The tragic fatal shooting by an ICE officer a citizen feels as if was the inevitable failure of assigning armed, undertrained, masked agents into our city streets to do widespread deportation raids in residential neighborhoods.
So, too, is the pitched verbal battle over who was to blame.
Without any investigation or evidence. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Donald Trump already had decided that the slain woman was a “domestic terrorist” who “weaponized her vehicle” and attempted “to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Noem said her officers felt under threat and were justified in firing into a car.
The woman, Renee Good, 37, had been parked in the street as part of nonviolent protest.
On the streets of Minneapolis, once again defiant citizens told a different story — one of an unprovoked shooting by a camo-clad agent into the car.
There will be investigations, but, as always, the lines of partisanship already have outlined the beliefs at odds here.
This Time, Videos
Videos by bystanders seemed to show that the shooting in full daylight and among a small crowd happened without provocation. The videos show agents approaching the car and one vigorously trying to open the driver door. The car clearly backed up away from ICE officers – something that contradicts Noem’s account. One ICE officer is seen partially in front of the car as it moves forward, away from the officers. That agent is seen firing his gun as the car drives by him. Three gunshots can be heard.
There was no attempt to save the shot woman despite the presence of a platoon of agents. A video showed agents keeping a doctor away from the shooting victim.
Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to get out of town, using vulgarities to say that rather than bringing safety to streets, they have disgorged violence. Gov. Tim Walz said the account from the feds could not be believed. Local clergy took to the streets to keep things calm.
By any law enforcement analysis, shooting an unarmed driver through the front windshield into a car is not approved policy or training. Noem couldn’t even get straight the detail that the agents were stuck in the snow, and were hemmed in. The videos say they weren’t.
The tragedy here is not only a death, but the idea that this outcome has been so predictable.
Random neighborhood immigration sweeps without specific suspects with serious criminal backgrounds conducted by undertrained Homeland Security agents is a bad policy, poorly executed. Instant government lies about the inevitable mistakes just makes it that much worse.
