17 Days in Minneapolis
In January 2026, the federal government killed two American citizens in Minneapolis within seventeen days. Their deaths — and the government's response — revealed that no constitutional right is safe when those in power decide your rights are inconvenient.
Renée Good
A 37-year-old mother, writer, and poet. Shot three times by an ICE agent while sitting in her car during Operation Metro Surge. She was unarmed. The federal government called it self-defense. Video evidence and eyewitnesses contradicted their account. The DOJ blocked the civil rights investigation — federal prosecutors resigned in protest.
Alex Pretti
A 37-year-old VA intensive care nurse and legal gun owner. Shot at least ten times by Border Patrol agents while pinned to the ground. He had been filming officers with his phone and stood between an agent and a woman who'd been pushed down. The government claimed he drew a weapon. Multiple videos showed he was holding his phone.
Two American citizens. Both killed by their own government. One unarmed. One a legal gun owner. Neither posed a lethal threat. Both had their stories rewritten by the people who killed them. In both cases, state investigators were denied access to the scene.
The Connection We Can't Ignore
When the federal government kills an unarmed citizen exercising her right to simply exist in her community, it tells us something about the value they place on American life. When they then kill a legal gun owner for exercising his First Amendment right to film and protest — and argue that carrying a firearm justified lethal force — it tells us that no right is safe.
The First Amendment and the Second Amendment are not separate issues. They are the same issue: the right of the people to check the power of their government. When the government assassinates citizens for exercising one, the need to protect the other becomes existential.
That is why The Common Defense Project exists.