How Trump pardon of Missouri Jan. 6 rioter differs from Alex Pretti killing
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Critics highlight inconsistent enforcement after Jan. 6 pardons and Minneapolis killings.
- Authorities charged and pardoned hundreds from Capitol riot, many with weapons charges.
- Minneapolis shootings drew swift blame of victims by federal officials.
Missourian Jerod Bargar carried a loaded 9mm semi-automatic pistol onto the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, in a holster decorated with an image of the American flag and the phrase “We The People.”
John Banuelos of Utah was seen on video scaling the Inaugural stage scaffolding outside the Capitol, then pulling a gun from his waistband and firing two shots into the air. Earlier video captured him holding up his gloved hand, forming the shape of a “finger gun” and simulating “firing” multiple times in the direction of police.
And Indiana resident Mark Mazza was sentenced to 60 months in prison for carrying two loaded guns on the Capitol grounds and assaulting officers during the riot. Prosecutors said his Taurus revolver was loaded with three shotgun shells and two hollow point bullets. He later admitted to authorities that he also was armed with a loaded .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol.
The men were among numerous protesters charged with bringing firearms to the Capitol on Jan. 6, in a city where open carry is illegal and concealed carry permits from other states aren’t honored.
And they were among the more than 1,500 defendants whom President Donald Trump pardoned on the day of his inauguration after referring to them throughout his campaign as “hostages,” “patriots” and “political prisoners.”
Jan. 6 pardons vs. Alex Pretti killing
On Saturday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fatally shot 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti on a street in Minneapolis as he was taking video on his cellphone and had tried to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground.
Pretti was legally carrying a handgun at the time, local authorities said. Videos of the shooting posted by bystanders online show he had not drawn it and appeared to be disarmed before being shot multiple times.
Within hours of the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called him a “domestic terrorist” who “attacked officers” and was “brandishing” a gun. Gregory Bovino, the CBP commander at large, said it appeared that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
The condemnation continued, with Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller writing on X that “a would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement … ”
Critics say the conflicting responses of top Trump officials to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the Minneapolis shooting deaths of Pretti and Renee Good demonstrate a stark double standard. Good, 37, was killed 17 days earlier when an ICE officer fired shots into her Honda Pilot.
“Perhaps the most clear double standard is that Renee Good and Alex Pretti never got a trial,” said Brian Levin, a criminologist and founder of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “Never got a trial before they were labeled as terrorists and criminals.
“They not only never saw their day in court. They never saw another day.”
Differences between Jan. 6 and Minneapolis responses
In a Fox News interview Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel said, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have that right to break the law and incite violence.”
But a Jan. 6, 2025, update by the Justice Department marking the fourth anniversary of the Capitol breach said that 180 defendants had been charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon. Those weapons included firearms, tasers, axes, knives, baseball bats and flagpoles.
In contrast, Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry, the Minneapolis police chief said, and numerous videos showed no sign of him taking it out of its holster.
Patel also said in the Sunday interview that “you do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions.”
But that wasn’t the case in regard to the Capitol riot. According to the Justice Department’s figures released two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, more than 140 officers were assaulted that day and 174 defendants had been charged with “using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.”
All were pardoned on Jan. 20, 2025. And within days, the Justice Department’s Capitol Breach Investigation Resource website, which contained statistics and detailed information about the cases, was taken down.
Levin, a former New York City police officer and co-author of “The Limits of Dissent,” said there were several key differences between the Capitol riot and what happened on the streets of Minneapolis.
“Police at the Capitol insurrection were vastly outnumbered by a mob of over 2,000 people that traveled there, some with illegal weapons, that resulted in a historic breach of the halls of government during the certification of a Presidential election,” he said.
“Moreover, unlike many of those pardoned for January 6, video indicates both Alex Pretti and Renee Good appeared to be in active retreat when killed on the snowy streets of their own community.”
Levin said it also appeared that federal officers in both Minnesota shootings “needlessly escalated the situations while also appearing to violate established 21st Century policing standards relating to firing upon an identified fleeing vehicle and by also discharging multiple rounds at a successfully disarmed prone civilian who never brandished his legally possessed weapon.”
There’s a big difference, Levin said, between those trying — “even if imperfectly” — to protect vulnerable people on public streets in their own communities and those who were “part of a mob urging the murder of the vice president and trying to completely stop the wheels of government at its highest level.”
“I do think that one of the hallmarks of recent protests, there has been some degree of non-combative interference, which technically, in certain instances, is a violation of the law,” he said. “But that’s substantially different on any scale from the kind of chaotic mob attack which resulted in over 140 officers being injured at one time.”
‘President Trump wants this fixed’
As tensions rose throughout the week, top government officials toned down much of their inflammatory rhetoric, and on Tuesday Trump sent border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to replace Bovino.
Meanwhile, new video surfaced Wednesday showing Pretti scuffling with federal agents 11 days before his death after he spit at their SUV, cursed at them and kicked out a taillight as they started to drive away.
In the video, posted on YouTube by The News Movement, an agent got out of the SUV and shoved Pretti to the street as other agents came to help. They held him on the ground briefly, then released him and left. As Pretti got up, an object that appeared to be a gun was visible sticking out of his back waistband.
On Thursday morning, Homan held a news conference in Minneapolis, saying that “certain improvements could and should be made” and that a plan was underway to draw down the number of ICE and border patrol agents if they gained better access to the state’s jails.
“President Trump wants this fixed and I’m going to fix it,” Homan said.
Jan. 6 defendant denies double standard
Jan. 6 defendant Will Pope, of Topeka, said he doesn’t see a double standard at play in the treatment of those charged in the Capitol riot and the Minnesota shooting incidents. He said most of the so-called J6ers were treated too harshly, the victims of “weaponization” of the government under President Joe Biden’s administration.
He said, however, that he didn’t support the assaults of officers or carrying of weapons to the Capitol that day: “I have no problem with protesters being arrested if they assaulted an officer.”
Pope said he had considered taking a gun with him on Jan. 6, because protesters had been attacked at rallies leading up to the event and he was concerned about security.
“But I’d looked at the local rules ahead of time, and D.C. is pretty strict on handguns,” he said, “so I made the decision, you know, I’m just not going to do it.”
Pope, who faced one felony count of civil disorder and four misdemeanor charges, represented himself in his Capitol riot case and became a folk hero of sorts among many defendants over his outspokenness and sometimes unconventional court filings.
He said he had mixed feelings about ICE’s current operations.
“I don’t think we should be going after everybody in Minnesota, or wherever, who is protesting the Trump administration,” he said. “There are different movements throughout history for different causes, and we’ve got to be very careful about wanting to bring the hammer of law enforcement down hard on them.
“I have no problem with ICE conducting their mission, if they’re lawful in doing whatever they’re doing, but you don’t want to get too aggressive. That said, I don’t think it’s a good idea for people in Minnesota to try to block ICE officers or hunt them down and things like that.”
Pope said Pretti had a right to carry a gun in Minneapolis.
“But sometimes when things escalate quickly like that, and law enforcement sees a weapon, it does increase the risk,” he said. “I have no issue with that guy carrying it, but he’s also dead today.”
Pope said he’d heard rumors about former Jan. 6 defendants becoming ICE agents but didn’t know of any such cases.
“I know there have been a couple that have told me they were thinking about applying for border patrol or whatever,” he said. “But I don’t know if they ever went through with that.
“I mean, that’s their call. I looked into it, but I still have a lot of questions about DHS involvement and the weaponization against J6ers … I’m not fully trusting of some of these agencies yet, I’ll just put it that way.”
Guns at the Capitol riot
On Jan. 5, 2021, Bargar traveled from southwest Missouri to Washington, D.C., to attend the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally. After the rally at the Ellipse the next morning, prosecutors said, he walked with the crowd to the Capitol and joined the hundreds of rioters gathered against the struggling police lines on the West Plaza.
The government said there was no evidence that Bargar entered the Capitol or engaged in violence during the riot. But at about 2:30 p.m., court documents said, an officer spotted a 9mm semi-automatic pistol on the ground of the West Plaza.
The gun was loaded, with 17 rounds in the magazine. Court documents said it was “held in a distinctive holster that displayed an image of the American flag and had the words ‘We The People’ written on it.”
Authorities eventually traced the gun to Bargar. He told the FBI that “he is always armed and wanted to be armed when he went into the ‘belly of the beast’ for his own ‘self-protection,’” the government’s court filing said. “According to Bargar, he did not intend to use the firearm unless he had to defend himself.”
Bargar said he was not aware that possession of a gun in D.C. without a license was illegal, the document said.
Though Bargar didn’t breach the Capitol, it said, he carried a loaded firearm onto restricted grounds “during a full scale riot where police were being assaulted by all manner of weapons … Had MPD not recovered the gun, another rioter could have picked it off the ground and used it.”
Bargar pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, a felony. In January 2024, he was sentenced to five years’ probation, fined $4,000 and ordered to pay $2,000 restitution for damage to the building.
In a letter to the judge prior to his sentencing, Bargar said he had no intention of going to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to cause harm.
“I was simply there to exercise my First Amendment right,” he wrote. “I realize the severity of the situation that arose from my actions by stupidly not following the D.C. gun laws.”
He said he’d been a responsible gun owner and hunter since he was young and should have researched the gun laws before going to Washington.
“Now I realize the danger it presented that day,” he said. “I had never been in a crowd that large and riled up before … I am thankful the firearm fell into responsible hands even if this result is negative for me.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 1:57 PM.
