Minneapolis, Minnesota
The reason investigations are conducted before making a judgment is because no one knows all the facts in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy.
That didn’t stop Department of Homeland Security Director Kirsti Noem from announcing within hours of the killing of a then unknown woman in Minneapolis that the woman was a domestic terrorist and that the agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement had acted in self-defense after she ran him over with her car. The next day Vice President J.D. Vance displayed the fruits of his Yale law degree by proclaiming that the agent involved has “absolute immunity.” Vance also claimed, “She tried to stop him from doing his job. When he approached her car, she tried to hit him.”
Donald Trump quickly opened his big mouth as usual, claiming in a social media post that the woman, now identified as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who had just dropped one of her children off at school, was, “very disorderly” and accused her of “obstructing and resisting” law enforcement. He also claimed Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over” the ICE officer and that the officer, “seems to have shot her in self-defense” and remarked, “it is hard to believe he is alive”.
I have waited all this time to write about this tragedy because I will not rush to judgment. I still haven’t heard from official and trustworthy government sources. But I have now viewed several videos recorded by onlookers and one that appears to have been recorded by the shooter himself. I urge you to find them and view and come to your own conclusions. But be careful, there are also a large number of clearly doctored images floating around.
The videos tell me that in the moments before the shooting, Ms. Good tells the agent that she isn’t mad at him, and the agent, now identified as Jonathan Ross begins to circle her car. She reverses as he crosses in front of her S.U.V., then she starts to move, and turns to the right. Agent Ross is near her left headlight when he fires three times, killing her.
A Wall Street Journal investigation found that Ms. Good’s killing was one of 13 episodes in which federal immigration agents have used deadly force against civilians in vehicles since July.
A large number of reports from police officers and other experts repeatedly stress that Mr. Ross violated standard police procedures and specific Department of Homeland Security training and policy which boils down to, don’t put yourself in harm by moving in front of or behind a vehicle which is a potential threat.
What the Trump administration has done in Minnesota is flood the airwaves with unfounded charges and conclusions about the event to distract from any possible unbiased investigation. They unfortunately decided that the victim was a deranged leftist trying to run the officer over, and that the officer was defending himself. We now know the victim was a U.S. citizen, a mother of three, and had recently dropped her child off at school. Video footage also suggests at least the second and third shots fired by officer Ross occurred when the officer was to the side of the vehicle as the car was driving away.
Under the law each firing of the gun is analyzed separately. Witness testimony also suggests one of the ICE agents told the driver to MOVE, MOVE, MOVE. Good may have been trying to follow conflicting instructions from different agents. Slow motion video from various angles shows the vehicle appears to have been turning away when the officer fired the first shot, and certainly that was the case by the second and third shot when Good past Ross and clearly driving away. Most law enforcement agencies teach a common rule, do not shoot at a moving car unless your life is in danger. That didn’t happen here.
What’s even more shocking is what came next. No rendering aid. In fact, videos show the ICE agents restraining a man who identified himself as a doctor from going in to check the victim’s condition. There was no securing of the scene. The agents just drove off, leaving an American citizen for dead. That included the shooter, who jogged back to his car and hightailed it out of there, seemingly none for the wear and in no need of medical attention. This is spite of later government claims that he suffered from “internal bleeding.”
Instead of promising accountability, the Trump administration smeared a dead woman as a “domestic terrorist” before the facts were even known. They subsequently barred Minneapolis and Minnesota investigators from reviewing any of the evidence the federal forces gathered.
This is not law enforcement. This is a cover-up. It will not succeed. There is nothing Trump and his officers can do to prevent Minnesota from conducting its own investigation and convening a grand jury. There is nothing that stops the state from indicting and arresting Agent Ross.
The most the federal government can do is try to remove the case to the federal courts. That is likely to succeed. But the state prosecution will continue in the Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota. That court will follow Minnesota state law and rules. The prosecution will be led by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Ross will face a jury of Minneapolis citizens.
As the protests continue, and Trump threatens to move regular United States Army soldiers into Minneapolis, I find this incident proof positive that Trump’s assault on American cities has nothing to do with immigrants. Renee Good was an American born citizen and mother.
Texas, according to Pew Research, has 2.1 million undocumented immigrants. Florida has 1.6 million. Minnesota around 130,000. The difference? Texas and Florida are “red states,” Trump supporters. Minnesota is a “blue state” which votes for Democrats.
This was never about immigration. It was always about terrorizing Trump’s political opposition. His so-called Department of Justice is now reportedly investigating the Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. The terror continues.
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