ICE Kills, Noem and Trump Lie
Just another day under this administration.
Yesterday, an ICE agent fired into a moving vehicle to kill Renee N. Goode, a 37-year-old mother of a 6-year-old. To add to the tragedy, Goode was a widow whose husband died in 2023, meaning the surviving child has now lost both parents in the span of less than 3 years.
In my view, which I believe the video evidence clearly corroborates, this was an unnecessary and unjustified execution of an American citizen who, at worst, temporarily blocked ICE vehicles on a Minneapolis street. This is what happens when an administration unnecessarily unleashes poorly trained, armed agents on the populace to enforce unpopular policies. Further, it shows that the priority is terrorizing citizens and noncitizens alike into compliance and elevates violence, including lethal violence, as a key tool of state power.
Make no mistake: these actions, combined with the reactions by Trump, Noem, and others with power (as well as their media surrogates), are hallmarks of authoritarian governance and they are fascistic by definition. None of this is hyperbole, although I am sure that defenders of the administration who seek to rationalize their way in accepting the “official” version will accuse this assessment of being alarmist. If you read this and think that, in fact, the violence and the lying are justified, I would suggest some self-introspection.
I am not going to say that mine is a thoroughly dispassionate assessment, as I will admit to being genuinely upset about this incident. Not only is it an utterly unjust act perpetrated against a citizen, but it is yet another disturbing landmark on our national march towards illiberalism. But I will say that my assessment, that the shooting combined with officials blatantly lying, is a hallmark of fascistic authoritarianism that further signals our decline into illiberalism, is a professional one, regardless of my more emotional views of the event.
I sincerely grieve for Goode and for our country.
As a side note, and to be clear, I am well aware of the past examples of law enforcement using non-compliance as a justification for fatal shooting (for example, see my 2020 post, Should Noncompliance be a Capital Offense?). So, sadly, this general attitude has been encoded in American society for some time. I think this shooting is more raw because it is linked to a federal deployment of agents who seem to care little about the niceties of due process, and who are clearly acting as part of a xenophobic and racist set of policies. Moreover, this killing was perhaps in response to a very mild form of civil disobedience. It is a commentary on America’s history with this sort of incident that I have to sadly admit that I hope the fact that this was a blond, White woman, instead of a Black male, will garner more attention than is normally the case.
Let’s look at the details.
Here’s a slow-motion version of the shooting.
See also the following, which I fully recommend:
It is blatantly obvious to me that the following things are true:
- She was not attempting to use the vehicle as a weapon. (Look at her wheels–she is clearly trying to drive away). What would you do if masked men were yelling at you?
- She was not otherwise armed.
- The ICE agent who was roughly in front of the car could have easily stepped out of harm’s way if he thought he was in any jeopardy. Also, if you watch the NYT video, you can see that the ICE operative who killed Goode was casually filming her car with his phone in his left hand right before he pulled his weapon.
- The worst thing she could possibly be said to have done is temporarily impeding the ICE vehicles on this road. But, I would note, that before the confrontation began, she was not fully blocking the road, and was waving vehicles past. Ultimately, she was not much more than an annoyance to ICE.
None of that justifies her execution.
Here’s a clip of her waving cars through before the shooting (which can also be seen in the NYT piece):
It seems worth pointing out that NPR reported this morning that an eyewitness reported that contradictory orders were shouted at Goode, including orders to stop and orders to move the vehicle.
Here’s another eyewitness account:
I cannot stress enough that the idea that simple noncompliance with law enforcement carries the penalty of summary execution in this country is grossly unjust, if not simply evil. And yet far too many Americans are okay with that.
For example, a member of Congress:
For emphasis, please read again: “The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them, and then you get to keep your life.”
Non-compliance equals summary execution. Because, you know, feds can take your life whenever they want, so if you want to keep it, comply!
And people think it is unfair to call them fascists…
Meanwhile, just like Hunt, Noem and Trump were actively engaged in lying about what happened (source).
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the woman was “stalking and impeding” officers throughout the day and tried to “weaponise her vehicle” in an attempt to run over the officer in an act of “domestic terrorism”.
The federal agent fired “defensive shots” and was himself injured, Noem said, before he was treated and discharged from a local hospital.
Trump, of course, had to escalate even further.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said an ICE officer was “viciously” run over. “It is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital,” he wrote.
Here’s the whole post:
Not only is it pretty clear that Goode was trying to drive away and not toward the ICE agent, but he could easily have moved out of the path of the vehicle and, indeed, calmly walked away after the incident. Nothing in the video above or other videos shows anything that suggests an injury.
Here is a post-shooting clip of the man in question (it is the same maroon colored face-covering, and he still has his phone in his left hand):
To put it bluntly, ICE murdered a woman right in front of our noses because this administration has decided that rounding up as many immigrants as possible is their paramount mission, and violence is entirely justified if all persons, citizens or no, don’t respect their authority in as obsequious a manner as possible.
No wonder these guys wear face coverings.
The administration wants its followers to reject “the evidence of [their] eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Make no mistake, that is exactly what is going on here.
I would note that the lies are for MAGA–they don’t care what the rest of us think. I would note that, too, is a hallmark of authoritarianism and anti-democratic values: all that matters is maintaining enough public support to remain in power and to act as one wishes. There is no notion of public service or of a general welfare.
********************@
“Do as we tell you and nobody gets hurt.”
Thank goodness there’s video of this. Without it, it would likely devolve into a “he said, she said” about what happened and quickly forgotten. I hope the video is seen far and wide, because it’s pretty clear that this guy should be charged with murder, and the heads of our government are blatantly and grotesquely lying to us. (Even with the video, I’ve seen plenty of trolls/bots/awful human beings try to justify their team’s behavior.)
To add a bit more, the shooter definitely shot at least once at point blank range when he was at the driver’s side window (i.e. at the side of the vehicle that was moving away from him). Absolutely no justification.
After the shooting, apparently a doctor was nearby and was prevented from assisting, being told “who cares”.
They’re recruiting thugs and that’s just who they’re getting. Probably more than a few psychopaths who think they’re at war with “libtards”.
This is disgusting. I think if any justice comes of this, it will be dependent on whether or not the shot fired from the front on the truck hit her in a fatal place. There is absolutely no way to justify the shots from the side. I’m not saying the shot from the front is in any way not murder, but a good lawyer and reasonable doubt could be the key to getting charges dismissed.
I’m not so sure about this.
The DC/insider MAGAs won’t care, obviously.
Your MAGA neighbor, friend (if you still have those), or family member, however, will care – as long as the question whether the government may impose the death penalty for non-compliance doesn’t remain a matter of “mere,” i.e., abstract political disagreement.
I suspect that if you tell them that pro-murder people – them included – can get fucked as far as you are concerned they won’t take it equanimously.
That’s not without some obvious costs, though. But it may be necessary at this point.
@drj:
A lot of them are so deep in the Conservative bubble they will not believe anything that contradicts the “Conservative” version.
The MAGA people will always support police violence that is not aimed at them. We have the video showing the shooter was not injured so the lies by Noel and Trump are painfully obvious, but they make painfully obvious lies frequently and their supporters (cult) still believe them. The best that will happen is that the shooter is prosecuted and convicted but it will go to SCOTUS and they will uphold his actions.
Steve
@charontwo:
I don’t see this as a way to convince them, rather as a way of showing them that their behavior has actual consequences.
It’s easy to laugh at liberal tears, less easy to accept that some people won’t talk to you anymore.
Maybe 10 or 12 years ago when I was on Google Plus, we all looked at a video of a police officer in Las Vegas detaining a young man (who a convenience store owner had apparently complained about). The officer told the young man to remove his hands from his pockets, and the young man refused.
The officer proceeded to use a martial-arts technique to ground the young man – a painful one, but not one that caused any injury and cuff him.
At the time, I argued that this was well within police procedural rights, and a predictable outcome of a defiant act.
Many of my fellow travellers did not like this opinion.
AND, in all my years of interacting with both police officers and prison guards in my martial arts world, not a single one of them has argued that shooting for non-compliance was an appropriate response.
Not one.
I’m not sure that a qualified immunity defense will hold up, since this is such a commonly understood concept. Shooting someone who is fleeing the scene is not really acceptable either, unless there are other factors in play. Shooting someone not known or expected to be armed while fleeing the scene again, well-understood.
That “well-understood” part seems to me like it would cancel out qualified immunity. So that congressman is an idiot as well as a fascist. At least the White House understands this, which is why they are going with the “self-defense” line.
Thank you for continuing to pound on this and your message “if one doesn’t want to be called a fascist, then simply shouldn’t behave like a fascist.”
We are never going to get Trump, Noem, Miller, and the various mouthpieces to change their behaviors. These cretins are simply set in their ways and they think that are right. But, I believe we can still get somewhere with guilt by association. EVERY interview or Q&A with the Congressional GOP should lead with “So you are okay with summary execution for any non-compliance?”
We have squandered the humanity civilization gave us.
Until Congress exercises its fundamental power of appropriations nothing will change. Yes, it is time to shut down government, take away funding from Homeland Security, the White House, DOJ, and even the Supreme Court. It is the only way to modify behavior.
Add cover-up to the murder:
They aren’t just lying, they are laying it on THICK.
Vance has called Good’s actions “domestic terrorism.”
The NYT is reporting that the administration is sending 100 ADDITIONAL CPB agents to MN.
As noted above, the FBI is not allowing Minnesota’s investigative unit from participating in the case.
This is all absolutely unacceptable.
I have come across many accounts of this event,
This one is an extraordinarily detained analysis:
“Charlie Sykes“
The BBC Verify video analysis of this makes it pretty obvious that the admistration version of this is a crock.
The car only moves at speed after Ms. Good was shot, and was pretty certainly dead or dying.
I can’t claim to be familiar with US law on such matters, but this looks totally unjustifiable under any reasonable standard.
@JohnSF:
Look at it from a white supremacy perspective.
Here’s this woman impeding their violent actions to defend immigrants. She then defies their orders, and at the last tries to leave the scene.
In their eyes, she’s a traitor. She’s also a woman defying men. She’s obviously the worst of the worst.
Paul Campos at LGM quotes John Ganz, Ganz begins with a quote,
Campos goes on, quoting Ganz at length. Well worth reading.
@gVOR10: I read that about an hour ago. Cosign on the value.
Lies need to be recognized and labelled as lies. It is essential work. Also, people need to understand that they are not alone. This is also essential work.
Covid gave us a wave of loneliness and isolation that I don’t think we’ve entirely recovered from even now. This creates opportunities for the fascists.
@Kathy: Nice bit of satire. It rings true, but they won’t articulate it that way. If they had the introspection to check their own motives, they wouldn’t admit to it.
Reading that the two sides don’t understand each other is becoming a pet peeve with me. Most of us peruse a variety of sources, they get FOX “News” and X. We’re the side with education, imagination, and empathy. We do largely understand them. But reading conservative commentary and comments, I see little sign they understand us.
I have been thinking about Kent State – the Kent State shootings in 1970. The only time I ever skipped class in all my time as an undergrad was the day of the 5th anniversary of Kent State. Everybody took that day off at UW.
So, to remember what folks said about it at the time, here is a photo of a page from Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland. Be warned, it is strong stuff, probably more alarming that stuff we’re seeing now: https://x.com/mattdpearce/status/1783236194094186786
However the strong stuff wasn’t coming from the government, which dialed things back some.
@gVOR10:
Satire?
According to her ex-husband, with who she was still close, she had just dropped of her kid at school, and wasn’t at the protest intentionally. According to her mother, she had never been a protest in her life. According to her neighbor, she didn’t follow politics.
Will any of that information get widely disseminated?
@gVOR10:
Thanks for that.
A very good piece.
Interesting to see Leszek Kołakowski getting a mention; his Main Currents of Marxism is a valuable intlellectual history, and in part chronicles how Marxism morphed from an honest, if flawed, socialist critique of society into a increasingly mendacious justifications for political opportunism and party rule under Lenin, and finally into Stalin’s “monstrous edifice of lies, exploitation and oppression.”
A rule founded upon lies has a inherent tendency to become essentially inimical to basic human values.
It might have been hoped that after the painful history of the 20th century that lesson would have been learnt.
Seems not.
At least, not when power and corruption are in play.
@EddieInCA: I understand that her prior husband died. Was this perhaps the father of her prior husband?
@JohnSF: My personal understanding of this is that ‘lessons learned’ last in the public consciousness about 50 years. You know, about the amount of time it takes for everyone who was involved in it as an adult to die.
@Joe: I think you have it right. That was her ex FIL.
@Jay L. Gischer: @Joe:
According to this USA Today account:
@Scott:
@Jay L. Gischer:
@Joe:
I have wrong opinions all the time. I usually don’t get facts wrong. It was her ex-husband, NOT the father in law. That it’s a question on this site makes my point for me.
By the time the truth is actually published, she’ll already have been branded forever as an Antifa-Loving, Marxist, Domestic Terrorist who was organizing protests and vowing to kill ICE agents at every opportunity. The facts say she was a mom who didn’t involve herself in protests, and had three kids, one whom she had just dropped off at school.
People suck.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Perhaps.
But the innoculation of the UK against both absolutism and revolutionary extremism lasted a good long while.
(Albeit largely to the benefit of the gentry and the industrialists rather than the peasntry and urban working class).
otoh, the present rise of various parties of the far right and the delulu-left in Europe tends to favour the “50 years and done” hypothesis.
*sighs* *sobs*
@EddieInCA: Well, that’s a complex bio. You had it right.
And yes, people suck. I have seen evidence of that pretty much every day of my life. It’s not the whole story. People shine, too. Along with sucking. But yeah, that’s just a built-in part of living.
And now the brownshirts shot two in Portland.
Reports say not fatally. there’s little other info thus far.
@gVOR10: @JohnSF:
The thing is, that line of reasoning only works from the specific vantage point of some politically engaged people. The general view is that all politicians lie all the time.
So, at best, difference of degree, not kind.
Among engaged partisans:
-one side lies more than the other; and/or
-one side may lie about x, y, and z, but that’s worth it to have a government that acknowledges truths a, b, and c.
A thousand times this.
-we all saw what happened on January 6. The rioters themselves video-taped it. They tell us to believe a different story.
-we all saw what happened to George Floyd. They’re telling us to believe a different story.
-we all saw what happened in Charlottesville. They’re telling us to believe a different story.
-we all saw how Ashli Babbit died. They’re telling us to believe a different story.
One of the most insane aspects of our modern society is that (a) nothing happens that isn’t on video; (b) this has not weakened the hold that propagandist liars have on society. If anything, it’s strengthened it.
Trump, Vance, ICE, and the rest of MAGA are all such trash. Renee Good being maybe just a mother who dropped her kid off at school and got stuck on a street is going to trigger them even more than if she were an activist or something.
Nothing triggers an abuser more than a woman doing domestic labor and getting in their way.
I don’t think that’s correct. I suggest the lies are told quite deliberately in the expectation they will inflame opposition to the regime. It’s been pretty obvious for months Trump wants a repeat of the 2020 “cities burning to the ground across America” narrative. The Portland protesters foiled him by dressing up in animal costumes. Perhaps he’ll have more success in George Floyd territory, especially if he insults everyone’s intelligence with egregious lies about the latest murder victim.
@EddieInCA: Per Wikipedia, she was married three times:
First husband still alive, 2 kids
Second husband deceased, 1 kid
Wife, no kids
I expect that this has caused confusion with reporters because they’ve been sniffing glue or whatever.
And a father in law has made comments about his granddaughter having no one and that he was on his way to Minnesota, but due to reporters sniffing glue, I don’t think we know who that is the father of (probably the second husband), and whether he he was quoted accurately or understood the implications of what he was saying if it was accurate (is he coming to try to take a kid away from her siblings and step-mother? maybe, maybe not. ).
Source, which will presumably be updated as spouses are discovered or disproven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ren%C3%A9e_Good