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The Justice Department opened a civil rights probe into Alex Pretti’s killing Friday, three weeks after refusing to investigate Renee Good’s death under nearly identical circumstances.

Both were 37. Both were U.S. citizens. Both were shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this month. Both were recording officers on their phones when killed.

The difference? Pretti was a white male Veterans Affairs nurse. Good was a woman in a same-sex relationship.

The disparity tells a story I recognized as a crime reporter: certain victims get federal investigations and presidential concern. Others get blamed, even in death. I learned early that I wasn’t getting on the front page unless a white victim was involved.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the Pretti probe will examine everything leading up to the shooting.

For Good, his office did worse. Justice Department officials ordered prosecutors to stop drafting a civil rights investigation and instead probe Good herself for assaulting the officer who killed her. A federal judge refused the warrant request.

At least six Civil Rights Division prosecutors resigned. So did Minnesota’s acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, who built his reputation prosecuting major fraud cases. More resignations followed as agents were ordered to investigate Good’s widow for alleged ties to activist groups.

That message was clear: Good deserved what happened.

I spent decades covering homicides. Editor interest spiked when victims were white. A missing white woman meant daily follow-ups and front-page placement. A Black teenager shot in the same neighborhood might rate three paragraphs on B6.

The pattern holds at the federal level now. Iimmigration enforcement has admitted to 16 shootings since July 2025, declaring each justified before investigations finished.

The actual toll is worse. At least 30 shootings by immigration agents since January 20, 2025 resulted in eight deaths. Five victims were U.S. citizens. The Wall Street Journal identified 13 instances of officers firing at or into civilian vehicles, a practice most police departments banned years ago.

ICE disclosed six custody deaths already in 2026. Last year saw 31, the highest since 2004. These exclude people who die fleeing agents or those released from custody hours before death to avoid official counts.

Pretti’s status as a registered gun owner seems to have purchased credibility with federal officials. They claimed he brandished his handgun and charged officers.

Video showed otherwise. The gun remained in his waistband while he recorded on his phone. Officers tackled him. One agent removed the weapon. Another shot him in the back.

Good faced the same posthumous smearing. Officials said she tried to run over an ICE agent. Video showed her wheels turned away when the agent opened fire.

The gun ownership detail troubles me. Does carrying legally make someone’s death more worthy of investigation? Does it make their life more valuable?

The implication is ugly. Pretti mattered because he had the trappings of respectable citizenship. Good apparently did not.

Federal agents reportedly invoked Good’s death as a warning. One who pepper sprayed a legal observer reportedly said protesters needed to stop or end up like “that lesbian bitch.”

Her death was a threat. His triggered an investigation.

I get the calculation. Pretti had credentials, legal gun ownership, and demographics that made him harder to dismiss.

Good had neither shield.

But that calculation is the problem.

Both were Americans killed exercising constitutional rights. Both deserve the same scrutiny, the same pursuit of truth, the same accountability.

The fact that only one is getting it tells us whose lives we value and whose deaths we’re willing to excuse.