Middletown residents gathered at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Saturday night, Jan. 24, to honor Minnesota resident Alex Pretti, shot by federal law enforcement agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
The vigil, organized the same day, took place at the church’s Main St. address at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24. The event drew a crowd of about 50, including a handful of current and former Wesleyan faculty members. Pretti, a U.S. citizen and registered intensive care nurse at Minneapolis VA Health Care System, was filmed approaching federal agents with a phone. Contradicting DHS officials’ statements, Pretti was not wielding a gun at the agents, though one was on his person and he was licensed to carry.
His killing is among the recent casualties of federal law enforcement’s crackdown on immigration, resulting in escalated altercations between Minnesota residents, protestors, and federal agents. The federal crackdown in Minneapolis and St. Paul has incited anti-ICE protests in solidarity with Minnesota across the nation, including in New Haven. The federal agents involved in Pretti’s killing have been placed on administrative leave.
Ed McKeon, a longtime Middletown resident and activist, was the primary organizer of the vigil. McKeon first heard that candlelight vigils were planned in Minnesota and were being held nationwide in solidarity from a message posted by Heather Cox Richardson, a historian at Boston College.
“I was appalled at what happened,” McKeon said. “I was shocked. I was horrified. I was almost speechless.”
Deeply involved with local issues, McKeon has previously served as a member of the Middletown Common Council and is currently on the Middletown Board of Education. 18 months ago, McKeon founded Middlesex County’s chapter of Indivisible, a progressive advocacy group, leading the group’s weekly demonstrations, fundraising, and demonstrative events ever since.
He called Rev. Mary Barnett, the pastor of the Church of the Holy Trinity, to ask if the event could be held at the church. “I don’t know why it is I got there,” McKeon said. “Mostly it was probably because, in terms of ‘somebody’s got to do it,’ and I raise my hand, and in all the cases, it’s not just me.”
Despite living 45 minutes away from Middletown, Barnett agreed to open her doors and return to the church. “I was sitting at home and consuming news in various ways, and really feeling very distraught over this murder of this young man,” Barnett said. “Just feeling grief. Like, wow, how did we get here? And what am I called to do?”
Barnett wants the church to feel welcoming to all, but stressed the importance of taking a moral stand. At the event, she called for clarity and unity. “My prayer is that everyone in this country will take time in the days ahead, for however long it takes, to begin to see how we’re breaking this country and human beings apart like twigs,” she said.
Attendees listening in the pews brought LED candles to the church. Those who didn’t have candles flicked on their phone flashlights, raising them as Barnett spoke.
Among attendees was Steve Machuga, former Director of Administrative Services for the University’s Information Technology Services. Machuga described feeling anger at the brutality of Pretti’s murder.
“There’s just no excuse for that level of oppressiveness and lack of concern for human beings,” Machuga said. “And you know, they’re federal agents. They should be concerned about U.S. citizens, too. It offends my sense of what I think America is.”
To close the vigil, McKeon’s sons took a guitar to the front of the church and performed Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” a protest song written about the 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots, where youth clashed with police over stringent regulations.
“There’s a man with a gun over there / A-telling me I got to beware,” attendees sang. “Everybody look what’s going down.”
Aarushi Bahadur can be reached at abahadur@wesleyan.edu.
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