Mother Jones illustration; Willow Michael
Videos of the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents last Saturday ricocheted around the world, allowing ordinary viewers to see for themselves, second by second, how the deadly skirmish unfolded. The video evidence from the scene immediately shredded the Trump administration’s claims, which smeared Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and a “would-be assassin.”
Senior Reporter Nathan Halverson wanted to ask a federal law enforcement officer—someone trained in handling quick-moving altercations while armed—what a trained professional saw in the video. So Halverson sat down with a former FBI agent to help us understand the visual evidence and how a proper investigation should play out from here.
Now retired, Ken Bagchi asked that we keep his face off camera because of his previous undercover work and to protect the active agents he worked with who remain in the field.
“I’m having the hardest time reconciling what it looks to me to be a victim lying face down on the ground, and agents are not within reach of them…understanding what you would say is the imminent threat of death or serious injury at that point, to justify continuing to shoot,” he said. “We should not fear information. We should not fear facts. We should not fear interviews. We should not be afraid for people to give a statement under penalty of perjury, saying, ‘I am swearing this to be true and this is what I saw happen.’”
