The day after Rev. Robin Bartlett returned from gathering with fellow clergy in Minneapolis, the city that is heartbroken yet uprising in record numbers, another person was shot dead in the streets by ICE.
“My first reaction was guilt,” the First Church in Sterling senior pastor said upon hearing the news that 37-year-old Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents on Jan 24. “I left Friday night and after Alex was killed, the out-of-town clergy still in town on Saturday morning were asked to stay in Minneapolis if they could to help pastor to the Minnesota clergy who were utterly traumatized and exhausted and help do pastoral work in the city.”
Bartlett spent two days in the Minnesota capital along with upwards of 700 fellow clergy members from across the country who were invited there by MARCH — Multifaith Antiracism Change & Healing. They convened there that week to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and deportations and roughly 100 of those faith leaders who kneeled at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to pray for Delta to stop sponsoring immigration flights and stop ICE from detaining airport employees were arrested on Friday, the day she flew home.
Bartlett reported on arrival there “many of my colleagues rushed to the scene of Alex’s execution and provided care.”…