Last weekend, I went to my hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, and I attended Sunday morning services at my mother’s old church, St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church. I hadn’t visited in a few years, and the pastor, Michael Delk, was new to me. I found his sermon to be extraordinarily moving, the way he tied the tragic events we’re witnessing in this country to Scripture and advanced a notion of “Christian integrity” so dramatically different from the one placed before us by most of the so-called “Christians” who dominate our discourse. And it’s reassuring to ponder that if these words were being preached in Morgantown last Sunday, then surely words like them were and are issuing from pulpits across the country.—TNR editor Michael Tomasky
They were both 37 years old, murdered by federal agents in Minneapolis, less than three weeks apart. On January 7, Renee Good was sitting in her car when she was shot three times, including once in the head. On January 24, Alex Pretti was filming federal agents with his cell phone, exercising his First Amendment right to protest their presence peacefully. They shoved him to the ground and several of them beat him. An agent removed a handgun from Alex’s waistband, which he carried legally, and a few seconds after disarming him, 10 shots were fired in five seconds into his prone body on the ground.
Senior administration officials quickly labeled both Renee and Alex “domestic terrorists,” claiming that federal agents were defending their lives. Go watch the videos online. Alex never drew his weapon. Renee was unarmed, moving her vehicle very slowly. Once shot, agents did not attempt to stop their bleeding or resuscitate them. Administration officials swiftly declared the shootings “justified,” without even investigating them; didn’t start investigating until public outcry proved too much. You can find plenty of videos online of peaceful protesters being shoved to the ground or beaten by a mob of agents or pepper-sprayed in the face…