the target of   
   ICE enforcement.   
      
   He echoed Trump and said he was frustrated that Walz and Frey weren’t   
   allowing local police to work with Trump.   
      
   “Minneapolis is fighting this, instead of letting their law enforcement   
   work with them,” said Wilkinson, who is a retired lieutenant colonel in   
   the Marine Corps. “I wish nobody would get killed, but like what happened   
   today, when you pull a gun on an ICE officer, well.”   
      
   Nicolle Wilkinson, his wife, agreed. She has had one of the largest   
   women’s gun clubs in Arizona for a decade, she said.   
      
   “A permit to carry does not give you the right to pull a gun on a law   
   enforcement officer. It just doesn’t,” Nicolle Wilkinson said.   
      
   She also criticized Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, who said   
   recently Arizona’s “Stand Your Ground” law could lead to shootouts with   
   masked ICE agents who are unable to be identified.   
      
   “They’re going to get more people killed,” Nicolle Wilkinson said of   
   Mayes.   
      
   The aftermath of the Pretti shooting also teed up a fight on Capitol Hill,   
   where lawmakers are under pressure to pass legislation to fund the   
   government past Jan. 30.   
      
   That includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Sens. Mark   
   Kelly, D-Arizona, said he’ll vote against the DHS budget in the wake of   
   Pretti’s death.   
      
   “We are better than this. We can enforce our laws without this chaos and   
   federal agents killing people in the streets,” Kelly said on X. “I’m going   
   to do everything I can to stop Trump’s deployment of federal law   
   enforcement against American cities. That starts with voting no on DHS’s   
   budget this week.”   
      
   Carpenter, the GOP activist from Kingman, disagreed with Kelly’s comments.   
      
   “He’s anti-American,” Carpenter said. “We have to be a country of laws,   
   and we need to follow them.”   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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