In America, they shoot nurses, don’t they?

By Alfred P. Doblin

My mom was a nurse. Two of my closest friends are nurses. I have encountered my share of unfeeling physicians, but never a nurse. On the front lines of crisis are nurses.

They offer themselves up to help us with their training, their skill, and their undying passion to do good. Yes, their passion is undying; their physical beings are all too mortal. So, on a Saturday morning, in the city of Minneapolis in the State of Minnesota in the United States of America, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was shot dead by federal agents, part of a force of 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents now in that American city.

We shoot nurses now.

I am usually more circumspect. I am not against enforcement of the law, but I am against the abuse of, or the disregard of, the law.

It is not surprising, though, that many in the administration have tried to blame Pretti for his own murder. “Why did he have a firearm on him?” they ask. Perhaps, it had something to do with the Second Amendment, something these same people used to state was more profound a truth that Jesus’ proclamation: “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.”

Today, that has evolved into: Do unto others that which you would do unto them if blind hatred would go unchecked.

What happened on that sidewalk in Minneapolis no doubt is complicated, but the multiple videos of the altercation and the shooting contradict the federal narrative. That is why independent investigations are essential for determining what occurred. The lack of them, and the disregard for them with respect to the killing of another U.S. citizen in the State of Minnesota by agents of the U.S. government, is chilling.

The death of Renee Good just weeks ago was not the first crossing of a red line; that line had been crossed long ago. The thing is that no one noticed.

The late-New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne used to say about corrupt public officials: “They had chalk under their shoes.” He meant they had crossed an ethical line.

In the case of the massive surge of federal immigration enforcement agents into American cities, it is not political corruption, but moral corruption. There is not chalk under their shoes; it is blood.

People often ponder with some kind of fake superiority how “good” people do bad things. They often point to the complicity of thousands and thousands of people in Europe during the rise of fascism, and the crushing wave of Nazi military might. The answer is – and always was – simple: The people weren’t “good enough.”

Once you cross an ethical line and nothing bad happens, it is easier to move further from it. So far from it, that it no longer is a moral imperative, but rather a quaint, naive ideal held by the weak and the stupid, the people whose blood is now under your shoes.

I don’t believe any of us start out as bad people – even the individuals who become as close to evil incarnate as possible. They are shaped and changed by many forces – some may be genetic. The majority of people not “good enough” are like you and me, and when tested in a live-or-death situation to do the right thing – the “good” thing – they do not.

What is happening in Minneapolis is abhorrent. An ICU nurse appears to have tried to help someone just shoved by federal agents. Alex Pretti holds a phone, not a gun. He is wrestled to the ground, it appears his licensed firearm is removed, and then he is shot multiple times.

There may be more to this. I am open to hear what that is, if supported by evidence. But it would be highly unlikely that an ICU nurse who worked in VA hospital holding a phone was intent on killing anyone. That is not what nurses do.

Nurses do not take the Hippocratic Oath, as do physicians, but in the United States, many recite what is referred to as the “Nightingale Pledge,” named after Florence Nightingale, when they receive their nursing pins. It has been modified over the past 130-plus years, but two phrases stick with me: “I will not do anything evil or malicious,” and “may my life be devoted to service and to the high ideals of the nursing profession.”

I don’t know whether Pretti took this pledge, but in the multiple videos circulating, he appears to have lived and died following its credo.

No profession is immune from having dangerous people in its ranks. That is true of nurses. That is true of federal agents.

But the video footage does not support federal officials’ immediate claim that Pretti was a domestic terrorist, and his killing coming after the killing of Renee Good in the same city, points to a pattern. And the lack of a national outcry that can be heard up unto the heavens is a pattern, too.

The same people are upset about the killings.

The same people are defending them.

Let us be honest at this dangerous moment in time: Too few of us are good enough.

That may be why Alex Pretti knew he had to go to the aid of a person in distress and not think of the personal consequences – he was good enough and look what happened to him.

Look indeed. Look and weep, for that is appropriate. Then look under your shoes and see what is there, because that is what this moment requires, as well.

Is it chalk? Is it blood?

It is not enough to be good. We are all called to be good enough.

Until next time, Alfred with P