The death of Renee Good last week at the hands of an ICE agent is a tragedy that should act as a wake-up call for all of us. We find ourselves in a crisis here in the United States, one that will most likely get worse before it gets better. To say that it was inevitable that someone was going to get hurt is an understatement. The ICE agents being sent out into our streets are armed and poorly trained while the protestors who disagree with both the mission and existence of ICE can act in unpredictable ways. It is a recipe for disaster. That disaster came to fruition last week in Minneapolis. What has been lost in the political and partisan debates in the aftermath of the shooting is that three children are now without their mother, two teenagers and a six-year-old. The current situation in the United States is unsustainable. The presence of ICE agents in our cities, people we have been told are here to make us safer, are, in fact, creating the opposite effect.
Before Good’s body was even cold, the current administration branded her a “domestic terrorist” and said that the ICE agent was acting in self-defense. That version of events is contradicted by the videos that were taken of the tragedy from various angles. From the agent’s own cellphone video, Good tells him that she’s not mad at him and tries to drive away. In response, he fires three rounds at point blank range into her head and calls her a “f*cking b*tch.”
What should frighten American citizens is that this administration will lie about you and call you a domestic terrorist after executing you. Even in the face of video evidence that shows the exact opposite. They are hoping that you will believe their propaganda rather than your eyes. These are the kinds of scenes that play out in third-world countries but certainly shouldn’t in the United States. Even if she was impeding the agents, does protesting carry a death penalty in the United States now? Is this the land of the free that we all grew up learning about?
Across this country for the past year, since the rise of the current administration, masked, unnamed agents in unmarked cars have been pulling people off of the streets. The videos of these encounters are everywhere on the internet. In almost all of these interactions, the armed government agents escalate the situation by screaming, cussing, and putting their weapons in people’s faces. The burden must be on the government employees with guns to de-escalate these situations. Yet, video after video shows the opposite. Those videos also show ICE agents confronting the people recording them, trying to violently take their phones from them. American citizens have a right to record government agents in public. These are not the actions of people who are trying to make us safer, these are the actions of people who are trying to make us afraid.
We can see this in the footage of the encounter that ended with Good’s execution. As she is trying to get away from the agents, another agent aggressively approaches her vehicle and tries to enter, this leads to her being panicked. Had he not done this, there would be no question about whether an ICE agent was fearing for his life or not. In addition, the agent who fired the rounds placed himself in front of her vehicle, placing himself in harm’s way, although he is clear of the vehicle and to the side when he fires at least two of the three rounds. Had the agents not escalated the situation and placed themselves in harm’s way, there’s a good chance that tragedy could have been avoided.
Officers sworn to protect the American people should not use gunfire unless their lives are in imminent danger, which was clearly not the case in Minneapolis last week. Unfortunately, it appears that the Trump administration has declared war on those who would dare oppose him and it seems as though the punishment for dissent is now death.
I leave you today with a few thoughts from the Declaration of Independence:
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior power to the Civil power.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:”
There’s no doubt where the Founders would have stood on this issue. You cannot claim to be a patriot and support what happened in Minneapolis.