California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) ramped up his criticisms of U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino this weekend following Bovino’s attempts to justify the deadly shooting of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti.
Appearing on CNN Sunday, Bovino claimed Border Patrol agents had attempted to use “deescalation techniques” on Pretti, 37, before ultimately gunning him down in the street.
“He was in the scene actively impeding and assaulting law enforcement to the point,” Bovino said in a tense conversation with CNN’s Dana Bash. When Bash argued that Pretti had simply been filming ICE officers at the time of his death, Bovino shot back: “He was there for a reason, and that reason was to impede law enforcement.”
It didn’t take long for Newsom to react to Bovino’s comments.
“Gestapo Greg says filming ICE agents with your cell phone is assault and justifies them shooting you in cold blood,” the governor wrote Sunday on X via his press office, likening Bovino to the secret police of Germany and German-occupied Europe during World War II.
Responding to yet another segment from Bovino’s CNN appearance, Newsom called Pretti’s death “absolutely unacceptable.”
“They shot an American in cold blood! For exercising First Amendment rights our Founders fought to defend and enshrine in our Constitution,” he wrote.
Newsom has previously evoked Nazi Germany while discussing Bovino, who has served as a senior official with the U.S. Border Patrol since 2019.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Newsom compared Bovino’s calf-length green trenchcoat to “SS garb,” echoing a claim that had emerged on social media following Bovino’s visit to Minneapolis earlier this month after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, also 37.
Bovino, however, has mostly laughed off Newsom’s jabs. In an interview with NewsNation last week, Bovino said his coat was “definitely Border Patrol-issued” and had been in his possession for “over 25 years.”
He also pointed out that he’d worn the coat to an official event in 2021, when President Joe Biden was in office, and had “received nothing but compliments” at the time.
“Fast forward a few years to this administration, all of a sudden it’s a problem,” he said. “Hey, what changed there? Why is it a problem now [and not] during the last administration?”