NORTHAMPTON — Outraged that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) did not memorialize Alex Pretti, the VA nurse who was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis last month, local veterans and others on Monday resorted to what they have been doing for months now — protesting outside the Edward P. Boland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds to take a stand.
Specifically, some 50 protesters gathered during the lunch hour, chanting “Say his name — Alex Pretti.”
At the Route 9 stoplight leading to the VA office, protesters would periodically cue the light controlling the pedestrian crosswalk — not to cross the street but to form a line while holding letters that spell out Pretti’s name, directed toward stopped vehicles.
Monday’s gathering was one of many protests taking place multiple times a month outside the VA center in Leeds organized by the Veterans Action Team of Indivisible Northampton, Swing Left Western Mass. The group also stood out last Thursday night, hosting a vigil for Pretti.
“In normal times if there was a national tragedy, an event that was so traumatic that it would be of great concern to staff, then there’d be something from Washington, from our regional headquarters and from the local administration here to comfort people,” said protest organizer John Paradis.
Paradis, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who previously worked for the VA, said usually there would be some kind of memorialization after a national tragedy involving a VA employee. He’s confused why that has not been the case for Pretti.
While Paradis, an organizer with Indivisible Northampton, has taken part in many recent protests involving veterans, he said the recent killing of Pretti, who was shot while participating in protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, has had a major impact on the veterans community.
“There is so much anxiety right now,” Paradis said regarding VA staff. “There’s so many people who are despondent, very concerned. Staff have resigned or retired because of this.”
Specifically, for someone like Pretti who served veterans through his work, it is disheartening to see no response from the VA, Paradis said.
“All he [Pretti] was doing was exercising his constitutional rights,” Paradis said. “He was there as a neighbor to bear witness, and for that he was murdered, and that’s not the country I served.”
In addition to the VA not providing guidance or memorialization after Pretti’s death, Paradis said local veterans are confused after hearing a report that all VA chaplains and nurses in Massachusetts were told not to mention Pretti.
“It was starting to percolate from some of the VA staff that they (the VA) want to keep this quiet,” Paradis said. “They don’t want to do anything for him, they don’t want to memorialize him, they don’t want to remember him and I just thought that was blatantly wrong.”
However, Sarah Robinson, a spokesperson for the Leeds VA, said she has seen no such message sent to local chaplains. She said the message was a “miscommunication” from the Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center in Boston.
Robinson said that current VA policy allows all employees, including chaplains, to memorialize the deaths of VA employees in any way because “our veterans come first.”
The VA office in Boston declined to comment, referring media inquiries to VA public affairs.
“All VA employees, including chaplains, are welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful and it does not interfere with their work duties,” VA spokesperson Pete Kasperowicz wrote in an email to the Gazette.
Locally, Robinson said the Leeds VA, which oversees affairs for the western and central parts of the state, does not take issue with the recurring protests in front of the VA on Route 9.
“There have always been peaceful demonstrations and they are obviously here to support our veterans and employees,” Robinson said, noting that the protests take place on public property.
Paradis was one of several veterans at the Monday protest along with family members of current and deceased veterans.
“I feel like I’m supporting the VA staff,” said David Whiteley, a veteran and retired VA employee who attended the protest. “The employees, they’re under a lot of pressure. They’re not sure of their future.”
In a previous interview with the Gazette, Paradis said he feels veterans particularly started taking action after the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency began federal cuts and when proposed VA cuts became apparent in Project 2025, a political and policy initiative published by the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
Diane Borowski, one of the original organizers of the Veterans Action Team, said she started organizing protests after hearing that Indivisible held a march for veterans in Washington, D.C. and wanted to organize action locally.
Borowski said she started organizing protests to honor her father who was a World War II veteran. “It’s for my father and all veterans.”
Paradis said moving forward, he hopes to see a response from the VA regarding the death of Pretti.
Material from AP News was used in this article.
