Fascist bootlickers are foaming at the mouth because Alex Pretti was allegedly filmed spitting in the direction of ICE and kicking out the taillight of one of their unmarked, kidnapping vans in the days or hours before he was executed by them in cold blood. And this is supposed to make us think he deserved being brutalized and murdered.

It goes something like this: Did you ever do porn? Been drunk in public? Smoke cannabis? Have sex with multiple partners? Shoot up heroin? Tell a dirty joke? Shoplift from a department store? Attend a strip show? Wear a seductive outfit? Throw a piece of trash on the street? Have an unpaid speeding ticket? See! You weren’t a saint! You had it coming!

This is how the state manufactures an excuse for its violence. How it justifies its actions by smearing its victims. How it sets up the idea that if a victim did something either illegal or that is deemed immoral by some people, they deserved what was done to them. George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Virginia Giuffre, Renee Good. Now it is Alex Pretti’s turn.

This kind of postmortem slander isn’t anything new. Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, women, queer people and immigrants have all been demonized following their brutalization. Palestinians have gone through this for over 80 years. In fact, all colonized, marginalized, occupied, besieged or oppressed people are very familiar with this type of reputational litmus test.

Alex Pretti wasn’t a saint. He was a human being. But even if he was a criminal, he did not deserve what was done to him. And that is the point.

What is astonishing in this case is that fascists truly think we care that Pretti spat on them and vandalized their vehicle. On the contrary, those things only make him even more of a hero.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026