Protesters, like soldiers, take a risk in service to others
To call those filming immigration agents ‘reckless’ is to suggest that the responsible reaction to injustice is retreat
Yet in Minneapolis, ordinary people doing exactly that are now being described as agitators and threats. In public remarks following the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old V.A. nurse, by federal agents, then-Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino framed the incident around the idea that Pretti “made the choice” to enter an active law enforcement scene, and implying that Pretti simply being there justified the response.
Treating presence near law enforcement as a provocation may sound reasonable. But in every tradition that takes service seriously, choosing to stand where harm is potentially occurring — visibly and without threat of violence — has never been reckless. It has been responsible.
The most common criticism leveled at the people protesting violent immigration enforcement in the streets of Minneapolis or Los Angeles or Portland is that they are reckless. Whatever their intentions, it’s foolish to place themselves near armed officers during a volatile moment. No one quite says Pretti deserved to die, but the implication is clear: He shouldn’t have been there. Decent people ought to stay out of the way of armed authority.
The people on the streets in Minneapolis aren’t seeking confrontation. No evidence has been presented that they are trying to block arrests or provoke force despite tens of thousands of citizens protesting. They are refusing to look away while harm is done in their name, assuming risk personally rather than forcing it onto others. They are not acting impulsively or violently. They are filming, bearing witness and standing visibly and nonviolently in places where those using force would prefer anonymity.
Calling that behavior reckless reverses the moral order. It suggests that the responsible reaction to unaccountable force is retreat — that safety is best preserved through silence and deference. When scrutiny of armed government power disappears, restraint rarely follows. History is full of people who were warned to stand down and stay safe — and who are remembered as courageous because they refused.
When warnings about recklessness no longer persuade, the criticism usually shifts. If people aren’t foolish enough to risk themselves for nothing, the logic goes, they must be organized or manipulated “paid agitators.” In Minneapolis, some commentators have pointed to encrypted Signal chats showing people tracking federal agents and assembling near the scene as evidence of a coordinated “far-left network.” But the existence of shared alerts and group chats does not demonstrate payment, outside control or malicious intent. It shows people communicating about what they were witnessing — a distinction that has been repeatedly collapsed in the rush to discredit their presence.
That assumption runs counter to how Americans have historically understood service. Voluntary military service, civil rights organizing and disaster response, among other acts of service, all rely on ordinary people showing up without expectation of reward — often at significant personal cost. Their credibility comes not from compensation, but from presence.
The crowds in Minneapolis are neighbors, nurses, students, veterans and faith leaders. They show up in freezing temperatures. There is no anonymity, no protection, no reward — only visibility and risk. They are not there because it is profitable or safe. They are there because they believe that leaving others to face unaccountable power alone is worse.
Dismissing that choice as manipulation allows their accusers to avoid an uncomfortable truth: that ordinary people, given no incentive at all, still choose to act on what they believe is right. Refusing to believe that choice is real is easier than grappling with what it says about obligation, and about who is willing to bear risk for others.
When critics exhaust the language of recklessness and manipulation, they often fall back on familiar institutional refrains to “lower the temperature”
Voting matters, of course. But voting assumes that power between elections remains accountable and constrained by law. That is the condition that gives voting meaning in the first place. When scrutiny of force is treated as provocation and accountability is deferred indefinitely, telling people to “just vote” becomes a way of avoiding responsibility in the present, not a serious defense of democratic norms.
If you don’t understand why people are standing in the streets in Minneapolis, you don’t understand service or sacrifice — not as lived commitments, anyway. The people standing up are not seeking recognition or reward. They are neighbors who decided that silence was the greater risk. Choosing visible, nonviolent and accountable exposure is how service to one’s community has always begun.
Americans say they admire courage, sacrifice and devotion to something larger than oneself. We repeat those words often. But they lose their meaning when we recognize them only in institutions or stories that flatter us — and refuse to see them in ordinary people who act without protection or promise of safety.
