The Good Shooting May Not Have Been So Good, But the Deeper Implications and ICE Policies Are the Most Frightening

Roughly one week ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was part of another scandal involving the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, and since then, I have seen many different perspectives and video angles all contradicting each other. Conservatives claim that the death was justified because the driver weaponized her vehicle and was attempting to run over the agents, while liberals say that she was simply pulling out into traffic to drive home and had the vehicle turned away from the officers to avoid hitting them. Jonathan Ross, the officer who shot Good and fled the scene and continues to be in hiding, may have experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from a previous incident where he was dragged by a vehicle 300 feet across the road while he was in pursuit of an illegal Mexican immigrant who attempted to flee. This may explain the hastiness in the agent’s approach to the situation, and of course, policing is a high-stress job that requires quick decisions.

Although the evidence does not seem to point to the fact that Good intentionally weaponized her car (she was likely fleeing the situation), there were reports to suggest that she and her partner were part of disruptive anti-ICE protests, and the partner may have even yelled at police right before the incident occurred. However, protesting and yelling at police are not criminal acts, and a person does not deserve to be shot by police because of that. In fact, video evidence now suggests that minutes before the shooting, Good said to the ICE agents, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at you,” indicating that her intentions were not to kill any members of law enforcement.

Before the death, the officers attempted to stop Good and open her car door, and after the shooting, an ICE agent mumbled, “f--king b---h,” showing that the police were being overly aggressive and may have intended to kill her. Why would they see the need to forcibly gain access to her vehicle if no crime had been committed, or was a crime being committed that we have not been made aware of at this point? Interestingly, a Customs and Border Protection report from 2013 (under the Barack Obama presidency) suggested that Border Patrol agents “intentionally and unnecessarily stepped in front of moving cars to justify using deadly force against vehicle occupants.” If that was standard practice then, is it unreasonable to conclude that ICE agents are doing the same today?

Whether this was a case of self-defense or murder remains to be seen, as there are too many conflicting accounts, but right off the bat, Vice President JD Vance suggested that the ICE officer would have “absolute immunity” in this case. Wherever you stand on issues involving law enforcement, it should never be acceptable for officers to disregard the law or established policies just because they are under pressure. In fact, upon serving in the Air Force Security Forces, I was given clear policies on when deadly force was authorized. Without this, officers could shoot anyone because they do not like them and then claim afterwards that there was some sort of unidentified threat. Giving qualified immunity to law enforcement is almost like giving a free pass for murder and other atrocities, and it gives them too much discretion in exercising force against the populace. Plus, as we have seen from the Nuremberg Trials, the excuse of “I was just following orders” does not really cut it. Police need to be held accountable, but I will admit that the problem of policing largely rests at the top. Since there are so many laws on the books and a culture in policing built around quotas and trying to arrest people as a top priority over building relationships with the community, incidents like this are likely to occur, and it is not always the officers’ fault that they were conditioned to act in this type of manner (perhaps some sort of balance would be most prudent).

However, President Donald Trump and his administration would prefer if the public did not digitally record ICE agents on the ground, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said, “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.” What is her definition of harassing? She called it “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online.” Although seven federal circuit courts have ruled that recording federal agents is constitutionally-protected speech under the First Amendment, conservatives have now moved on to their preferred method for violating the Constitution: saying that judges are liberal activists and that only the Supreme Court can rule on such matters (thus, making it less probable that the case can be heard, and therefore, violating the First Amendment would become more of a likely scenario).

In addition to ICE not wanting scrutiny for its day-to-day operations, in the Good case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has decided to prevent the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the general state and city (led by Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey) from investigating the shooting or having access to any of the evidence. The federal government will take complete control of the investigation, and this means that it can publish a final report that Good antagonized the police and that the officer was defending himself without having state officials hold the Trump administration accountable.

Basically, the federal government can conclude anything that it wants without state officials being involved, and we already know that the administration is favorable to the narrative that it was a self-defense shooting. Therefore, we will never really know the truth, and the fact that conservatives who were skeptical of the FBI previously under the Joe Biden administration will now cheer on the decision of and fully trust the FBI now show that there are really no principles or consistency when it comes to wielding power. Of course, the FBI and DHS may very well conclude that this event was a “domestic terrorism” case and that anyone who protests ICE is a violent criminal, and there will never be any evidence released to suggest that terrorism was involved, except for “trust me, bro, it was definitely terrorism.” She was intentionally trying to run over the officer, period, end of story. Without any type of accountability or scrutiny on the FBI and ICE, it seems likely that more of these incidents will regularly occur.

As more and more ICE protests erupt across the country, the Trump administration will be forced to dispatch an increasing number of “troops” into the streets (ICE and the National Guard), and you can water it down and say that it is not the military being deployed because the National Guard will have a limited role and ICE is solely a law enforcement agency. However, our founding fathers opposed having a standing army or police or soldiers patrolling the streets, either way, so call it what you want, but this is not what they envisioned for our country. ICE has already more than doubled in size in the number of agents (up to 22,000 from 10,000 last year), and we can expect further escalations in the months ahead.

As I have mentioned, ICE has detained American citizens, and even dragged them onto the streets and held them without phone calls to loved ones or attorneys (unconstitutional). It has also ramped up blanket surveillance on the populace and partnered with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to screen everyone on the chance that they may be an illegal immigrant (these things violate the Fourth Amendment). DHS has floated the idea that American citizens will be required to carry immigration papers for any travel outside of the home (this is unconstitutional and similar to Nazi Germany), and conservatives used to oppose this type of tyranny, but now, they cheer it on because their almighty savior can do no wrong. The Trump administration wanted to send American criminals to El Salvador, perhaps to avoid legal scrutiny within the United States, and it is now attempting to purchase old warehouses and former distribution centers in order to turn them into makeshift detention centers for the increasing number of illegal immigrants and to avoid local laws that are associated with standard prisons. Additionally, Vice President Vance hinted at the possibility of ICE agents going “door to door” in search of illegal immigrants, and if we get to a point where the federal government is knocking on everyone’s door and asking for papers and immigration status for all citizens, even the most ardent of Trump supporters will have to admit to being fascists.

I hope that all of the people who agree with what the president is doing realize that this is how totalitarianism grows, as nobody wakes up one morning and starts supporting fascism just for the sake of it. It is gradual, and the justifications are convincing to many. It seems probable that the powers that be coerced the Biden administration to intentionally let immigration skyrocket in order to allow the Trump administration to come in and impose draconian measures so that these things could eventually lead to the arrest of citizen dissidents and protesters. If you cheer on the president’s moves now, will you have the same enthusiasm when a Democrat president takes power and sends some agency in for his or her agenda? Perhaps in the next few years, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will be dispatched to the streets to round up everyone’s guns, assisted by the National Guard, and people who speak out against or protest the next Democratic president could be rounded up into local warehouses or concentration camps. If you were consistent and principled, you would have to let Democrats trample on your rights, because after all, ATF agents are just law enforcement doing their job and should not be harassed, and the National Guard can protect them while they steal your guns during “door to door” operations. However, you would almost certainly go back to being outraged, while Democrats would then flip flop and cheer on the overuse of military power. Both sides are hypocritical, but they never see it, and therefore, we bicker back and forth on when government power is a useful tool for agendas instead of seeing the bigger picture: global elites use authoritarianism to their advantage and thrive on the political division.

As Americans, we have a culture, history, and tradition of freedom and fighting back against tyranny, so it is on us to ensure that we are protected from further encroachment on our rights. We should not sit idly by and wait for the courts or some new political figure to save us from our plight. No, we the people must decide if we want the current administration to continue bringing us down the dark path of justifying draconian illegal immigration policies and gradually applying them to American citizens. If we do not stop this while it is in its infancy, it will be much more difficult once full-scale totalitarianism becomes reality. President Trump may be building on the precedents set by his predecessors, but it is what future presidents do with the current administration’s policies that should be the most concerning.

Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.