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- [00:01]
A
A master murderer, Israel Keyes lives between two worlds. There's the person that everybody knows and loves, and then there's the guy who spends every waking hour planning on how he's going to kill someone. On Mind of a Monster, the Cross Country Killer, we find out how this deadly predator went unnoticed for so long.
- [00:19]
B
I've had some confessions in my history, but nothing to that detail.
- [00:23]
A
I'll give it a little bit blow if you want. Listen to Mind of a Monster, the Cross Country Killer. Wherever you get your podcasts, why choose a sleep number? Smart bed? Can I make my sight softer? Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:36]
C
Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your sleep number setting J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more. Plus, get free home delivery on most beds with base limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit jdpower.com awards check it out at the sleep number.
- [01:00]
A
Anya I'm Anya and today we're going to talk about a controversial shooting in Minneapolis. Content WARNING this episode contains discussion of murder and violence. So today we are going to talk about the January 24, 2026 shooting of Alex Preddy in Minneapolis, Minnesota by members of Border Patrol. To give some background on Preddy, he lived in Minneapolis. He graduated from the University of Minnesota. He was an intensive care unit nurse with the United States Department of Veterans affairs, and he was 37 years old.
- [01:49]
B
And before we get into this, I think it's important not only to say what we are gonna talk about, but what we're not going to. This has become very politicized with people using it to argue different points of view or to make arguments about larger things going on within this country. And I think since we're not a political podcast, we're a true crime podcast. I think it makes sense for us just to focus on the shooting itself.
- [02:30]
A
I concur. I think that is important. I don't, I don't. We don't think that you log in or, you know, click on the show to hear our political takes. So we're not gonna, we're gonna spare you from that. But at the same time, this is an important story and we feel like it is necessary to talk about it right now. And we're going to. So we'll keep it as free from our own political opinions as possible. But we, I mean, just note that it is an inherently politicized issue at this point. And that's unfortunate because I personally feel like regardless of whatever your feelings are about politics, there's. There's reality and there's what you can see. And, you know, that shouldn't shift based on your perception of your tribe or your team doing one thing or another. Yeah. Let's go into it. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
- [03:28]
B
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
- [03:31]
A
And this is the Murder Sheet.
- [03:33]
B
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
- [03:41]
A
And this is the killing of Alex Predd. It.
- [04:29]
B
You know, Anya, I'm usually a person after a crime occurs and all the details aren't known. I'm usually the guy that says, let's wait for the investigation. Let's wait for all of these details to come out. So with that said, can you tell us some of the things that people who will ostensibly be in charge of this investigation have said about this?
- [04:57]
A
Right, so this is a federal. These are Border Patrol agents. They're federal agents. Right. It's often been reported that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, aka ICE, agents, shot Mr. Preddy, but that is not the case. It was Border Patrol. Let me go into. Just before we get into sort of the statements, I'm just going to go into the barest facts.
- [05:23]
B
Okay.
- [05:23]
A
It's the barest facts. So I mentioned it occurred on January 24, 2026. And it just. In terms of location within Minneapolis, it was around 26th street and Nicollet Avenue. And this kind of initial news that, you know, Border Patrol shot somebody and they died kind of gets out. And members of the administration, members of the federal government made statements about this pretty quickly. So shall we get into some of what.
- [05:56]
B
Yeah. What'd they have to say?
- [05:58]
A
Okay, so Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, she, pretty shortly after this happened, claimed that Preddy brandished a weapon and came to the, you know, area with, quote, a weapon and dozens of rounds of ammunition. He wasn't there to peacefully protest. He was there to perpetuate violence.
- [06:21]
B
Okay. So she very clearly, in that statement was basically saying this killing was justified because he was brandishing a weapon, he was threatening agents or officers, whatever the proper term is.
- [06:35]
A
And, and as you can imagine, in instances, does brandish a weapon at officers. That is usually considered a justified shooting. So that is what.
- [06:46]
B
And she, correct me if I'm wrong, but before she said this, she didn't indicate that she had done any investigation or talked to anybody on site. Did she or did she?
- [06:55]
A
I, I, I mean, like, this was pretty quickly after it happened. So at the same time, on the one hand you could say, like, obviously no investigation was done at that point because investigations into officer involved shootings typically require interviewing witnesses and looking through all of the footage available. And that takes time. But on the other hand, there would be certain instances where you could imagine someone in charge reviewing body cam footage and seeing pretty clearly, okay, a weapon was brandished. So we pretty much, you know, we have a good sense of what happened here. So I'm not going to necessarily condemn the speed of that. I will say though, that like, obviously officer involved shooting, state time. Does that answer your question?
- [07:37]
B
Yeah, that does. And I'm curious, were there comments that other people made that you wanted to share here at the outset?
- [07:44]
A
Yeah, I think these are some important ones. So Greg Bevino is sort of the, you know, at this point was considered the United States Border Patrol's commander at large. This was a role that Secretary Noemi created. And his role as that commander at large was to essentially like, lead some of these immigration enforcement efforts in places like Minneapolis or Chicago, things like that. So what he said was that pretty, quote, intent, rather pretty intended to, quote, massacre law enforcement. He said that Preddy was not the victim of this, that the law enforcement officers involved were the victims of this. And he also said, quote, law enforcement doesn't assault anyone, follow directions of law enforcement in an active crime scene. It's very evident he didn't want to do that. So you're seeing him claiming he's not following directions at, at best, and actually intending to commit a massacre of law enforcement officers at worst. So, you know, what do you think about that?
- [09:04]
B
Well, and also I think people like Stephen Miller, White House Advisors.
- [09:09]
A
Well, I want to go into Bavino more.
- [09:10]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [09:11]
A
So I don't want to get, I know. Like, let's, so he, he said that he was interfering with a law enforcement operation and that he violently resisted them.
- [09:23]
B
So basically, let's be blunt. What they are describing there, if we take them at their word, is a justified shooting.
- [09:32]
A
Absolutely. If you approach law enforcement, brandish a gun, a weapon, and even if it's a even situation, when you're going and fighting law enforcement, you're going in violently resisting someone. I mean, I think in obviously every case is different. Right. The facts and circumstances are different. But, but generally those are things that I think a lot of people can accept may lead to a justified shooting. I would say, most reasonable people would. Would think that if you attack law enforcement, if you are pointing a gun at law enforcement, if you're holding out a gun to law enforcement and you're not complying with their commands, those are instances where we've often seen law enforcement respond with lethal force.
- [10:16]
B
Yes.
- [10:17]
A
And are either not charged or, you know, if it goes to trial, acquitted. Again, every situation is very different, but with. With. With, you know, specifically with Bavino talking, I think like the day after the killing, claimed that he was assaulting officers, claimed that he was ignoring commands, and he also at some point claimed that he wanted to inflict maximum damage.
- [10:47]
B
Yeah.
- [10:47]
A
So all this is sounding like someone who's coming to the scene to attack law enforcement.
- [10:52]
B
And let me make the obvious point. If all we had were these statements from law enforcement, they're describing a situation that they said occurred. But we are in a situation where we live in the modern age. This happened in public. A number of people were there present and were filming what occurred with their phones.
- [11:25]
A
And we'll get into that.
- [11:26]
B
Yeah. But I'm just saying, because of that, that really gives us a unique opportunity to evaluate the credibility and worth of these statements. But for now, at the moment, if we take them at their word, they're describing a justified shooting.
- [11:44]
A
Yes. It has all the hallmarks of a justified shooting, for sure. Actually, on the day of the shooting, Stephen Miller, who is the deputy chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor for the White House, he went as far as calling Freddy a would be assassin and also labeled him as a domestic terrorist.
- [12:03]
B
Right. Pretty serious words.
- [12:05]
A
Those are pretty serious. He claimed that he tried to murder these federal agents.
- [12:14]
B
And I personally would hope that someone in power would not use terms like that to describe someone unless they had pretty strong evidence to back it up.
- [12:26]
A
Obviously, in a situation where someone is attempting to murder federal law enforcement, Federal law enforcement is perfectly justified in. In responding with lethal force. Obviously, I would hope that would not be controversial with people. This tweet that from Stephen Miller was actually retweeted by the Vice President of the United States, J.D. vance. So that's a characterization. He's giving his support to, retweeting it, spreading the message, domestic terrorist and would be assassin tried to kill law enforcement. So we're hearing these different narratives come into play. And I think that's important to just set the scene for this, because I think this is primarily why we wanted to cover it, because obviously those are very serious allegations and accusations. They're being made almost immediately after this shooting. This is not in the wake of an extensive investigation. So when you're having people shoot off the cuff like this, you would think and would hope in the situation where the credibility of federal law enforcement is on the line that there would be a pretty strong factual basis for some of these claims.
- [13:42]
B
Exactly. As I say, I'm generally a guy who says let's trust the investigation, but in order to do that you have to trust the investigators. And as I mentioned before, because we're in a situation where a number of people actually made videos, they made videos of what happened, we can see for ourselves what happened. And so that really gives us a unique opportunity to judge the facts versus how these people characterize the facts. And that helps us evaluate the credibility of these potential investigators and whether or not they deserve our trust in the quest to find the truth.
- [14:20]
A
And this is also just as a general thing, why you sometimes see very vague language from law enforcement in the wake of an officer involved shooting. You and I are signed up for Indian Indiana State Police media alerts. And when we get those, sometimes they involve an officer involved shooting and, and those typically are very dryly written and they're just letting the public and the media know an officer involved shooting happened. The officer has been placed on, you know, desk duty or leave or whatever and, and Indiana State Police is investigating and the results of that will be made public at some point. So it's more of like this happened versus this guy was definitely deserving it, you know, like because it's the start of the investigation. At the same time I'm trying to being open minded. I would say I could understand making some pretty full throated statements in support of law enforcement in the face of overwhelming evidence supporting some of these claims, like we have it on video that this guy's running at them with the gun screaming I'm going to kill you. And you know, they fire at him and drop him before he's able to do so. So there's instances where this kind of thing wouldn't necessarily be that surprising or even bad for me if, if, if it aligned with what was then, you know, evidence.
- [15:41]
B
I wonder now if we should take a look at some of the videos and then maybe the end we circle back to some of these comments, maybe some other comments that were made and we can discuss whether or not we feel that these people deserve our trust and whether or not we feel they have credibility to conduct an honest investigation.
- [16:01]
A
And I also, before we do that, I think that we're going to do that next. I just want to Say, like, for me, I think I'm not. We're. We're not falling into the trap of the sort of intense focus on the victim beyond this instance. So what I'm talking about is you've had a lot of people on social media talk about this guy being a really nice guy and having a job where he's helping people. You've also have people raising that, oh, he previously gotten into an altercation with immigration law enforcement and broke a rib. And what they're doing is, on one side, they're basically saying, he's really good, he's really good. And then the other side, they're saying he's really bad. He's really bad. And let's just focus on what's actually happening here because to me, that's all that matters. That's all that. What matters is what happens in this incident and whether or not the shooting is morally justified, legally justified, whatever you want to call it, and whether or not we can trust this investigation going forward. That's what matters. So I guess, like, all this other stuff about trying to malign somebody who's dead, that's not going to. That doesn't matter. I don't care what someone's politics are. I don't care if they're someone I would find personally annoying. I don't care about any of that. I don't care.
- [17:18]
B
With that said, let me say something else. Mr. Praddy at the time was carrying a gun, and I believe he was a licensed conceal and carry weapon holder, right?
- [17:30]
A
That is correct.
- [17:31]
B
I'm not a big gun guy. I don't own any guns. I don't walk around with guns. With that said, in this country, we do have a second amendment, and so we have the right if we wish to carry a weapon if you follow the rules, as he seems to have done. And so I don't think it is appropriate to penalize someone or suggest someone was wrong if they were doing something, even if it may not be something we would have done as long as what they were doing was within the law. And he seems to have been obeying the law and following the rules with his concealed carry and having a weapon on him. I understand he may not have had his ID with him.
- [18:16]
A
Yes. Which is in violation of the rules. So.
- [18:19]
B
But that's kind of like a minor infraction. Right.
- [18:22]
A
My understanding from reading about this is that there would be like a $25 fine for that. It's not. It's not like some. I mean, they don't shoot you if you forget your ID with your gun in Minneapolis, would it be similar?
- [18:35]
B
Like you have a driver's license? Maybe sometime you go over the speed limit? You're not following every bit of the rule.
- [18:43]
A
It's, it's, it's not like, you know, it's. It's basically not punishable by death, I guess, is what is ultimately important to me. I, you know, I, to, to. He had, he had a permit. He didn't have ID on him. That was, that was a mistake. But none of that actually has any real bearing on what happened in this situation. This was not a situation where. Well, we'll go into it.
- [19:03]
B
You, you just spent the afternoon watching.
- [19:07]
A
A bunch of videos, which was incredibly bleak and upsetting. I'm not gonna lie. So mean if you're not. I feel like there's just been, like, snuff film after snuff film that we've seen this year. You know, the, the, the Charlie Kirk shooting. That was everywhere. Everyone saw that. This, I mean, it's just, it's really, at some point, it's just like, just watching people die on the Internet, like, all day. That's what the Internet is now. So I tried to watch as many videos as possible. It was more difficult than I thought it was going to be to try to get, like, raw footage. So I really wanted to just watch it without any sort of commentary or having people spin it one way or another for me. And, you know, I, I, you know, so I, I'm going to tell you what I saw in these videos, and then we'll talk about it. I guess that's the best way to do it, but I'll try to. Some of the videos were kind of a combo where you're kind of watching them at the same time from a few sources. So I'll just try to be as clear as possible what I'm discussing, what I'm talking about. I saw from Newsweek. Newsweek had some video of what preceded the shooting, seemingly. And this footage is filmed by someone in a car. They're filming, like, out their window. You see the street. You see some low buildings, big blue sky, trees. And you see a tall man in a baseball cap with brown pants and a brown jacket talking to a. What seems to be a federal agent in darker clothes. And there are two figures behind the tall man. Tall man is pretty. He was a tall guy. You hear honking cars in the background. The video zooms up on Preddy, and he is holding a hand up, and then he's holding another hand down. It looks like, it appears to me that he. In that hand, he is filming on his phone. And we see the agent he's talking to. Back up a bit. The camera zooms kind of into the street. We see a truck drive by this intersection. A white car is coming forward. Then we see an agent getting out of a car on the other side of the street. So, like, there's the other stuff happening. It's not, like, just purely focused on Freddy. The camera zooms past that on, you know, through the interior of the car, and then swings back to Preddy. He is standing very still, in my view. He was, you know, very still. There's not a lot of people out around him. So I think, you know, the idea that this was some kind of ongoing riot or ongoing massive protest. Like, it's. There's no big crowd in the streets. It's kind of scatterings of people. And a guy in a tan hat with a black face covering crosses the street. He's going toward the agent, interacting with pretty. And an agent in a dark jacket with a tan flak vest and a tan hat puts a hand on Preddy. Preddy, again, still has his phone seemingly held up. Um, the agent is. Is. And. And then. And Preddy is also kind of pointing with his other hand at this point, almost like he. He's emphasizing a point or telling the agent something. So with the. The agent takes their right hand and starts pushing Preddy back. I wouldn't say violently, per se, but he's definitely pushing him back and backing him up. And Preddy is walking backwards kind of a couple of steps, not really fighting it, but not falling down. Do you kind of envision what I'm saying here?
- [22:35]
B
Yeah.
- [22:36]
A
Okay. He's not, like, fighting. And the agent, again, isn't, like, shoving him around necessarily. It's more just like, back up and kind of enforcing that. So the camera flips back around to a nearby business. Glam doll donuts. And at this point, you see a couple of women there, including a woman in gray with an orange backpack. And there's other agents around.
- [23:00]
B
So let me ask you an obvious question, and I'm sure I'll ask this question repeatedly as you discuss these videos you saw. In the video you saw, did you see Mr. Preddy act violent or threatening?
- [23:16]
A
No.
- [23:17]
B
Did you see Mr. Preddy brandish a gun?
- [23:20]
A
No.
- [23:21]
B
Did you see him, like, d. Doing anything, like yelling, things that could be interpreted as threats?
- [23:27]
A
No.
- [23:28]
B
Okay. But again, this was before the shooting, so it's possible that maybe some of those other things appear in some of the other videos you saw.
- [23:37]
A
And I will also note that, you know, as far as what we're. The context of this, it's been claimed by the federal government that they were attempting to arrest an individual who then ran into one of these businesses and protesters, including Preddy, came to the scene and were blowing whistles and. And yelling and interfering with law enforcement. So you do hear whistles throughout these videos. That is. That is definitely the case. And as far as, like, interfering, you know, being there, filming that is being characterized by the federal government as interfering with an arrest. I'm not seeing Preddy get between any fleeing fugitives at this point, but it seems like the federal agents at the scene are. Seem to be unhappy with these protesters for being there, including Preddy. And that's. I think you're seeing that from the. Putting a hand on him and backing him up and him backing up.
- [24:44]
B
And I'll make the obvious point. Just as you have a second amendment right to have a firearm, you have a first amendment right in this country, ostensibly to a protest.
- [24:55]
A
No. Yeah, you do. You don't have a right to disrupt law enforcement action, but the penalty for that is to be arrested and charged with obstruction. Right?
- [25:05]
B
Yeah. Blowing a whistle or something. That's no crime. What's the next video you saw?
- [25:12]
A
So the next video I saw was kind of a combo of two things. This is where things really escalate very quickly. There's a. There's one video that's filmed seemingly kind, I think, from one side of the street and the other one from the same side of the street.
- [25:27]
B
So.
- [25:30]
A
I'll. I'll kind of go into what happens. This is through a combination of watching both of these intercut a bit.
- [25:40]
B
Understood.
- [25:41]
A
So you have a agent shove a woman almost into Preddy. So what happened earlier was there was a more of a calm sh. Not shove. It was more of a calm push. Putting someone's hand on someone and then making pretty backup. But this, like, this woman is kind of flung into Preddy and he grabs onto her and she grabs onto him. At this point, you know, Preddy is further away from seemingly law enforcement, but this woman is kind of pushed into him, and he. He grabs her. She grabs him. And a woman, the woman we saw earlier in the orange backpack is following behind an agent who. Who just did this. And then that agent turns and shoves that woman, the orange backpack woman in gray shoves her down into kind of the snow on the curb. And so I guess one thing that's important to note is, like, when this happened. Preddy, at least to my eyes, seemed to have been more removed from the situation. So you have this agent not only pushing this woman into him and then, like, leaving, like, okay, they've cleared the area now. Like, I can go back to what I'm doing. But things continue to escalate from there. So the agent then sprays Preddy. Preddy's hands are visible at this point, and one is holding his phone, and the other seems to be held up to protect himself from the pepper spray. I mean, I assume it's pepper spray, whatever kind of spray they're spraying, whatever kind of irritant the federal agents are spraying at him. And things kind of devolve pretty quickly from here. Pretty soon, three agents are grappling with Preddy. They've already pepper sprayed him. He's surrounded. And, you know, I guess a little bit prior to that, they kind of. I kind of tried to break it down a little bit. They. After this kind of initial thing, but before they get him on the ground, they. They shove him away for a moment. And he goes to help up the woman with the backpack. And he's kind of helping her up. He gets sprayed again. He falls over. He's reaching toward her to kind of help pull her up. Then one of the agents wearing a tan hat grabs him by the shoulder, falls over. It's very chaotic. Like, it's not. It's like one thing happening after another. And Predi kind of falls back onto a knee. He still kind of grabbed onto this woman. And then there are like, three officers going at him. It's really chaotic. Now, here's the thing. Nobody's mic'd up here, okay? Like, we're not gonna get, like, the audio is not. Not something where I feel like, oh, I'm confident that we're hearing everything, but I'm not hearing, like, clear orders or demands from the agents. I'm not really hearing. It's just kind of a lot of yelling and chaos, I guess is something to note. Agents kind of force him backward onto the ground. He sort of seems to be at some point kind of jerking about a bit. It's not clear to me from watching the videos if he's resisting or if his body is just kind of being like. So I've been sprayed with pepper spray by you?
- [29:21]
B
Yes, accidentally.
- [29:22]
A
Accidentally. You sprayed yourself. And that was a very small amount. It's. It's painful. Um, so I. I don't. I'm trying to put. Put myself in a situation where I'm in this situation. Like, Am I moving correctly? Am I doing all the right things? If I've been prepper spray and I'm kind of being beaten and it's just hard for me to say. I don't feel comfortable saying, oh, he's definitely not resisting arrest, because he does seem to be trying to move around. But at the same time, like, it's such a chaotic scene that I also kind of don't necessarily feel like he. He's not making some insane effort to fight the police. I'll just say that.
- [30:03]
B
Did he seem at any point in what you saw to be trying to grab his gun so he could brandish it?
- [30:10]
A
I really tried to keep an eye on his hands and his sort of waistband to see, like, holsters, things like that, just to see if there was any kind of movement on that and sort of, like, something that could be interpreted as a reach for the gun, because that's all it takes, you know, going for your waistband, that could be perceived as kind of like a justification for lethal force. I didn't see that.
- [30:36]
B
Okay.
- [30:37]
A
I personally didn't see that. I really did look for it. And what I do see is that an agent who's kind of in gray. There's two agents that I noticed. One is kind of in gray. He seems at one point to disarm Freddy. You see him going for the holster, and then actually there's a view from the other side of the road where he actually. You see him with the gun sort of walk, you know, kind of hurrying away. Then there's another border patrol agent who's the first one to shoot Preddy, who he's wearing blue jeans, a kind of greenish brown shirt, black hat. And you see him kind of dealing with the woman on the ground. He turns around, and seconds later, he draws his weapon and shoots Preddy. At this point, someone has shouted, gun. So I should note, too, before the shots start ringing out, the guy who first was pepper spraying Preddy starts beating him, seemingly toward the face, where, you know, it's hard to tell with, like, kind of this kind of scrum and this chaos, but starts beating him with a spray. The spray canister. So he's being pepper sprayed, he's being beaten. He's on the. He's on the ground. This is not like. Just objectively, this is not like a very orderly arrest. But honestly, to me, to my eyes, that mostly came from this kind of large group of people doing all of this.
- [32:14]
B
And again, not to belabor the point, but based on what you saw, in your view of this video, Mr. Preddy was disarmed. So anytime in this video, did you see Mr. Preddy brandish a gun or even have his hands on his gun or even appear to be trying to reach for the gun?
- [32:36]
A
No, his hands to me, appeared to be almost pinned closer to his head. So I don't feel like he had an opportunity. I mean, here's the thing. Like, there's a certain point watching this, I felt like, okay, there's nothing he can do now. He's totally helpless. Like, like, basically once they got him on the ground, it just sort of seems like things were escalating in such a way that I don't really know what else he could have done that point, because it. It just. They have him in a weird position. They have him. I'm not hearing like, clear instructions about like, get down, put your hands on your head. You know, we've all. I mean, I'm sure a lot of us in true crime, we've watched body cam footage, we've watched chaotic arrests, but this is very chaotic. And amongst the law enforcement, amongst the. When I say, I mean amongst the border patrol agents who are doing this, there doesn't seem to be like, a lot of, like, effective communication or teamwork. And to have that devolve so much in a situation where the man does not appear to be strenuously resisting is. You can understand something devolving when someone is really fighting you. Right. But in this case, he doesn't. It. His body's jerking around for sure. But I mean, how much is that? Getting beaten with a spray can and pepper sprayed and beaten on.
- [34:03]
B
And correct me if I'm wrong, he was shot multiple times.
- [34:07]
A
So, yeah, the shooting, I counted nine or ten shots. He gets shot seemingly, I think two agents shoot him. The one I mentioned up top. And then the guy who initially pepper sprayed him also, I believe, seems to shoot him. He, like the guy who starts shooting him, to be clear, is behind him. So, like toward his legs. He's kind of like keeled over a bit, from what I can tell, and that an agent on that side of him starts shooting him after a gun is shouted.
- [34:43]
B
And prior to the first shot, again, I'm belaboring the point, but prior to the first shot, to your eyes, he didn't appear to have been reaching for a weapon. He didn't have a weapon. And furthermore, he had been pretty much completely under the control of these officers.
- [35:01]
A
I didn't see him reach for a weapon. Okay. And now again, we don't have universal omniscience here. On omnipotence, where we can kind of go in and see every angle.
- [35:13]
B
Was there another video you wanted to talk about?
- [35:16]
A
I'm going to say this. The person who started shooting is like, right near the guy in gray who takes away his gun. So I don't know. I don't know how he didn't see that. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was turned in such a way that he didn't see it. But, like, I don't know whether it's a situation where someone. I don't. I don't know why they. I don't know why this happened.
- [35:35]
B
In my experience, a trained law officer, a trained professional does not open fire on a hunch. A trained law enforcement officer would not fire unless he was certain there was danger.
- [35:50]
A
So you have 10 shots, then you have Preddy kind of still holding his phone fall to the ground. And I think shots continue at that point. And then after that, like, the. The agents kind of scatter and then sort of come back and you hear someone yelling, where's the effing gun? And someone saying, I got the gun. So there seems to be confusion amidst them about, like, no, like, where is the gun now? I mean, I think certain instances can. Can be chaotic, even when you have good training, even when things are working as they should, even when communication is generally pret. So I'm not necessarily, like, ascribing everything to that. Sometimes things just get chaotic, but in this case, they're really. I do want to emphasize how the chaos is very palpable. In my view. The chaos is palpable. Um, so, you know, is there another video? Yeah, there is another video. There's a video that was filmed in the car that is like, right next to where he was shot. A white car sort of behind them. And for this one, again, you see the kind of blue skies. You see the view of the street. There's a red car parked in front with some space in between buildings, trees. See a man in a brownish hat with black fabric over his mouth and nose and kind of a wearing gloves. You see his holster. He lunges forward and takes both hands and kind of gets low to shove somebody. That's the woman with the backpack. He's shoving her into the snow on the curb. And it. I'm just want to be clear. Like, it's an angry shove. I mean, he's clearly really ticked off. So these protesters, you know, certainly he's reacting with anger to them. I. I think that the body language. I mean, I'm not a big body Language person. But, like, it's just. There's no. Like, he's not getting her away from. They're not like, perp walking someone. He's getting her away from them. Or, like, there's like, some kind of, like, safety issue here. It's like she's already kind of backing up, and he shoves her. So you hear. You also see a guy standing behind him with a, you know, in a hat, staring forward toward the car. He's wearing a baseball hat. That's pretty. And another individual's behind him. That's a woman in a brown jacket. You hear someone yell, hey. The person in the car yells, whoa. After the ice. After the border patrol officer shoves this woman into the snow. And then also, you see another woman in a pinkish red jacket and black pants filming next to a brick building on the sidewalk. That's one of the footage. That's. That's the video that's closest to Preddy getting shot. They're all standing near a sign that says center lane only and a tree. They're right near the curb, which is snowy. And Preddy and another person, the person behind him, sort of step between the agent and the person who just got shoved. The woman who got shoved into the snow. Preddy is the one closer to the windshield, closer to the car where this is being filmed. The camera sort of swings toward the woman in the pink jacket. And you can't really see Preddy and the agent for a moment. Then you see Preddy with one hand up. He's again wearing a baseball cap. You see him holding up his left hand. He has something in his right hand that I believe is his phone. The agent has a hand up and is using that to spray a canister at him. Something orange is sort of spraying toward Preddy through the air and another woman. And he's shaking that can around at Preddy. And at first, it kind of seems to be more of hitting Preddy's left hand. The agent tries to grab Preddy's left wrist to, I guess, be stop him from blocking the spray. Um, then he grabs the back of Preddy's jacket, and he's trying to kind of spray him, even though Pretty's turned around at this point, trying to get a good angle to, like, spray him in the face with this irritant. Preddy does start to go down at this point and sort of bends over away from the spray. You have the agent sort of jump back a bit after Preddy turns away. Um, now there's a second and. And taller Agent who comes there. He's in a darker cap, also a dark face covering the. The first agent who was there backs into him, sort of like, almost seems to little elbow him a little bit on accident. Momentarily, the video goes toward them, and we lose sight of Preddy. Then it jerks back to Preddy. The. The first agent is still spraying at him. The taller agent is still approaching. Preddy bends down, out of view from the windshield. Both agents start to bend down, the shorter one reaching toward Preddy. The. The first agent, the shorter agent is holding, still holding the spray in his right hand, reaching down and grabbing pretty with the left hand. Preddy rises, and he's holding onto the woman who fell down. This is what the part where he's like, trying to help her up. Someone yells, hey. The first agent backs up, away from the car, still wielding the spray canister. The taller agent and him both grab. Preddy grab his shoulders. He sort of lurches so he's nearly facing the windshield, then sinks out of view. Suddenly, from the left of the frame, we see a bunch more agents. They're all kind of coming in. The taller agent approaches the woman on the ground, kind of palms down, almost like. Like, stay down, almost. And you can see a guy in all black at this point, kind of in the distance. You hear clanging. The camera pans to the left again, and you see an agent standing there, another crouching down, both hands toward the ground, almost like they're holding down Preddy in the street. Another person you can see approaching in a yellow reflective vest. And another one in darker clothing. Further away. An agent on the left is standing in a gray coat and a baseball cap. He's the person who retrieves the gun. And, um, he gets behind the tall agent and an agent in the black hat, and they're still dealing with the woman on the ground. I think, um, the taller agent says something that sounded like it ended with the words fight back, like maybe don't fight back or something, raises a hand. And the agent, the other agent with the sunglasses, hits the woman with the pepper spray again. Seemingly, she falls back. Agent with sunglasses turns around. The tall agent looks momentarily toward the windshield, then looks back in the direction of the woman who fell again. You can still see agents behind them crouched over someone, which is clearly pretty. And, you know, kind of this. It gets very chaotic. But the camera pans back to the tall agent. You hear a lot of screaming. Then you hear someone cry, gun. And the tall agent turns toward the melee. Camera lurches to the left. I tried to count them. At first I heard nine, then I heard 10. But it's all. There's one, and then there's kind of a couple in quick succession. It's just. It's really chaotic. One agent to the left kind of backs up really fast as the first gunshots go off. The camera drops down to capture the woman's steering wheel, who's filming this. And the woman in the car is screaming in alarm. And then when she kind of shows it again, the big group of agents is gone from the front of her car. So that's when they backed up fast. There's also a bunch of videos of people surrounding agents surrounding Preddy after the shooting. You see firefighters also respond and a woman in a gray coat, one of the. One of the people who I believe is a firefighter, seems to be moving in such a way that suggests chest compressions. And there's also a lot of people screaming, murderer. And different. Different things like that toward the people, the agents. So to go over.
- [44:00]
B
So again, did you. Did you see him in that video brandish a gun, reach for his gun, or pose a threat to the agents?
- [44:08]
A
No, I didn't.
- [44:10]
B
So what was described to us by government officials was a justified shooting. And it appears that what we've seen in these videos is anything but a justified shooting.
- [44:24]
A
Now, there's claims at this point that the. Some of. At least some of the agents were wearing body cam footage, body cameras, so there could be additional footage. Additionally, Alex Preddy had his phone out, was seemingly filming. That will also be important to. To. To learn what that captured. But as for what I saw did not capture him reaching for his gun, brandishing his gun, or even, in my view, being particularly aggressive. Um, it. It. I think what I think you could argue it does capture is him certainly annoying border patrol agents with his presence, with filming them, and perhaps coming too close at one point, but then he backs up, and then it really is border patrol that then shoves a woman into him and then sort of instigates a situation where they're escalating very quickly. I did not see him escalate.
- [45:17]
B
So I want to be very clear here. I'm shocked and horrified by the death of this man. I'm also shocked and horrified by the fact that when we look at the words of these officials, they're describing things that, frankly, did not happen. As I said at the outset, I'm a big believer in let's wait for the investigation. But for that to have any meaning, you have to believe the investigators. And when the investigators at the outset stand up in front of cameras or sit behind their keyboards and write tweets that seem to have no basis in reality. It's very difficult for me to then have faith they're going to go out on an unbiased search for the truth. So I'm not going to have faith in that investigation. And I'm going to be very honest here. It's theoretically. I don't think it's likely, but it's theoretically possible that there's some piece to this puzzle we don't know that will change how we look at this. But if an investigation led by these people produces that piece of the puzzle, I'm not going to believe it because they've destroyed all credibility with me. And furthermore, I would have difficulty believing what these people say on any subject because most of the stuff that happens happens not in front of uninvolved people filming it on their phones. So who knows how much truth there is in what they say about things that aren't recorded by bystanders. So I find this incredibly concerning. And as I say, I'd have no faith in an investigation led by these people to determine the truth.
- [47:18]
A
I feel like we're at a point where a shooting happens and the impulse by leadership is to smear the man who was shot immediately without apparently reviewing any of the available footage or being aware of what's going on. That's despicable and it's wrong. And. And the goal should be to figure out was this a justified shooting or not, and not to try to label someone a domestic terrorist without evidence. I just. I think that's appalling. I think that's an abuse of power. And I don't even understand how we get to this point. I just. I don't. I don't understand, like, the. The damage this does to federal law enforcement reputation. And any sort of faith anyone should have in any of this is. Is catastrophic. Because it's not just a situation where you're having somebody potentially get shot, totally needlessly shot and killed, and their life has ended. You're also having then leadership spin it immediately for, you know, for the cable news crowd, instead of just, you know, saying, listen, hey, we don't know what happened. We're going to look into it and we're going to investigate it. That's all you need to say at that point, saying he's a domestic terrorist and he was trying to kill them. That is not what I saw on those videos. That doesn't mean, like, what I'm trying to get people to understand is I don't need to. I don't need to agree with someone. I don't need to like their tactics. I don't need to like anything whatever to not want them to get shot and killed by law enforcement with no accountability. Like, there's. There's. I see a lot of rhetoric where it's like, well, he shouldn't have done this, or he shouldn't have done that or he shouldn't have done. At. At this point, there really doesn't matter. Law enforcement are not mindless drones. They make decisions, too. You know, I don't like this conversation about, like, well, just stay at home, and then law enforcement won't kill you. That's not a democracy, okay? That's. That's something. Not. That's not. That's not where we should be living here. You don't have to like what someone does. If someone. If someone is obstructing justice, if someone is. Is disrupting law enforcement activities, the remedy for that is arrest them and charge them with a crime. That's the remedy. What I saw here. And again, we're not. I'm not saying we have the whole entire story yet, but from the videos we saw. From the videos I've reviewed, I saw law enforcement escalate things incredibly quickly. And I did not see that from Mr. Preddy. I'm not. Again, people can disagree with what he believed in. People can disagree with what he was doing. People can say, oh, he shouldn't have been doing this or that. But I think there's a really high threshold to cross before you should be okay with law enforcement gunning someone down like this in the street. I think there's a. There's a. There's a I wouldn't do this or I would do this threshold. And then there's a. Should someone die over what they did? And that's what I'm focused on at this point, because death is permanent. Okay? They can't make him not dead. You can. You can release someone if they're arrested wrongfully, or you can charge them and a jury decides. And all of that's great. That's how our system's supposed to work. You don't get executed for concealed carry. You don't get executed for not having your ID on you. You don't get executed, which they wouldn't have even known when they shot him, by the way. And you don't get executed for having politics. That someone. You know, that we all may disagree on. Right. We all have Our own political, you know, you shouldn't hate anyone for that. You shouldn't hate people just because they disagree with you and you shouldn't, you know, want them dead. Like, it's just that simple. It's really, it's deeply upsetting and, but, but even more so just the fact that everyone, you know, went out and basically lied about this man. People have eyes, people can watch this footage. I don't, I don't think it shows anything what they're saying, and it's really shocking. I'm shocked that they would say some of these things.
- [51:27]
B
And who knows what we would all be thinking about this case if that video footage wasn't available.
- [51:34]
A
I'm gonna tell you something. I just gave a full throated defense on a previous episode on the show to a law enforcement officer in Austin, Texas, Christopher Taylor, who I felt was maliciously prosecuted by the district attorney down there for an instance where he shot and killed a mentally ill man who was, who had a knife. And I felt that that was a tragedy. I don't feel like that mentally ill man should have died, but I didn't feel like it was the fault of the law enforcement officer. It was just a bad situation. I tend to think, I tend to believe that law enforcement should have a wide range of ability to defend themselves, to defend themselves in these situations and not be charged with murder. I, I mean, I just think that is a very difficult job. And they run into instances where, you know, Hindsight could be 2020 or there can be situations where they're just not, they're, they're dealing with it in the moment. They're not able to pause time and review everything like we are. So I, I tend to be pretty sympathetic to arguments around officer involved shootings. I also tend to think body camera, the, the, the, the proliferation of body camera footage often actually indicates, you know, tends to back up what law enforcement claims in some of these instances, not all, but in some of them, but, but for this situation, but for this situation, it's part of the social contract that we have with police are, law enforcement is in, is, you know, can use violence and, and, and lethal force in order to enforce the laws that our legislators pass that we all, you know, vote for and whatnot. And that's the system. Right, But a part of that system, I would say, I would argue personally a crucial part of it for me is that law enforcement is trained and competent and not escalating things needlessly. You talk about how when you were talking with a police officer, once they're like, sort of if you follow anyone for long enough in their car, you can find something to pull over. Yes, to pull over. Yeah. You can figure something out because there's a lot of different traffic rules, and, you know, all they needed to do is make one mistake. And I think you could probably say the same thing for. If law enforcement jumps you and starts beating you with a spray canister after spraying you in the face with pepper spray in a chaotic scene where you're being yelled at from all around, I wouldn't know what to do. Would you?
- [54:16]
B
No.
- [54:17]
A
Do you think. Are you confident that you would react in the perfect, exact 10 out of 10 performance to not get shot in that situation? Because I don't feel like I would.
- [54:25]
B
I would not.
- [54:27]
A
I actually know for a fact I would not. You know, I, I, I. Cause I'm, I'm not coordinated. I. So when. So part of it is trusting law enforcement to be professionals. And I think, you know, my personal belief is that some people are not professionals within law enforcement. Many are, though. I think. I, I personally think oftentimes law enforcement gets a really bad rap based on, you know, some people doing stuff wrong. But I also think there can be corrupt and bad agencies. So it's not, it's not a black or white issue, but, but in this case, it just. There's so many choices made by this group of, of federal agents that just seem to escalate the situation needlessly, make it more chaotic than it had to been. Instead of giving someone clear commands, okay, lie on the ground. Put your hands behind your back. I'm not seeing a situation where they're telling him to do things and he's not doing them. I'm seeing a situation where they're all just grabbing at him. People seem to be beating him. And I mean, at that point, what are you, I mean, what are you supposed to do? And again, all of these things if we're gonna. If you want to take the most harsh look at Preddy possible, say he's obstructing arrests or he's harassing law enforcement, great, Arrest him for that. You know, you don't get to execute people for that. I mean, that's not a death penalty offense. Like, I just, I don't know. What do you, I mean, what do you think about this? I'm, I'm open to getting information where they say, okay, here's where it looked like he was brandishing a gun, so we were justified to shoot him. But to me, peop. These people have no business Going around the streets and doing this to peop. To American citizens. Like, I don't, I don't know how this could be justified.
- [56:10]
B
Well, I, I already said that because of some of the comments that were made. The people who ostensibly would be in charge of the investigation are not people I feel have credibility and I would have a hard time accepting the results of their investigation. But we're interested in what you guys think too.
- [56:30]
A
I'll say this, I don't. I'm not interested in anyone who just thinks someone deserves to die because they disagree with their politics. I'll just say that I don't think that's, that's not what I believe in as an American. And I think to me, I'm op. I'm not an officer involved shooting expert. Okay. I would defer to somebody who says, well this technically means it's okay. So I'm not, I'm not even really, on some level, I'm open minded on the legality of this. As in, should these officers be charged with murder or, or some, some lesser charge. I'm, I'm actually open minded about that. What I'm not open minded about is at this point, based on what I've seen, the idea that this was necessary at all. And you know what, Again, law enforcement are not mindless drones. They're not supposed to just go out and be reactive like a badly behaved dog. You know, they're human beings who are supposed to be trained in order to deal with these things and de. Escalate. And if someone's annoying them, well, that's annoying. No one deserves to die for being annoying in any situation. You know, there's a certain point where it just becomes like, what are we doing here? And if this is, if this is, you know, I mean, if this is an aberration, okay, but if it's, if it, if this just, you know, I don't know.
- [58:00]
B
Well said.
- [58:01]
A
I, I'm not even. I'm not. It's not well said. I'm just. I just don't understand this.
- [58:05]
B
Yeah.
- [58:06]
A
Why is this happening? This shouldn't be happening. Anyways. Shall we bounce?
- [58:12]
B
Sure. If you have opinions you'd like to share, please email them or post them in our Facebook group.
- [58:16]
A
Yeah, thank you guys.
- [58:18]
B
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [58:39]
A
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- [59:02]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [59:14]
A
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet Discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.