MISSOULA — More than a thousand protesters held a rally in Downtown Missoula on Sunday in response to the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a federal agent in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Organizers used the words "horrified," "furious" and "grieving" to describe their reactions to what they call the murder of Pretti.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the federal agent's move an act of self-defense against Pretti, who was carrying a weapon.
More than a thousand people lined both sides of Beartracks Bridge for the rally, with leaders from both Indivisible Missoula and Missoula Resists saying it was a "Rally against ICE in support of human rights and dignity."
"Well, today what you're seeing is our community here in Missoula, and we've had folks coming in from the Bitterroot, all across Montana, to show that enough is enough," Danica Nelson of Indivisible Missoula told MTN News. "We're tired of this militia endangering our communities, and we're out today to let everyone know that."
The Trump Administration said Pretti was carrying a weapon with magazines to spare. Rose Zee of Missoula Resists doesn't buy that argument.
"So we live in an age in which people are distorting the truth, and that has become kind of part and parcel of what's happening in our government," she told MTN. "But we have eyes, and we've seen footage from every single angle imaginable that refutes that."
"The truth is that this was an innocent person helping another innocent person as they were executing their fundamental rights that we as Americans have, and that includes the right to bear arms," Zee said.
The protest lasted around an hour and a half. MTN did not see any counter-protesters.
Missoula Resists and Indivisible Missoula are community-led groups that sponsored Sunday's rally. They said they're committed to civic engagement and social justice.
