On the street where Alex Pretti was killed, the neighborhood remains united around his memory
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Friday is six months since federal immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti on a busy corridor of local businesses in south Minneapolis. Many of those businesses on Nicollet Avenue became a refuge for protesters and reporters who needed a break from the freezing temperatures and tear gas outside.
Flowers, ribbons and artwork still encircle the place where Pretti was shot on Jan. 24. It’s become one of several public-made memorials to people killed by law enforcement in the city.
Hennepin County prosecutors are investigating Pretti’s killing, in part with newly-shared evidence from the federal government. They have not announced whether they will file charges.
MPR News host Nina Moini talked with two business owners near the memorial and a neighborhood resident about how their lives have changed and what the neighborhood means to them, six months on.
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Across the street
Nicollet Avenue is known as Eat Street because of its abundance of restaurants. But for 16 years it’s also been home to b.resale, a used clothing store that’s now right across the street from the memorial. Staff and customers can watch people stop by to remember Pretti through the shop windows.
“This block feels a little sacred right now,” said owner Allison Bross. “It’s kind of nice to be held in that, even if it comes from something horrible.”
Still, there were times this winter that the international attention on the block became tiresome. Bross said she asked some of the out-of-town reporters when they were going home. “It started to feel almost like, I don’t want to say trauma porn, but whatever the word for that would be,” she said.
In the last three months, Bross said traffic to the memorial has slowed, but business this summer has been good. She credits some of that to community members making an effort to spend money in the neighborhood. The store makes an effort to give to the community in return, with a free bin outside and a donation fund to help unhoused people buy clothes.
Aside from the reminders of the federal surge, Bross also looks at the neighborhood and sees people struggling economically. She hopes the activism and mutual aid that grew this winter won’t fade away.
“It's not sustainable for people to be all in as they were, but it does require everyone to be in a little bit,” she said.
Down the block
Like Bross, Tracy Wong sheltered protesters and journalists who needed to get warm or get off the street after Pretti’s death. She went viral, as videos on social media showed her waving people into her Vietnamese restaurant, My Huong Kitchen.
Since then, she’s continued to invite community members to stop by for a hot drink, a free eggroll or, during this month’s extreme heat, a popsicle.
“I’ve been doing this for my whole life. I love to give; I love to support; I love to help,” she said.
Wong has filled a wall of her restaurant with thank you notes letters people sent her from around the world. All the attention boosted her business after a dismally slow November, December and January.
“I’m very grateful and really happy. But overall, it’s a bad thing,” she said, referring to what happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
During the surge, she was terrified for some of her employees, whom she worried would be arrested by federal agents.
“It's not supposed to be like that because everybody is working. You know, they’re paying tax too,” she said.
Wong is patriotic. She’s placed a red, white and blue welcome mat at the foot of the register that reads, “God Bless America.“
“It's the country that I love to live in, nice and peace, you know, and there’s supposed to be freedom of speech,” she said. “So why did this thing happen?”
At the memorial
Jeff Wendelberger was on the street where Pretti was killed on Jan. 24 to protest the actions of federal agents. He has stood over the memorial nearly every day for the last six months. It’s just a fraction of the two decades he’s spent in the neighborhood, where he said “you can see the best in human beings coming together.”
“I very strongly believe that some people will destroy everything that's good about community, and other people have to continue to rebuild what's good about community,” he said. “So I come out here to try to rebuild a little bit of this corner of the world that's been desecrated.”
There, he said, he has talked with hundreds of people. Some of those who stood out to him most came from Italy and Germany and told him they were worried fascism is rising in the U.S.
“When those types of people come to you and say, ‘Yeah, we're a little concerned about what's happening here,’ you better pay attention,” Wendelberger said.
He also met people from elsewhere in the country who said they planned to move to Minneapolis after seeing the community response to the federal surge. And he met people from the city who he said are traumatized by what happened here.
Dozens of people visited on Friday morning. Several of the memorial’s caretakers pulled up chairs and passed around tissues, as many visitors sat in silence and shed tears.
Jadah Green joined the gathering. She helps take care of the memorial, and archives some of the artwork and signs that visitors have left there.
Green said that after Pretti’s killing she knew it was important to preserve the memory of his death.
“We need to remember it long term,” Green said. “Long term, looking back, what do we want people to remember about this time? And so many offerings were brought, and they're all important, and nothing should be lost.”
She’s in touch with Pretti’s family and plans to follow their wishes on what to do with that archive in the long run.
Connor Harthorn helps with archiving. He said he’s appreciated the chance to share grief with visitors and caretakers at the memorial.
“When you come and come into spaces and touch people and meet community that you might not otherwise… I think that that is maybe the silver lining of what comes out of this,” Harthorn said. “This community is stronger than it's ever been, and it's not a place where people are going to roll over.”
Wendelberger told MPR News he wants people to “actively heal” from that trauma, and to honor Pretti by standing up for those around them.
“It's unfortunate that tragedy does this,” he said, “but it gives us the opportunity to say, why are we so concerned about our our material things and our Amazons and our Apples and all that kind of crap. Why are we not taking care of our neighbors?”
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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