Murder in Minneapolis

First, let's dispense with the idea that local police are the angels as opposed to the devils of ICE. Have we collectively forgotten the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020? While we're comparing ICE unfavorably to the Minneapolis Police Department, has the memory of that cop's knee on George Floyd's neck been completely obliterated along with the memory of him being a Minneapolis Police Officer? While it's appropriate to note that ICE is not a general law enforcement agency—it's jurisdiction is immigration enforcement—let's not forget all the unarmed people, mostly Black men, killed because some cop "feared for his life". Let's remember that every arrest these days seems to require the arrestee being thrown to the ground, face down, accompanied by shouts of "stop resisting". Still, due to overly broad self-defense statutes and juries that will excuse a shooting by police if they followed departmental procedure, few police officers are charged and of those few, hardly any are convicted. The culture of impunity among law enforcement, coupled with police omerta, have set the stage for the abusive rampage of ICE in our cities. 

Despite the well-documented abuses by police officers, the difference between a Police Officer or Sheriff's Deputy and an ICE agent is training. While they don't all adhere to their training, regular cops are trained how to approach suspects, how to ask questions, how to de-escalate. They are drilled in specific scenarios like what to do when confronting someone who is armed, how to conduct a traffic stop, how to make an arrest. In Lincoln, academy training is 23 weeks in length. This is followed by 22 weeks of field training with an experienced officer. Nationwide, training is usually between 6 and 12 months. ICE basic training is 6 ½  weeks (47 days). It has been reported that recruitment standards have been downgraded as well. With ICE's activities spurring protests, their lack of training in crowd control is no longer a tragedy waiting to happen, it has already happened. 

The killing in Minneapolis last week is not the first death by federal immigration agents. There were 32 deaths in ICE custody last year. There were two shootings in Portland on Thursday for which I do not have details. But there have been other recent shootings. On October 4th, Marimar Martinez's vehicle sideswiped, or was sideswiped by an federal immigration enforcement vehicle in Chicago. Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum got out of his vehicle and shot her five times. Border Patrol claimed that Martinez "rammed" the vehicle and that she was trying to run over Exum. She was charged with assault on a federal officer. Charges were later dropped after problematic text messages by Exum surfaced and the Border Patrol vehicle was cleaned and repaired before it could be examined for evidence. On New Year's Eve Keith Porter was firing a gun in the air to celebrate the new year when he was killed by an off-duty ICE agent. The news and social media are full of accounts, including video evidence, of ICE and Border Patrol arresting protesters. In many cases they are preemptively using violence against protesters, including so-called less-than-lethal weapons. 

Now we get to the murder of Renee Good. 

She was on a street where there were multiple ICE vehicles. It was a public street, and there is no indication, and indeed no claim by the government, that the street was blocked off. Reports indicate that she was returning home after dropping off her daughter at school. Other reports say she was participating in a protest designed to obstruct ICE operations. 

She had every right to be where she was—it was a public street. If she was, as some government representatives claim, obstructing a federal operation, what specifically was she supposed to have been doing? She is shown on multiple videos waving ICE vehicles through—her van isn't obstructing traffic at all, and she was first ordered to "get out of here", which she was attempting to do. I have seen reports that attempt to paint her in a negative way by claiming that she was part of anti-ICE protests. Protesting is a First Amendment right. Even though she had no arrest record, she was immediately tarred as a deranged leftist—apparently you can shoot people for being leftists now. 

So, it's not even arguable that she was doing anything illegal before receiving a conflicting order: "get out of the fucking car" with an agent grabbing her door handle. What was she supposed to have done? Attempting to make an illegal U-turn? Was it simply a matter of them being mad that she and her wife weren't responding with fear? Or that Renee's wife mockingly told the agent to "go get some lunch, big boy"? They were clearly attempting to assert authority that they didn't have over an infraction that didn't exist.

One of the things I learned when on grand jury duty in 2024 was that, despite movie and television portrayals of cops running toward danger, bravely confronting gun wielding bad guys, their training tells them to not expose themselves to danger. That includes, according to DOJ use-of-force guidelines stepping in front of a vehicle to prevent it from moving. 

2. Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle. Firearms may not be discharged from a moving vehicle except in exigent circumstances. In these situations, an officer must have an articulable reason for this use of deadly force.

The shooter, whatever his state of mind, and whatever Renee was attempting to do, violated training standards by moving himself in front of a vehicle, putting himself in danger. He created the problem. However, once the vehicle started moving, he is shown on video from multiple angles safely moving out of the way, negating, according to the highlighted sections above, the need for deadly force. This video analysis does a good job breaking down, almost frame by frame, what happened. 

I have heard suggestions that it has taken the killing of a White woman to get people riled up about what ICE is doing. I disagree with that take. People have been protesting since Trump took office. Yes, several people have been shot and killed by ICE, but the difference in my opinion is not that Renee was White, but that the murder was so well documented, from start to finish, from different angles, so that objectively there should be no question. There's no ambiguity about what happened. 

A normal administration would wait until all the facts were in, an investigation was completed, before commenting about it. But this isn't a normal administration. Before the day was out top Trump officials were calling Ms. Good a domestic terrorist (a nonexistent federal crime) and a deranged leftist. Trump himself has claimed "...the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.” None of this happened. They have their narrative that they want to push. 

Renee Good wasn't breaking any laws, was not putting the ICE agent in jeopardy, yet was murdered in cold blood.