Shermer Says 5: What Went Wrong in Minnesota? Protests, Panic, and Personal Responsibility
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this solo episode of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael Shermer responds to the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old healthcare worker who was killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis during protests over enforcement of immigration law.
As political debate intensifies, Shermer asks a tough question that most discussions are avoiding: What role does personal responsibility play in emotionally charged, high-risk situations?
He separates the facts we can reasonably assert from what remains uncertain and explains why scrutinizing frame-by-frame video misses something essential about how humans behave under stress and fear.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone. It's Michael Shermer. It's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer show. This is |
| 0:05.8 | Shermer says number five. Number five was supposed to be released on Tuesday, which is the publication |
| 0:12.5 | date of my new book, Truth, what it is, how to find it, and why it still matters. But I thought |
| 0:19.3 | I better make a comment, a short commentary on the shooting in Minneapolis |
| 0:25.1 | of Alex Jeffrey Preti, a U.S. citizen with no criminal records. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm reading here from the New York Times. |
| 0:35.8 | Interestingly, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have pretty much said the exact |
| 0:40.5 | same thing. |
| 0:41.6 | So that's encouraging that we're getting a fairly accurate portrayal of who he was and what |
| 0:47.2 | happened and so forth. |
| 0:48.1 | He was 37 years old, registered nurse who worked in the intensive care unit at the |
| 0:52.5 | Veterans Affairs Hospital in Minneapolis, |
| 0:55.1 | according to interviews and public records and lived in an apartment in Minneapolis, a short drive away |
| 0:59.4 | from where he was killed. |
| 1:01.2 | He had a firearms permit required by state law in Minnesota to carry a handgun, official said. |
| 1:07.5 | Colleagues and acquaintances of Mr. Pretie were stunned by his death, recalling a friendly |
| 1:12.0 | neighbor and a hardworking professional who was devoted to his patients. |
| 1:17.0 | Let's see. A colleague said they'd worked together closely for years, and he was, Mr. Prattie |
| 1:23.2 | was competent and friendly, kind of person who cared deeply about his work and his patience. |
| 1:27.9 | He was really a great colleague and a great friend, he said. |
| 1:30.6 | The default look on his face was a smile. |
| 1:34.3 | Family members of Mr. Prattie declined to comment on Saturday. |
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