The Trump administration's initial statements defending violence from immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis often contradict what anyone can see with their own eyes.
Videos and court testimony, time and again, point to a pattern of government deception.
"Sickening lies" is how the parents of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti described comments the day their son was killed by Border Patrol agents after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti "brandished" his gun, even as video showed the weapon remained holstered until an agent removed it from Pretti's waist.
"This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that," Noem had said during a weekend news conference.
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"This looks like a situation where an individual came to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement," she continued.
In a social media post, Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller called Pretti a "would-be assassin."
There is no evidence showing any of those statements to be true.
Scripps News asked DHS whether Noem still stands by her early comments blaming Pretti for his own death.
A DHS spokesperson, who declined to be identified, did not answer directly, but said, "The initial statement was based on reports from CBP from a very chaotic scene on the ground. That's precisely why an investigation is underway and DHS will let the facts lead the investigation."
It was not the first time that video has disputed what government officials were saying about events in Minneapolis.
Before Pretti's death, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent.
President Donald Trump posted that she "violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ice officer."
Noem called Good a "domestic terrorist" who had "weaponized her vehicle."
But video shows Good turning away from the agent as the first shot was fired. The dispute over her intent and the agent's decision to kill her may never be resolved because the federal government hasn't committed to carrying out a full investigation.
And on Jan. 13, a woman driving down a street where a protest had broken out was violently dragged from her car by masked federal officers.
The official DHS version of events claimed the woman, seen on the video attempting to drive away, had ignored law enforcement demands to leave the scene and was arrested for obstruction.
According to her lawyer, and despite being accused of being a "violent agitator," the woman, Aliya Rahman, was never charged with anything.
Then on Jan. 20, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken from a running car in his driveway by ICE agents as he was coming home from preschool. DHS said his father, who ICE was trying to catch, had "abandoned the boy,"
School officials said the agents used the boy "as bait" to try to get the family to open the door of the house and refused to leave the child with another adult while they went after the father.
Vice President J.D. Vance told a different story.
"I do a little bit more follow-up research, and what I find is that the 5-year-old was not arrested, that his dad was an illegal alien, and when they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran," Vance said. "Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death?"
Ramos and his father, who entered the U.S. legally to apply for asylum, were swiftly taken to an ICE holding facility in Dilley, Texas. A judge has prohibited ICE from deporting them.
Liam's mother has said her son appears to be sick from the food there.
Democrats are demanding that both the father and his son be released so they can pursue their asylum claim.
All these cases raise a central question. If the government has been shown to be deceptive after incidents where there is plenty of visual evidence and multiple eyewitness accounts, as with the killings of Good and Pretti, why should the American people believe their statements on matters that are murkier?
