Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner on Monday called out Republicans who have long purported to support the right to carry firearms over their excuses for federal immigration agents gunning down Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti over the weekend.

In a video posted on social media, the Maine senatorial hopeful declared that on Saturday, “all of us witnessed, from multiple angles, federal agents murder Alex Pretti.”

Platner then described his horror at watching “ghouls” in the Trump administration “tell us that what we saw with our own eyes is not what we saw.”

I’ve been a gun owner my entire adult life.

The leaders of a political party that claims to care about the Second Amendment say that because Alex Pretti was carrying a firearm at a protest, he deserved to be executed. pic.twitter.com/Wd1aT2m2XY
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) January 26, 2026

Platner singled out statements by administration officials saying that Pretti, a nurse who worked at a hospital run by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), put himself in danger because he brought a loaded firearm with him while working as a legal observer of federal immigration officials conducting operations in his community.

“I have been a gun owner my entire life,” Platner said. “I shoot competitively, I carry on occasion, because it is my right as an American and my right as a Mainer. And to watch people in a party that for years has screamed about protecting the Second Amendment, to turn around and say that because this man had a holstered legal firearm, he deserved to be murdered by federal agents, is the height of hypocrisy!”

Platner then took a breath and said that the Trump administration’s attempts to smear Pretti after he had been killed made him “incredibly angry.”

“This is an ICU nurse at the VA who has dedicated his life to helping veterans and helping his community,” he said. “And then he is killed protecting his neighbors, protecting people in his community. Murdered, shot down by the state, executed in the street. This makes me shake with rage.”

Multiple Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage since Pretti’s killing on Sunday, and several Democrats, including some who represent swing districts, have called for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in response.

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