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Two federal shootings in Minneapolis this month have shaken the city and ignited a furious national debate, and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty offered the right instinct on Fox’s Sunday Night in America: don’t jump to conclusions until the evidence is laid out. Pawlenty urged the public to let investigators do their jobs and allow video and forensics to speak, a commonsense call that Americans who believe in rule of law should applaud. The episode is a reminder that, even in raw and emotional moments, conservatives must defend due process as fiercely as we defend law and order.
The first deadly encounter took place on January 7, 2026, when an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Nicole Good during an enforcement action in south Minneapolis — a shooting that quickly became the focus of intense scrutiny after multiple videos surfaced. Analysis of the footage and competing official narratives left more questions than answers, and the case sparked immediate calls for accountability from local leaders and national critics alike. Even with outrage on the streets, the basic facts must be established through careful investigation before any permanent judgments are made.
On January 24, 2026, a second fatal shooting of a Minneapolis resident — Alex Pretti — by federal officers further inflamed tensions and prompted state officials to take extraordinary legal steps to preserve evidence. Minnesota’s attorney general and local prosecutors rushed to court to ensure the Department of Homeland Security cannot destroy or withhold material evidence, and a federal judge issued a temporary order to protect what remains of the investigative record. Those judicial moves show the seriousness of the situation and why patience for a full accounting matters now more than ever.
Conservatives should never be reflexive defenders of government power, but nor should we feed the mob’s rush to assign guilt before the facts are established. We stand with our federal agents who put their lives on the line to secure our borders and enforce the law, and we also stand for transparency and accountability when force is used. That balance — support for law enforcement, insistence on evidence, and rejection of lawless protest — is what true conservatism looks like in a crisis.
What’s galling is the predictable political theater that has followed: partisan officials and cable anchors eager to score points instead of insisting on due process, and state-federal tensions that are now playing out in courtrooms rather than in calm, methodical investigations. Reports that state investigators were blocked from crime scenes and had to seek judicial remedies only deepen mistrust and make it harder to get to the truth; that’s why the order preserving evidence was necessary and why citizens should demand it be honored. If Democrats and the media want credibility when they call for accountability, they should stop weaponizing tragedy and start demanding the same standards of proof they claim to value.
So let the investigators, the medical examiners, and the courts do their work — and let the results guide any political or legal consequences. Tim Pawlenty’s plea for restraint is what responsible patriots should echo: follow the facts, preserve evidence, and reserve final judgment for a fair process. Above all, conservatives must defend both the rule of law and the right of Americans to expect their government to produce truth, not talking points.
