> And don’t forget where the bad choices began. President Donald Trump has ordered ICE to carry out a heavy-handed campaign of rounding up illegal immigrants. Kristi Noem has supervised a paramilitary group that goes around masked and acts like a law unto itself. This kind of gung-ho, confrontational behavior was inevitably going to result in tragedy.
This is true, but I'd also add the attitude of liberal protestors of talking about LE as a modern day gestapo (while also simultaneously finding them so u threatening they feel perfectly safe blocking them with their vehicles) to the list of causes of unnecessary escalation in this situation.
There's no contradiction between holding that an on-the-street terrorist action by the government is blatantly illegal; holding that it's dangerous; and protesting it by defying it. Don't you know anything about Selma or Oxford Town or Kent State or Stonewall?
Are you an American? Do you have any historical awareness of the Boston Tea Party? Tyrannical oppression must be resisted. (Which reminds me — where are all the Second Amendment freaks who are supposed to have accumulated their arsenals for exactly this situation: to fight off an out-of-control oppressive and violent government?)
I think you're taking this a bit over the top. ICE are enforcing fairly anodyne immigration law (if often doing it in a needlessly inflammatory way). They're not some kind of illegal tyrannical posse.
Read what I wrote in my longer comment. The entire thing is completely unconstitutional. ICE has no jurisdiction over American citizens. They are operating away from their purview which is border cities and border-adjacent communities (they have been sent to Minneapolis at the President's discretion for political reasons). What happened is a serious crime and a watershed moment in our history just like Kent State and the other examples I gave.
This is a common misconception. ICE can legally operate in the U.S. interior (i.e., away from the border) to arrest, detain, and remove noncitizens who are removable under federal immigration law. They also have some (limited) forms of jurisdiction over citizens who are actively impeding them in their lawful duties (although the laws about this get complicated).
They can arrest, detain and remove noncitizens. You said it yourself.
Respectfully, please read my longer comment about law enforcement procedures and the strict laws that govern them. I just get tired of writing this elementary stuff over and over because people somehow can't read it or absorb it.
Just to be clear, are you saying that ICE has no authority to arrest citizens impeding thier work? Hypothetically, if there were like a human wall, would they just have to like try to red rover thier way through it or go home?
A retard from Manhattan, what a surprise. ICE officers are sworn law enforcement they have the power to arrest people for any violation of the law. Spoiler; obstruction of law enforcement is an arrestable offence.
But they didn’t arrest her, did they? They didn’t warn her; ask her to stop the car; ask her to show her hands; tell her she’s being detained. They just shot her dead — and all you MAGAs are working as hard as you can to convince yourselves this is legitimate law-enforcement behavior.
This is exactly the level of retardation one expects from a New Yorker writer.
When a law enforcement officer tells you to get out of the vehicle you are being detained. She decided she didn't want to be detained and was willing to use a deadly weapon to avoid that. This why she got shot in the face.
You apparently have not read or watched videos of ICE actions. They are anything but anodyne. They are unprecedented. They go far beyond acting on judicial warrants to arrest criminal illegal aliens. And yes, they do bring SA and Gestapo tactics to mind. We blame the ordinary Germans for looking the other way; we must not do the same.
You apparently have not read or watched videos of ICE actions. They are anything but anodyne. They are unprecedented. They go far beyond acting on judicial warrants to arrest criminal illegal aliens. And yes, they do bring SA and Gestapo tactics to mind. We blame the ordinary Germans for looking the other way; we must not do the same.
Well, we're certainly not strapping up to fight on behalf of people calling us "freaks", often the same people who have trying to illegally disarm us for decades.
What are you even talking about? Who's "illegally disarming" you? Gun laws have become systematically more lax over the past few decades under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.
And anyway what has that got to do with Ross/Good? Why are his defenders so concerned with his mood and state of mind and whether it was "justified" (as if discussing a child) rather than the ironclad constitutional laws that govern all such interactions between drivers and law enforcement (including the clear cut fact that ICE has no jurisdiction over citizens)?
I've encountered you before and I hold your sloppy thinking and impulsive, simplified Conservative polemics in very low regard.
Why am I not surprised that you don't know what you're talking about? Do you even know what a Bruen response bill is, and how many blue states have passed them in open defiance of the supreme court? How about all of the hardware bans and carry restrictions being advanced across blue America?
As to the relevance, did you not read your own comment I was responding to? You also seem misinformed regarding what police powers ICE has, as they absolutely can arrest people who are interfering with their operations, as these women were.
The state-level pushback against SCOTUS (especially in the wake of the Alito and Thomas authored decisions about New York open carry) are obviously examples of action the other way but they don't change what I said about how the overwhelming trend in national gun policy has been the other direction.
ICE agents "cannot legally arrest or deport a U.S. citizen," full stop.
They have federal law enforcement authority, which means they can in fact detain someone who is committing a crime, such as impeding them in their duties.
If the Nazi Pedophiles would prefer not to be known as Nazi Pedophiles, they could stop doing Papers Please Style Nazi tactics, like executing citizens in the street, and they could quit working for and supporting a pedophile, and pow, they're not pedophile nazis anymore. When there aren't any people acting like pedophile nazis anymore, people will stop calling them pedophile nazis.
In this case, there were no arrests being made (or impeded), no officer had been assaulted when they demanded she exit the car. The car wasn't even entirely blocking the road
I'm sorry but anybody trying to argue in any way that the shooting is "justified" by anything she or her wife did, is just outrageously, direly wrong. It's possible to argue that the situation prompted Ross to shoot, but that's like saying that JFK's presence in Dallas prompted Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot — the whole thing is so completely framed in extra-legal and blatantly unconstitutional practices (including his glaring lack of any real training and his obvious temperamental and ideological unsuitability for the job) that any attempt to lessen the burden of his guilt by discussing what Good "shouldn't have" done must be dismissed out of hand.
Hundreds or thousands of criminal trials have hinged on exactly these details: What did the cop say; when did he unholster; did he identify himself; how many warnings; what stance etc. Everyone who’s ever been pulled over or seen YouTube videos of vehicular stops (and there are thousands of those, too) knows all about this. There have been SCOTUS cases that hinge on state and federal laws that concern this behavior by police and Federal agents, because (as the entire society knows) these are important life-or-death questions. Officers (real officers who get legitimate police academy training) spend months on these questions and can be expelled if they can’t absorb or follow them.
And even if you want to go beyond black-and-white laws and get into psychology (which everyone on the conservative side is doing; he didn’t “feel” safe) there is just no room to maneuver given what the whole world has seen of the situation. Trials have hinged on that, too — on police fear leading to untoward violence — and it's clear that the standards applied are way, way more stringent than anything going on right now in terms of absurd claims that his thigh was brushed by the edge of the fender or whatever (and please don’t pick apart this example).
I know in an egalitarian society we're supposed to be even-handed and I know there are a lot of people who are on his side (because they have been led over the years into a completely indefensible and un-American state of mind wherein shock tactics like this are permissible or desirable) but this is an open and shut case. The instant you start talking about Ross' mood or feelings you've lost the plot, full stop.
I agree with your take, just want to point out that some reports say Ross is not untrained but a veteran, an experienced LEO, and a firearms instructor. (My takeaway is that his defensive shooting reflexes were obviously quick, but his training totally failed in the critical moment. Hopefully the unnecessary second and third shots plus the words he uttered afterward will haunt him forever).
- ICE has no authority to detain or arrest anyone except those they can reasonably suspect are undocumented. So there is nothing "foolish" about the Goods wanting to leave the scene.
- Ross fired two more shots, the first through the open drivers side window mere inches from Good's head, LONG AFTER the car had passed him. And the third shot was fired after she was at least 6 feet past him.
If this was a private carjacker instead of a government-paid one, it would be an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder.
So don't give us any of this "on the other hand" balderdash.
"ICE has no authority to detain or arrest anyone except those they can reasonably suspect are undocumented. So there is nothing "foolish" about the Goods wanting to leave the scene...If this was a private carjacker instead of a government-paid one, it would be an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder."
Hmm, this is a really interesting framing. To repeat a question I asked above, if there were like a human wall of white people trying to stop them from going somewhere, would they really have no options but to like try to red rover thier way through it or go home? I'm really surprised they have no ability to arrest people impeding thier work.
ICE agents have the power to stop, detain and arrest people they suspect of being in the US illegally. They can detain US citizens in limited circumstances, such as if a person interferes with an arrest, assaults an officer, or ICE suspect the person of being in the US illegally.
That’s pretty much what I said. They are trying to stretch the “interfering with an arrest” factor beyond anything rational, claiming that any protester anywhere near ICE agents are “interfering.” They’re even claiming that people following them or recording them are “interfering.” That is a lie. There was no “arrest” under way. Good was clearly leaving the scene to avoid being dragged out of her car and detained or worse.
Right. I just mean that the agents telling her to get out of the car had the authority to do so, at least potentially - it doesn't look like she was blocking them since I saw in the video someone drove around her, but I don't know for sure what happened before all the videos.
Well, I’ll leave it to the experts but I’m pretty sure I’ve read that they cannot order someone out of their car. And given the many many times we’ve seen ICE throwing people to the ground, handcuffing them, and taking them away, it would be petty foolish to comply.
The intentions of the smiling mother of three are entirely irrelevant to whether the shooting was justified or not. I am utterly indifferent as to whether she had murder, intimidation, flight, or some combination thereof on her mind because her intent isn't what matters on the question of self-defense.
To understand why, imagine if she'd stepped out of the vehicle with a water gun that looked like a real firearm and aimed it at the officer with the intent to squirt him. What do you suppose would happen next?
Obviously, she'd be shot, and there would be no question that the shooting was justified because any reasonable officer in that position would have believed his life to be in imminent danger.
Now rewind to the actual incident. There are two points which are not up for dispute:
1. Her vehicle began accelerating straight towards the officer BEFORE her wheels turned to the right, however briefly.
2. The vehicle made contact with the officer, as evidenced by the sound of the impact coinciding with its trajectory in the officer's cell phone footage, and the grudging admission of the Mayor of Minneapolis who tried to downplay the officer's injuries.
The unavoidable conclusion of this is that while she evaded arrest for the crime of obstructing federal law enforcement (the latter being a misdemeanor and the former being a felony), she accelerated her vehicle towards the officer. Any reasonable officer in that position would have regarded his own life to have been in danger, because now, she's engaging in apparent vehicular assault--REGARDLESS of whether that is her intention or not.
Assault with a deadly weapon (in this case, a two-ton bullet that you can turn) warrants a lethal response.
The picture of the dog that this article included is cute and will succeed in stirring up sympathy among some readers, but the cold legal reality is set in stone. The event was awful, but lawful.
He gave a live press release where he grudgingly acknowledged that the officer had sustained a minor injury from the impact. Despite his best efforts to downplay it, this means that the vehicle's trajectory intersected with the officer's position while the suspect was fleeing arrest.
"The ICE agent walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door with his hips." Are you serious? That's clearly a sarcastic comment, likely meaning that Ross pushed against the car.
Cathy, we all saw the video footage. He wasn't moving towards the center of the vehicle when it approached, he was jumping away from the center. And the vehicle still made contact with his hip. What do you suppose would have happened if he'd remained in place instead of moving away from the center? It would have struck him more directly. The mayor's admission of contact settles this entire dispute.
He didn’t jump backwards. It’s pretty clear if you look at the video from the left of the car and the cell phone video together. When his feet move backward, that’s the car pushing him maybe a foot backwards. He loses balance briefly then fires.
1. On the cell phone footage, the sound is him banging his phone against his vest as he pulls that hand back while he draws his gun. It’s questionable whether she hit him or not, but it is certain that even if he was, he unholstered his firearm prior to being hit. Therefore that sound is not the car hitting him. The times don’t line up. I tried to listen to hear if we can hear the car hitting him at the time that would line up, but if it occurs, the phone is too muffled against his body to hear it.
2. You bring up a bad thought experiment. There is only one reason to point a gun at an officer. Obviously if you point a fake gun you’re gonna get shot. There are, however, many reasons to move a car. Every. Single. Iota. Of. Evidence. Points to Good attempting to flee, not to ram. Here is a better thought experiment. A cop pulls over a driver to search the car for drugs, or give him a ticket or whatever. Now, this cop is an idiot, so he steps in front of the vehicle. He is standing at the corner of the car. Now the driver cranks the steering wheel all the way away from the officer, in plain view, while the officer is staring at them and begins to move. What would any officer not on crack do? Fucking move. They wouldn’t freeze in place and take the time to get into a shooting positing, increasing the risk to themselves, in order to shoot the driver. In this scenario, everyone would agree that the cop was guilty. You shouldn’t run form the cops, it’s not like the driver was in the right, but the driver was not a lethal threat, and if there was any threat at all, the officer was increasing their own risk. In no way was the officer using lethal force to reduce danger to anyone. It’s only because it’s ICE and polarization has broken people’s brains that there is any disagreement about this.
How relevant is the direction of the tire? Ross isn't looking at the tire. He can't calculate tire angles in a split-second out of his peripheral vision.
That's a good point. Hopefully you will grant that she isn't looking at Ross when she decides to depart, either. She's looking at the guy shouting at her to her left.
I think all the instant replay analysis of tire angles is a bit precious. Good backs up, lining the front of the car squarely towards the agent before she accelerates forward. She is turning the tires/wheels after that, but I doubt that was obvious to someone suddenly facing a car accelerating towards them. That we are debating *if* she hit him suggests that in-the-moment interpreting she intended to is not outlandish. If she was close enough to "brush" him, it was too close. Utterly reckless.
This all happened really fast, training and reaction times being what they are, if the first shot was justified, the following 2 in the string, all within about a half second, were just an extension of the initial decision to shoot. And that initial decision was probably made at moment she started driving towards him, but it takes time to bring up the gun, etc. Again, that the car had started to change direction by time the shots start isn't really indicative of much given reaction, processing time.
I’m surprised how many commenters are saying Good was at fault because she moved the car forward.
LE officers are, or are supposed to be, trained to not put themselves in front of a vehicle and to not shoot into a vehicle moving away from them.
Seriously, all Ross had to do was take a step back from the vehicle. Instead, due to ramped up adrenaline and roiling anger, he CHOSE to shoot Good in the face. A completely wrong headed and tragic decision.
100% agreed. I've watched all the videos and thought about it a lot, and heard others analyze it. Your words here mirror my thoughts. Unfortunately a lot of people
ignore that both parties played a role, and focus on the politics and finger pointing. (I wrote my second ever Substack post about this topic, I'd link it here, but I don't know how).
None of this changes the fact that she instigated the entire situation, she refused to comply with lawful orders, and she accelerated at an armed federal agent.
It's easy to play armchair quarterback, freeze framing every millisecond of the interaction and scrutinizing every split-second decision this officer was forced to make, but the bottom line is she made a series of terrible choices that got herself killed.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
That cuts both ways. She did make terrible choices, in hindsight. So did the shooter. He could easily have stepped aside and not shot and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Bottom line, her death is asking us all to honestly clock our biases, isn't it?
The author of this piece is making a fundamental error in analysis. It’s not what viewers of these videos see from a wide angle, and with perfect hindsight, that matters. It’s what the parties involved could see.
So I think it is important to note that while we can see that Good appeared to be turning to the right, and away from the officer, Officer Ross was not in a great position to see that. Firstly, he was probably looking at the driver. Second, and more important, he was right in front of the hood. Which would’ve obstructed any view he had as to which way the wheels were turning. It is highly likely that all he saw was a car moving forwards in his direction. And let’s face it, the car did make contact.
I cannot say that I personally have a strong bias one way or the other in this case. I just tend to see nuance. I don’t think the driver intended to hurt the officer. And I also do not think that the officer was there to just shoot some driver. The real, and harder questions need to deal with all sides of the issue. When it comes to that, it’s important to note that Officer Ross IS a law enforcement officer, whether you like the laws that he is enforcing or not. And the agency that he works for is clearly dealing with public interference on a regular basis.
Which brings me to Good’s position in all of this. It was incumbent upon her to also recognize that he is a law-enforcement officer, as well as the fact that she was engaging in civil disobedience that went beyond peaceful protesting, and free speech. She was breaking the law in interfering with their operations. Whether she agreed with those operations or not. When you are engaging with civil disobedience of this type, part of the deal is that you need to be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions. You are making a statement, but you need to accept the consequences. Just as many civil rights activist over the years have done, including Martin Luther King Jr., who accepted prison as part of his movement. Just like Gandhi did. Just like Mandela did. It sucks, but it is part of the game. It is also what lends legitimacy to your cause.
To me, the takeaways from the situation are for everybody. Immigration enforcement officers need to review their policies, and enforce their policies. It was not a wise move for Ross to be standing in front of the vehicle. And training should certainly emphasize that shooting into a moving vehicle when there are plenty of other people around should not be a routine first reaction. He had pictures of their license plates, and they could’ve just apprehended her safely later in the day. The protesters, however, need to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror. Because Obama deported far more people than this administration has, and they were all at home watching TV at the time. So some reflection is in order about how much danger they are putting themselves in with more and more extreme tactics to fight something that they simply did not care about a few short years ago.
If Obama deported more people than this administration has, and they were all home watching TV when they were apprehended, that seems to be evidence that filling the cities with gangs of armed thugs, picking people up based solely on their skin color (even Native Americans!) is not necessary for immigration enforcement. Maybe that's the part that has people so angry.
This is the crux right here: "What is Good’s goal at this point? To me, it seems she’s preparing to turn right and (foolishly) try to get away from the ICE agents. Not everyone agrees."
I do not buy at all that Good was trying to run anyone over. When you watch the video that seems totally clear to me. But she made the same ole mistake we often see on police cam videos: She was given a command by an authority person with a gun. They're trying to open her door. Ross is clearly standing right in front of the car. What you do here is easy and obvious: You immediately stop driving and you comply 100% with whatever they say. Ideally you put your hands up while you're at it. I have personal experience with this. You never, EVER disobey a command. And the fact that she tried to drive off? What did she think was going to happen? They were just gonna let her go? She obstructed them.
The fact that her door was locked, that she stayed inside her car, that she tried to drive off: These are what got her killed. And her wife trash-taking the agents didn't help.
So she deserved summary execution for not obeying the commands of masked men with guns and no badges. The rush to defend literal jack booted thugs killing unarmed American citizens is amazing to me. Cool, cool.
"Those" did not have her killed like you claim, a rogue officers actions and choices have her killed. Yes "those" contributed, but you seem to exonorate the real guilty and responsible party almost for free.
I've watched every video out there, including the one from Ross's cam. I think the most likely explanation here is that he killed her because he wanted to, and he figured that getting barely grazed by her vehicle would give him legal cover, particularly given the stance of the current administration. Like the author of the piece, I also thought that Kyle Rittenhouse probably should never have been charged in the first place, and the left hardly covered itself in glory in its response to the Jacob Blake shooting. In this case though, the position that happens to code left seems to be the accurate one. The current administration won't be in power forever and there's no statute of limitations in play here. Some sort of conviction down the line, possibly for manslaughter (it could be hard to get 12 jurors to all agree on second degree murder), is a very real possibility.
I think you've fairly captured how most people feel.
That said, your conclusion as Trump being responsible is incomplete. We're only having to crack down on illegal immigration because Biden opened the border and let 8 million illegals in. That's where this problem started. Trump was elected (in part) to address it.
There's a nano bit of possible truth in this casting of some responsibility toward Biden. He was old and took his eye off the rate of border crossings for too long - perhaps thinking he was affirmatively undoing T's prior harms.
More, there's a micro bit of culpability in the people who elected T; he's also too old for the job, and he's been recognizably emotionally malformed as long as he's been in the public eye.
And there's a mini bit of culpability on Good herself, for resisting the legal effects of her moral choice to conduct civil disobedience from inside a powerful machine. And on Rebecca, who may have emotionally rail-roaded Renee to try to resist, then flee, instead of obey; I'm sure she'll have huge regrets, whenever she gets past rage.
But at the macro level, primary culpability for Renee's being DEAD, instead of being arrested for non-compliance with a lawful order, and a traffic violation citation, is on Trump, Noam, & Ross.
The partisan placing of dangerous and often (unemployably) emotionally damaged ICE agents in masks with guns on the streets of political opponents is the actual game here, and the primary culpability. This is 99.9% on T and his sycophantic admin & billionaire bros who were looking hard for a distraction from T's likely Epstein related criminality.
T WANTED violence, and an excuse for more force in partisan communities.
For many of the rest of us, variably, micro to mini levels of responsibility for conducting our politics in polarizing, instead of bridging manners, with our fellow citizens. (Have I done that here? I do think I'm calling it fairly.)
There's a lot of factors at play. But protesting =/= obstructing federal officers. There are genuine examples of police and ICE brutality that should be punished severely.
Would grant that Ross's rapid facility with resorting to gun-power and shooting someone in the face might be a different sort of paranoia and violence than repeatedly kicking a person in the face with a boot while they are held down.
May reflect somewhat different pathologies and situational judgements; perhaps different brutalities - but the shooting of Good WAS a brutality to her, her family, the community, and the nation.
Neither has much to recommend them; neither is called for in a traffic stop or an arrest.
Based on his history, and verbal abuse of the woman he'd just killed, I expect that his supervision is regretting giving him a gun instead of a desk after his last failed car stop.
But I don't depend on this suspicion to make the critique above. Ross was wildly dangerous with a gun in the middle of the street, first using bad judgement to pull it instead of (or in addition to) stepping aside - which should have been his primary focus; and second using horrible judgement in rapidly firing in a 90 degree arc in a ~2 second cluster, while in the middle of a street with people all around, continuing the rapid fire after he was clearly out of the path of the vehicle.
His need to enforce his will on this gay woman suddenly and vastly exceeded his duty to the public. That's on him, and on the people who picked him, and gave him what he apparently understood to be his 'conditions of engagement'.
Not sure I'd argue that he should be punished as severely as the ICE man repeatedly kicking someone in the face. It would help to know his marching orders.
But it seems obvious that he should never carry again. And that he should be tried by a jury of his peers.
Disagree, it wasn't brutality, it was tragedy. And one that Ms Good instigated by obstructing federal agents.
Look it's pretty simple. Protest all you want, don't obstruct or attack officers or you will get arrested at best. This is how the law has worked since always.
I would agree that Good was, as nearly as I can tell, in the legal wrong to obstruct traffic. And if she received a non-confusing / clear command to 'get out of the car' (instead of also a 'move the car' command), that, despite the masked gunmen and the known real & intentional suggestion of unaccountable violence, she legally should have obeyed and either gotten out of the car or moved it, depending.
I would agree her intention likely was to use her car to provide a passive obstruction of ICE's actions, as a form civil disobedience.
There are laws for addressing such civil disobedience; and there are norms for conducting such civil disobedience that she may have thought she was following, but her use of the car, both locking, and then attempting to flee, did not follow norms of pure passive civil disobedience.
But she clearly did not expect the extent of her actions were severe enough to preclude picking up her child at the end of the day. Her spouse says as much; you have our license plate, you know where we live, we will be there if you need to take legal action as a result of our civil action.
Many avoid a discussion of the morality of action in the public sphere, just as we have forgotten the words that founded our country.
But Good was pursuing a moral right to try to use her freedom of speech to resist what she clearly understood to be a moral wrong, regardless of the legality of her civil disobedience. She understood she was harming no one, and she was trying to prevent people from being harmed. This stands in opposition to ICE's preparation to appear, and to be, violent in effecting their mission.
I agree she would be legally liable for her obstruction if it is determined, and to the extent and manner it is determined, that she was in the legal wrong. The time to rebuke her, fine her, imprison her, or shoot her, is later. She finally did back down from the confrontation and prepared to / tried to leave. It is NOT credible that she had decided to try to kill someone with her car.
Arguing Ross could not know her frame of mind and that he had legitimate fear for his life is a very poor excuse for someone with his training and in his line of work. Also, arguing that he went for his gun out of self protection instead of authoritarian anger I submit will not stand up in court, both because his actions were contrary to his training, and his actions were not reasonably aligned with protecting himself, as opposed to somehow 'winning the conflict' and his manhood by forcefully imposing his will on the gay female driver. But present it to a jury.
One DOES have a moral duty to resist, if one can, the conduct of an unconstitutional illegal action and crime, where one reasonably perceives threats or harms to one's neighbors is underway. This is true even if one has been informed the criminal is wearing a uniform and is recognized as a federal ICE agent.
Wearing a uniform does NOT entitle one to break laws, nor to use more force than is needed; on the contrary. I suspect this was Good's understanding too; if Ross had not pulled the trigger, he would have prevailed in a legal contest, and Good would be held accountable for the stance she took, in a hearing or a trial.
I agree that if one is doing 'civil disobedience' 'the right way' per pacifism, one does not physically resist the legal consequences of one's actions (even if the law is 'wrong'), other than by speech and passive presence and using the forum one creates to reach a larger community. Locking oneself in one's car was understandable for a woman under apparent physical threat, but yes, legally wrong. So, well, just shoot her.
One illustrates wrong law by civil disobedience (typically at one's own expense of a standard legal penalty for the disobedience) so that a sufficient number of people can learn about the wrong law and change the wrong law. She didn't do this perfectly; she seemed to be outgoing, friendly and de-escalatory, but then perhaps got scared or spooked by her spouse yelling 'drive!'. So enough, shoot her.
For doing civil disobedience wrong? For not remembering her high school Henry David Thoreau assignment? For being suddenly frightened by the aggression? For responding with compliance to her spouse yelling 'drive!' rather than to an armed masked man yelling 'get the fuck out' of your car? Well, you say, SHE did SOMETHING wrong first. So NOW we can shoot her.
Nick, I want to be clear on your views.
1) seems are we largely in agreement, that:
a) Good did something mild/moderate legally wrong, but possibly morally right, and with an intention to protect her community, and that
b) a horrible tragedy for her, her family, her community, and our country, did 'occur', (to use passive voice),
but:
2) you seem to defend Ross's shooting her as necessary for enforcement or safety.
Is it your view that the shooting was a necessary action to achieve his law enforcement mission? (did it?)
Is it your view, that head-shooting the driver while/after he was crossing in front of L front fender of the car was an smart way to defend himself? (What happens to the quadriceps after a randomly placed head shot? Might the dying leg & foot kick forward on the gas until the car accelerates into an immovable object?)
Is it your view this WAS a mistake on his part, but an understandable and allowable one of training reflexes gone wrong? That he really had no control? And that there was NO CULPABLE overlay of preparation for and disposition to violence and use of force over law in his mission?
Is it your view this was a mistake on his part, but an understandable one of training reflexes gone wrong? But that there may have been a CULPABLE overlay of preparation for and disposition to violence in the conduct of his mission that contributed to his decision to take a head shot of Ms Good while jumping clear of the car or being pushed as it started to move, instead of just focusing on getting out of the way?
Or is it your view that while tragic in result, this was a utterly righteous kill, just bad luck it is getting such 'bad' PR, when it could have been a great ICE training video on how to un-brutally stop a 37 yo mom?
"passively obstructing" federal agents is still obstruction.
Freedom of speech doesn't cover using your car as a weapon (regardless of if she meant to or not)
I don't know what was going though his head, but from seeing the video, I could see why he might think he was in danger and was shooting to stop the threat. But I could be wrong, I've also never been in a situation like that.
Folks are also discussing this one incident in a vacuum when it's not, and this is part of what's leading to drastically different takes from the same video (on top of general partisanship).
This is hardly the first video capturing unprofessional and escalatory behavior by federal agents - we've been seeing a steady stream of this and it's been ever increasing:
- ICE slamming old men to the ground and punching them.
- Breaking car windows with firearms.
- The whole masking and jumping out of unmarked vehicle thing.
- In this case, the man jumping out of the pickup coming in WAY too hot telling her to get out of the car and grabbing the handle/reaching into her window.
There's also the complete lack of oversight and accountability and questions about why federal LE is being zerged into places like this. It feels performative and literally designed to intimidate and stoke fear.
So those of us who see Ross as at fault here are looking at the entire pattern that's led up to this incident, and how it perfectly encapsulates all of the disturbing bullshit we've been seeing for the last 6 months. Folks that disagree with me basically don't see issue with the things I mention above, and are coming from a place believing that the ICE presence is justified, that agents are acting appropriately within their jurisdiction, and that all these libs just hate America and any source of authority doing or saying what we don't like. All I can say is, it's telling that Ross' defenders can't give the slightest bit of ground in acknowledging that Ross and the guy that approached Good from the truck could have handled things 1000x more safely and professionally as expected from trained LE. If we place randoms in Good's position and repeat this scenario, a not insignificant number are going to respond the same way as she did instead of just complying. All they had to do was calmly tell her to leave, or coolly ask her to get out of the vehicle.
Edit to add:
The way Trump, Vance, and Noem came out and blatantly lied and opined when all they had to do was say that the investigation would play out is another piece of context that can't be lost here. Because of what they did, folks are going to justifiably doubt any investigative findings that support Ross' actions that day, even if they're legitimate.
I think you're being too generous to the ICE officer. Of all the dumb decisions: taking out his gun and shooting someone was the dumbest decision of all. I don't care what stupid decisions Good made leading up to her death but absolutely none of them warranted being killed.
Do I thin it's cold blooded murder? No. But he killed someone and he deserves to, at minimum, lose his badge.
The first goal of law enforcement is to make the community safer. He completely fails at this task.
> And don’t forget where the bad choices began. President Donald Trump has ordered ICE to carry out a heavy-handed campaign of rounding up illegal immigrants. Kristi Noem has supervised a paramilitary group that goes around masked and acts like a law unto itself. This kind of gung-ho, confrontational behavior was inevitably going to result in tragedy.
This is true, but I'd also add the attitude of liberal protestors of talking about LE as a modern day gestapo (while also simultaneously finding them so u threatening they feel perfectly safe blocking them with their vehicles) to the list of causes of unnecessary escalation in this situation.
There's no contradiction between holding that an on-the-street terrorist action by the government is blatantly illegal; holding that it's dangerous; and protesting it by defying it. Don't you know anything about Selma or Oxford Town or Kent State or Stonewall?
Are you an American? Do you have any historical awareness of the Boston Tea Party? Tyrannical oppression must be resisted. (Which reminds me — where are all the Second Amendment freaks who are supposed to have accumulated their arsenals for exactly this situation: to fight off an out-of-control oppressive and violent government?)
I think you're taking this a bit over the top. ICE are enforcing fairly anodyne immigration law (if often doing it in a needlessly inflammatory way). They're not some kind of illegal tyrannical posse.
Read what I wrote in my longer comment. The entire thing is completely unconstitutional. ICE has no jurisdiction over American citizens. They are operating away from their purview which is border cities and border-adjacent communities (they have been sent to Minneapolis at the President's discretion for political reasons). What happened is a serious crime and a watershed moment in our history just like Kent State and the other examples I gave.
I'm hardly the only one making the comparison. There are vast differences but I think those are outweighed by the fundamental similarities.
True. The National Guard weren't pedophile Nazis working under unconstitutional orders from a child sex trafficker.
This is a common misconception. ICE can legally operate in the U.S. interior (i.e., away from the border) to arrest, detain, and remove noncitizens who are removable under federal immigration law. They also have some (limited) forms of jurisdiction over citizens who are actively impeding them in their lawful duties (although the laws about this get complicated).
They can arrest, detain and remove noncitizens. You said it yourself.
Respectfully, please read my longer comment about law enforcement procedures and the strict laws that govern them. I just get tired of writing this elementary stuff over and over because people somehow can't read it or absorb it.
Just to be clear, are you saying that ICE has no authority to arrest citizens impeding thier work? Hypothetically, if there were like a human wall, would they just have to like try to red rover thier way through it or go home?
You’re just wrong.
ICE can arrest anyone who is committing a crime under Title 18.
This includes things such as impeding a mission.
There’s no reason to get worked up here. No one is coming for you, or any of us, or anyone else you know, unless you know criminals.
A retard from Manhattan, what a surprise. ICE officers are sworn law enforcement they have the power to arrest people for any violation of the law. Spoiler; obstruction of law enforcement is an arrestable offence.
But they didn’t arrest her, did they? They didn’t warn her; ask her to stop the car; ask her to show her hands; tell her she’s being detained. They just shot her dead — and all you MAGAs are working as hard as you can to convince yourselves this is legitimate law-enforcement behavior.
This is exactly the level of retardation one expects from a New Yorker writer.
When a law enforcement officer tells you to get out of the vehicle you are being detained. She decided she didn't want to be detained and was willing to use a deadly weapon to avoid that. This why she got shot in the face.
You apparently have not read or watched videos of ICE actions. They are anything but anodyne. They are unprecedented. They go far beyond acting on judicial warrants to arrest criminal illegal aliens. And yes, they do bring SA and Gestapo tactics to mind. We blame the ordinary Germans for looking the other way; we must not do the same.
You apparently have not read or watched videos of ICE actions. They are anything but anodyne. They are unprecedented. They go far beyond acting on judicial warrants to arrest criminal illegal aliens. And yes, they do bring SA and Gestapo tactics to mind. We blame the ordinary Germans for looking the other way; we must not do the same.
Well, we're certainly not strapping up to fight on behalf of people calling us "freaks", often the same people who have trying to illegally disarm us for decades.
What are you even talking about? Who's "illegally disarming" you? Gun laws have become systematically more lax over the past few decades under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.
And anyway what has that got to do with Ross/Good? Why are his defenders so concerned with his mood and state of mind and whether it was "justified" (as if discussing a child) rather than the ironclad constitutional laws that govern all such interactions between drivers and law enforcement (including the clear cut fact that ICE has no jurisdiction over citizens)?
I've encountered you before and I hold your sloppy thinking and impulsive, simplified Conservative polemics in very low regard.
Why am I not surprised that you don't know what you're talking about? Do you even know what a Bruen response bill is, and how many blue states have passed them in open defiance of the supreme court? How about all of the hardware bans and carry restrictions being advanced across blue America?
As to the relevance, did you not read your own comment I was responding to? You also seem misinformed regarding what police powers ICE has, as they absolutely can arrest people who are interfering with their operations, as these women were.
The state-level pushback against SCOTUS (especially in the wake of the Alito and Thomas authored decisions about New York open carry) are obviously examples of action the other way but they don't change what I said about how the overwhelming trend in national gun policy has been the other direction.
ICE agents "cannot legally arrest or deport a U.S. citizen," full stop.
They have federal law enforcement authority, which means they can in fact detain someone who is committing a crime, such as impeding them in their duties.
Of course they can, silly man.
Title 18 provided authority for all Federal Law Enforcement; they can arrest anyone on that authority.
If the Nazi Pedophiles would prefer not to be known as Nazi Pedophiles, they could stop doing Papers Please Style Nazi tactics, like executing citizens in the street, and they could quit working for and supporting a pedophile, and pow, they're not pedophile nazis anymore. When there aren't any people acting like pedophile nazis anymore, people will stop calling them pedophile nazis.
In this case, there were no arrests being made (or impeded), no officer had been assaulted when they demanded she exit the car. The car wasn't even entirely blocking the road
I'm sorry but anybody trying to argue in any way that the shooting is "justified" by anything she or her wife did, is just outrageously, direly wrong. It's possible to argue that the situation prompted Ross to shoot, but that's like saying that JFK's presence in Dallas prompted Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot — the whole thing is so completely framed in extra-legal and blatantly unconstitutional practices (including his glaring lack of any real training and his obvious temperamental and ideological unsuitability for the job) that any attempt to lessen the burden of his guilt by discussing what Good "shouldn't have" done must be dismissed out of hand.
Hundreds or thousands of criminal trials have hinged on exactly these details: What did the cop say; when did he unholster; did he identify himself; how many warnings; what stance etc. Everyone who’s ever been pulled over or seen YouTube videos of vehicular stops (and there are thousands of those, too) knows all about this. There have been SCOTUS cases that hinge on state and federal laws that concern this behavior by police and Federal agents, because (as the entire society knows) these are important life-or-death questions. Officers (real officers who get legitimate police academy training) spend months on these questions and can be expelled if they can’t absorb or follow them.
And even if you want to go beyond black-and-white laws and get into psychology (which everyone on the conservative side is doing; he didn’t “feel” safe) there is just no room to maneuver given what the whole world has seen of the situation. Trials have hinged on that, too — on police fear leading to untoward violence — and it's clear that the standards applied are way, way more stringent than anything going on right now in terms of absurd claims that his thigh was brushed by the edge of the fender or whatever (and please don’t pick apart this example).
I know in an egalitarian society we're supposed to be even-handed and I know there are a lot of people who are on his side (because they have been led over the years into a completely indefensible and un-American state of mind wherein shock tactics like this are permissible or desirable) but this is an open and shut case. The instant you start talking about Ross' mood or feelings you've lost the plot, full stop.
I agree with your take, just want to point out that some reports say Ross is not untrained but a veteran, an experienced LEO, and a firearms instructor. (My takeaway is that his defensive shooting reflexes were obviously quick, but his training totally failed in the critical moment. Hopefully the unnecessary second and third shots plus the words he uttered afterward will haunt him forever).
What about two other facts?
- ICE has no authority to detain or arrest anyone except those they can reasonably suspect are undocumented. So there is nothing "foolish" about the Goods wanting to leave the scene.
- Ross fired two more shots, the first through the open drivers side window mere inches from Good's head, LONG AFTER the car had passed him. And the third shot was fired after she was at least 6 feet past him.
If this was a private carjacker instead of a government-paid one, it would be an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder.
So don't give us any of this "on the other hand" balderdash.
"ICE has no authority to detain or arrest anyone except those they can reasonably suspect are undocumented. So there is nothing "foolish" about the Goods wanting to leave the scene...If this was a private carjacker instead of a government-paid one, it would be an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder."
Hmm, this is a really interesting framing. To repeat a question I asked above, if there were like a human wall of white people trying to stop them from going somewhere, would they really have no options but to like try to red rover thier way through it or go home? I'm really surprised they have no ability to arrest people impeding thier work.
BBC says otherwise:
ICE agents have the power to stop, detain and arrest people they suspect of being in the US illegally. They can detain US citizens in limited circumstances, such as if a person interferes with an arrest, assaults an officer, or ICE suspect the person of being in the US illegally.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp80ljjd5rwo
That’s pretty much what I said. They are trying to stretch the “interfering with an arrest” factor beyond anything rational, claiming that any protester anywhere near ICE agents are “interfering.” They’re even claiming that people following them or recording them are “interfering.” That is a lie. There was no “arrest” under way. Good was clearly leaving the scene to avoid being dragged out of her car and detained or worse.
Right. I just mean that the agents telling her to get out of the car had the authority to do so, at least potentially - it doesn't look like she was blocking them since I saw in the video someone drove around her, but I don't know for sure what happened before all the videos.
Well, I’ll leave it to the experts but I’m pretty sure I’ve read that they cannot order someone out of their car. And given the many many times we’ve seen ICE throwing people to the ground, handcuffing them, and taking them away, it would be petty foolish to comply.
Let's talk about legal reality for a moment.
The intentions of the smiling mother of three are entirely irrelevant to whether the shooting was justified or not. I am utterly indifferent as to whether she had murder, intimidation, flight, or some combination thereof on her mind because her intent isn't what matters on the question of self-defense.
To understand why, imagine if she'd stepped out of the vehicle with a water gun that looked like a real firearm and aimed it at the officer with the intent to squirt him. What do you suppose would happen next?
Obviously, she'd be shot, and there would be no question that the shooting was justified because any reasonable officer in that position would have believed his life to be in imminent danger.
Now rewind to the actual incident. There are two points which are not up for dispute:
1. Her vehicle began accelerating straight towards the officer BEFORE her wheels turned to the right, however briefly.
2. The vehicle made contact with the officer, as evidenced by the sound of the impact coinciding with its trajectory in the officer's cell phone footage, and the grudging admission of the Mayor of Minneapolis who tried to downplay the officer's injuries.
The unavoidable conclusion of this is that while she evaded arrest for the crime of obstructing federal law enforcement (the latter being a misdemeanor and the former being a felony), she accelerated her vehicle towards the officer. Any reasonable officer in that position would have regarded his own life to have been in danger, because now, she's engaging in apparent vehicular assault--REGARDLESS of whether that is her intention or not.
Assault with a deadly weapon (in this case, a two-ton bullet that you can turn) warrants a lethal response.
The picture of the dog that this article included is cute and will succeed in stirring up sympathy among some readers, but the cold legal reality is set in stone. The event was awful, but lawful.
Huh? Where did the mayor of Minneapolis admit that the officer had injuries in this incident?
The trajectory of the phone may indicate that the car bumped Ross's arm after he reached across the hood.
He gave a live press release where he grudgingly acknowledged that the officer had sustained a minor injury from the impact. Despite his best efforts to downplay it, this means that the vehicle's trajectory intersected with the officer's position while the suspect was fleeing arrest.
"The ICE agent walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door with his hips." Are you serious? That's clearly a sarcastic comment, likely meaning that Ross pushed against the car.
Cathy, we all saw the video footage. He wasn't moving towards the center of the vehicle when it approached, he was jumping away from the center. And the vehicle still made contact with his hip. What do you suppose would have happened if he'd remained in place instead of moving away from the center? It would have struck him more directly. The mayor's admission of contact settles this entire dispute.
Not if he leaned into the car, which is what it looked like to me.
Also, Frey's off-the-cuff comment doesn't prove anything.
He didn’t jump backwards. It’s pretty clear if you look at the video from the left of the car and the cell phone video together. When his feet move backward, that’s the car pushing him maybe a foot backwards. He loses balance briefly then fires.
1. On the cell phone footage, the sound is him banging his phone against his vest as he pulls that hand back while he draws his gun. It’s questionable whether she hit him or not, but it is certain that even if he was, he unholstered his firearm prior to being hit. Therefore that sound is not the car hitting him. The times don’t line up. I tried to listen to hear if we can hear the car hitting him at the time that would line up, but if it occurs, the phone is too muffled against his body to hear it.
2. You bring up a bad thought experiment. There is only one reason to point a gun at an officer. Obviously if you point a fake gun you’re gonna get shot. There are, however, many reasons to move a car. Every. Single. Iota. Of. Evidence. Points to Good attempting to flee, not to ram. Here is a better thought experiment. A cop pulls over a driver to search the car for drugs, or give him a ticket or whatever. Now, this cop is an idiot, so he steps in front of the vehicle. He is standing at the corner of the car. Now the driver cranks the steering wheel all the way away from the officer, in plain view, while the officer is staring at them and begins to move. What would any officer not on crack do? Fucking move. They wouldn’t freeze in place and take the time to get into a shooting positing, increasing the risk to themselves, in order to shoot the driver. In this scenario, everyone would agree that the cop was guilty. You shouldn’t run form the cops, it’s not like the driver was in the right, but the driver was not a lethal threat, and if there was any threat at all, the officer was increasing their own risk. In no way was the officer using lethal force to reduce danger to anyone. It’s only because it’s ICE and polarization has broken people’s brains that there is any disagreement about this.
How relevant is the direction of the tire? Ross isn't looking at the tire. He can't calculate tire angles in a split-second out of his peripheral vision.
That's a good point. Hopefully you will grant that she isn't looking at Ross when she decides to depart, either. She's looking at the guy shouting at her to her left.
I think all the instant replay analysis of tire angles is a bit precious. Good backs up, lining the front of the car squarely towards the agent before she accelerates forward. She is turning the tires/wheels after that, but I doubt that was obvious to someone suddenly facing a car accelerating towards them. That we are debating *if* she hit him suggests that in-the-moment interpreting she intended to is not outlandish. If she was close enough to "brush" him, it was too close. Utterly reckless.
This all happened really fast, training and reaction times being what they are, if the first shot was justified, the following 2 in the string, all within about a half second, were just an extension of the initial decision to shoot. And that initial decision was probably made at moment she started driving towards him, but it takes time to bring up the gun, etc. Again, that the car had started to change direction by time the shots start isn't really indicative of much given reaction, processing time.
I’m surprised how many commenters are saying Good was at fault because she moved the car forward.
LE officers are, or are supposed to be, trained to not put themselves in front of a vehicle and to not shoot into a vehicle moving away from them.
Seriously, all Ross had to do was take a step back from the vehicle. Instead, due to ramped up adrenaline and roiling anger, he CHOSE to shoot Good in the face. A completely wrong headed and tragic decision.
He definitely had an itchy trigger finger it seems obvious to me.
He didn’t “choose” anything. Human beings aren’t capable of making rational choices in less than a second.
It was all instinct.
Pulling a gun IS a choice.
If it is not, one MUST NOT carry.
A gun clearly is the wrong way to try to stop a car. And, it is ineffective.
Killing clearly is the wrong way to enforce obedience. And, it is ineffective.
Ross made several reckless & deadly-bad emotional choices in a row. He knew better.
He should NOT be hunted down.
He should NOT receive vigilante vengeance.
His family and friends should NOT go into hiding.
A jury of his MN peers just needs to decide if they feel safe with him on the streets.
A jury of his MN peers just needs to decide what he owes in support to 3 orphans.
This would be called 'rule of law'. One can move forward after due process.
When there is rule of law, one can bring whistles instead of guns to civil disagreements.
When rule of law is missing, nations divide, global conflicts ensue, one's family or kids die.
One might be surprised how quickly civil order fails in a massively-interdependent but lawless world.
We can tell Ross could step back out of the way of the vehicle, easily and safely, because he did, at the moment he committed premeditated murder.
100% agreed. I've watched all the videos and thought about it a lot, and heard others analyze it. Your words here mirror my thoughts. Unfortunately a lot of people
ignore that both parties played a role, and focus on the politics and finger pointing. (I wrote my second ever Substack post about this topic, I'd link it here, but I don't know how).
None of this changes the fact that she instigated the entire situation, she refused to comply with lawful orders, and she accelerated at an armed federal agent.
It's easy to play armchair quarterback, freeze framing every millisecond of the interaction and scrutinizing every split-second decision this officer was forced to make, but the bottom line is she made a series of terrible choices that got herself killed.
The use of force was justified.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
That cuts both ways. She did make terrible choices, in hindsight. So did the shooter. He could easily have stepped aside and not shot and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Bottom line, her death is asking us all to honestly clock our biases, isn't it?
The author of this piece is making a fundamental error in analysis. It’s not what viewers of these videos see from a wide angle, and with perfect hindsight, that matters. It’s what the parties involved could see.
So I think it is important to note that while we can see that Good appeared to be turning to the right, and away from the officer, Officer Ross was not in a great position to see that. Firstly, he was probably looking at the driver. Second, and more important, he was right in front of the hood. Which would’ve obstructed any view he had as to which way the wheels were turning. It is highly likely that all he saw was a car moving forwards in his direction. And let’s face it, the car did make contact.
I cannot say that I personally have a strong bias one way or the other in this case. I just tend to see nuance. I don’t think the driver intended to hurt the officer. And I also do not think that the officer was there to just shoot some driver. The real, and harder questions need to deal with all sides of the issue. When it comes to that, it’s important to note that Officer Ross IS a law enforcement officer, whether you like the laws that he is enforcing or not. And the agency that he works for is clearly dealing with public interference on a regular basis.
Which brings me to Good’s position in all of this. It was incumbent upon her to also recognize that he is a law-enforcement officer, as well as the fact that she was engaging in civil disobedience that went beyond peaceful protesting, and free speech. She was breaking the law in interfering with their operations. Whether she agreed with those operations or not. When you are engaging with civil disobedience of this type, part of the deal is that you need to be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions. You are making a statement, but you need to accept the consequences. Just as many civil rights activist over the years have done, including Martin Luther King Jr., who accepted prison as part of his movement. Just like Gandhi did. Just like Mandela did. It sucks, but it is part of the game. It is also what lends legitimacy to your cause.
To me, the takeaways from the situation are for everybody. Immigration enforcement officers need to review their policies, and enforce their policies. It was not a wise move for Ross to be standing in front of the vehicle. And training should certainly emphasize that shooting into a moving vehicle when there are plenty of other people around should not be a routine first reaction. He had pictures of their license plates, and they could’ve just apprehended her safely later in the day. The protesters, however, need to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror. Because Obama deported far more people than this administration has, and they were all at home watching TV at the time. So some reflection is in order about how much danger they are putting themselves in with more and more extreme tactics to fight something that they simply did not care about a few short years ago.
If Obama deported more people than this administration has, and they were all home watching TV when they were apprehended, that seems to be evidence that filling the cities with gangs of armed thugs, picking people up based solely on their skin color (even Native Americans!) is not necessary for immigration enforcement. Maybe that's the part that has people so angry.
This is the crux right here: "What is Good’s goal at this point? To me, it seems she’s preparing to turn right and (foolishly) try to get away from the ICE agents. Not everyone agrees."
I do not buy at all that Good was trying to run anyone over. When you watch the video that seems totally clear to me. But she made the same ole mistake we often see on police cam videos: She was given a command by an authority person with a gun. They're trying to open her door. Ross is clearly standing right in front of the car. What you do here is easy and obvious: You immediately stop driving and you comply 100% with whatever they say. Ideally you put your hands up while you're at it. I have personal experience with this. You never, EVER disobey a command. And the fact that she tried to drive off? What did she think was going to happen? They were just gonna let her go? She obstructed them.
The fact that her door was locked, that she stayed inside her car, that she tried to drive off: These are what got her killed. And her wife trash-taking the agents didn't help.
So she deserved summary execution for not obeying the commands of masked men with guns and no badges. The rush to defend literal jack booted thugs killing unarmed American citizens is amazing to me. Cool, cool.
"Those" did not have her killed like you claim, a rogue officers actions and choices have her killed. Yes "those" contributed, but you seem to exonorate the real guilty and responsible party almost for free.
I've watched every video out there, including the one from Ross's cam. I think the most likely explanation here is that he killed her because he wanted to, and he figured that getting barely grazed by her vehicle would give him legal cover, particularly given the stance of the current administration. Like the author of the piece, I also thought that Kyle Rittenhouse probably should never have been charged in the first place, and the left hardly covered itself in glory in its response to the Jacob Blake shooting. In this case though, the position that happens to code left seems to be the accurate one. The current administration won't be in power forever and there's no statute of limitations in play here. Some sort of conviction down the line, possibly for manslaughter (it could be hard to get 12 jurors to all agree on second degree murder), is a very real possibility.
I think you've fairly captured how most people feel.
That said, your conclusion as Trump being responsible is incomplete. We're only having to crack down on illegal immigration because Biden opened the border and let 8 million illegals in. That's where this problem started. Trump was elected (in part) to address it.
There's a nano bit of possible truth in this casting of some responsibility toward Biden. He was old and took his eye off the rate of border crossings for too long - perhaps thinking he was affirmatively undoing T's prior harms.
More, there's a micro bit of culpability in the people who elected T; he's also too old for the job, and he's been recognizably emotionally malformed as long as he's been in the public eye.
And there's a mini bit of culpability on Good herself, for resisting the legal effects of her moral choice to conduct civil disobedience from inside a powerful machine. And on Rebecca, who may have emotionally rail-roaded Renee to try to resist, then flee, instead of obey; I'm sure she'll have huge regrets, whenever she gets past rage.
But at the macro level, primary culpability for Renee's being DEAD, instead of being arrested for non-compliance with a lawful order, and a traffic violation citation, is on Trump, Noam, & Ross.
The partisan placing of dangerous and often (unemployably) emotionally damaged ICE agents in masks with guns on the streets of political opponents is the actual game here, and the primary culpability. This is 99.9% on T and his sycophantic admin & billionaire bros who were looking hard for a distraction from T's likely Epstein related criminality.
T WANTED violence, and an excuse for more force in partisan communities.
For many of the rest of us, variably, micro to mini levels of responsibility for conducting our politics in polarizing, instead of bridging manners, with our fellow citizens. (Have I done that here? I do think I'm calling it fairly.)
There's a lot of factors at play. But protesting =/= obstructing federal officers. There are genuine examples of police and ICE brutality that should be punished severely.
The shooting of Good is not one.
Would grant that Ross's rapid facility with resorting to gun-power and shooting someone in the face might be a different sort of paranoia and violence than repeatedly kicking a person in the face with a boot while they are held down.
May reflect somewhat different pathologies and situational judgements; perhaps different brutalities - but the shooting of Good WAS a brutality to her, her family, the community, and the nation.
Neither has much to recommend them; neither is called for in a traffic stop or an arrest.
Based on his history, and verbal abuse of the woman he'd just killed, I expect that his supervision is regretting giving him a gun instead of a desk after his last failed car stop.
But I don't depend on this suspicion to make the critique above. Ross was wildly dangerous with a gun in the middle of the street, first using bad judgement to pull it instead of (or in addition to) stepping aside - which should have been his primary focus; and second using horrible judgement in rapidly firing in a 90 degree arc in a ~2 second cluster, while in the middle of a street with people all around, continuing the rapid fire after he was clearly out of the path of the vehicle.
His need to enforce his will on this gay woman suddenly and vastly exceeded his duty to the public. That's on him, and on the people who picked him, and gave him what he apparently understood to be his 'conditions of engagement'.
Not sure I'd argue that he should be punished as severely as the ICE man repeatedly kicking someone in the face. It would help to know his marching orders.
But it seems obvious that he should never carry again. And that he should be tried by a jury of his peers.
Here's a retired officer's perspective. https://substack.com/inbox/post/184272993
Disagree, it wasn't brutality, it was tragedy. And one that Ms Good instigated by obstructing federal agents.
Look it's pretty simple. Protest all you want, don't obstruct or attack officers or you will get arrested at best. This is how the law has worked since always.
I would agree that Good was, as nearly as I can tell, in the legal wrong to obstruct traffic. And if she received a non-confusing / clear command to 'get out of the car' (instead of also a 'move the car' command), that, despite the masked gunmen and the known real & intentional suggestion of unaccountable violence, she legally should have obeyed and either gotten out of the car or moved it, depending.
I would agree her intention likely was to use her car to provide a passive obstruction of ICE's actions, as a form civil disobedience.
There are laws for addressing such civil disobedience; and there are norms for conducting such civil disobedience that she may have thought she was following, but her use of the car, both locking, and then attempting to flee, did not follow norms of pure passive civil disobedience.
But she clearly did not expect the extent of her actions were severe enough to preclude picking up her child at the end of the day. Her spouse says as much; you have our license plate, you know where we live, we will be there if you need to take legal action as a result of our civil action.
Many avoid a discussion of the morality of action in the public sphere, just as we have forgotten the words that founded our country.
But Good was pursuing a moral right to try to use her freedom of speech to resist what she clearly understood to be a moral wrong, regardless of the legality of her civil disobedience. She understood she was harming no one, and she was trying to prevent people from being harmed. This stands in opposition to ICE's preparation to appear, and to be, violent in effecting their mission.
I agree she would be legally liable for her obstruction if it is determined, and to the extent and manner it is determined, that she was in the legal wrong. The time to rebuke her, fine her, imprison her, or shoot her, is later. She finally did back down from the confrontation and prepared to / tried to leave. It is NOT credible that she had decided to try to kill someone with her car.
Arguing Ross could not know her frame of mind and that he had legitimate fear for his life is a very poor excuse for someone with his training and in his line of work. Also, arguing that he went for his gun out of self protection instead of authoritarian anger I submit will not stand up in court, both because his actions were contrary to his training, and his actions were not reasonably aligned with protecting himself, as opposed to somehow 'winning the conflict' and his manhood by forcefully imposing his will on the gay female driver. But present it to a jury.
One DOES have a moral duty to resist, if one can, the conduct of an unconstitutional illegal action and crime, where one reasonably perceives threats or harms to one's neighbors is underway. This is true even if one has been informed the criminal is wearing a uniform and is recognized as a federal ICE agent.
Wearing a uniform does NOT entitle one to break laws, nor to use more force than is needed; on the contrary. I suspect this was Good's understanding too; if Ross had not pulled the trigger, he would have prevailed in a legal contest, and Good would be held accountable for the stance she took, in a hearing or a trial.
I agree that if one is doing 'civil disobedience' 'the right way' per pacifism, one does not physically resist the legal consequences of one's actions (even if the law is 'wrong'), other than by speech and passive presence and using the forum one creates to reach a larger community. Locking oneself in one's car was understandable for a woman under apparent physical threat, but yes, legally wrong. So, well, just shoot her.
One illustrates wrong law by civil disobedience (typically at one's own expense of a standard legal penalty for the disobedience) so that a sufficient number of people can learn about the wrong law and change the wrong law. She didn't do this perfectly; she seemed to be outgoing, friendly and de-escalatory, but then perhaps got scared or spooked by her spouse yelling 'drive!'. So enough, shoot her.
For doing civil disobedience wrong? For not remembering her high school Henry David Thoreau assignment? For being suddenly frightened by the aggression? For responding with compliance to her spouse yelling 'drive!' rather than to an armed masked man yelling 'get the fuck out' of your car? Well, you say, SHE did SOMETHING wrong first. So NOW we can shoot her.
Nick, I want to be clear on your views.
1) seems are we largely in agreement, that:
a) Good did something mild/moderate legally wrong, but possibly morally right, and with an intention to protect her community, and that
b) a horrible tragedy for her, her family, her community, and our country, did 'occur', (to use passive voice),
but:
2) you seem to defend Ross's shooting her as necessary for enforcement or safety.
Is it your view that the shooting was a necessary action to achieve his law enforcement mission? (did it?)
Is it your view, that head-shooting the driver while/after he was crossing in front of L front fender of the car was an smart way to defend himself? (What happens to the quadriceps after a randomly placed head shot? Might the dying leg & foot kick forward on the gas until the car accelerates into an immovable object?)
Is it your view this WAS a mistake on his part, but an understandable and allowable one of training reflexes gone wrong? That he really had no control? And that there was NO CULPABLE overlay of preparation for and disposition to violence and use of force over law in his mission?
Is it your view this was a mistake on his part, but an understandable one of training reflexes gone wrong? But that there may have been a CULPABLE overlay of preparation for and disposition to violence in the conduct of his mission that contributed to his decision to take a head shot of Ms Good while jumping clear of the car or being pushed as it started to move, instead of just focusing on getting out of the way?
Or is it your view that while tragic in result, this was a utterly righteous kill, just bad luck it is getting such 'bad' PR, when it could have been a great ICE training video on how to un-brutally stop a 37 yo mom?
"passively obstructing" federal agents is still obstruction.
Freedom of speech doesn't cover using your car as a weapon (regardless of if she meant to or not)
I don't know what was going though his head, but from seeing the video, I could see why he might think he was in danger and was shooting to stop the threat. But I could be wrong, I've also never been in a situation like that.
I certainly wouldn't call it a righteous kill.
I agree that Good was not trying to run over the ICE agent but I couldn’t disagree more that Rittenhouse was acting out of self defense
Folks are also discussing this one incident in a vacuum when it's not, and this is part of what's leading to drastically different takes from the same video (on top of general partisanship).
This is hardly the first video capturing unprofessional and escalatory behavior by federal agents - we've been seeing a steady stream of this and it's been ever increasing:
- ICE slamming old men to the ground and punching them.
- Breaking car windows with firearms.
- The whole masking and jumping out of unmarked vehicle thing.
- In this case, the man jumping out of the pickup coming in WAY too hot telling her to get out of the car and grabbing the handle/reaching into her window.
There's also the complete lack of oversight and accountability and questions about why federal LE is being zerged into places like this. It feels performative and literally designed to intimidate and stoke fear.
So those of us who see Ross as at fault here are looking at the entire pattern that's led up to this incident, and how it perfectly encapsulates all of the disturbing bullshit we've been seeing for the last 6 months. Folks that disagree with me basically don't see issue with the things I mention above, and are coming from a place believing that the ICE presence is justified, that agents are acting appropriately within their jurisdiction, and that all these libs just hate America and any source of authority doing or saying what we don't like. All I can say is, it's telling that Ross' defenders can't give the slightest bit of ground in acknowledging that Ross and the guy that approached Good from the truck could have handled things 1000x more safely and professionally as expected from trained LE. If we place randoms in Good's position and repeat this scenario, a not insignificant number are going to respond the same way as she did instead of just complying. All they had to do was calmly tell her to leave, or coolly ask her to get out of the vehicle.
Edit to add:
The way Trump, Vance, and Noem came out and blatantly lied and opined when all they had to do was say that the investigation would play out is another piece of context that can't be lost here. Because of what they did, folks are going to justifiably doubt any investigative findings that support Ross' actions that day, even if they're legitimate.
I think you're being too generous to the ICE officer. Of all the dumb decisions: taking out his gun and shooting someone was the dumbest decision of all. I don't care what stupid decisions Good made leading up to her death but absolutely none of them warranted being killed.
Do I thin it's cold blooded murder? No. But he killed someone and he deserves to, at minimum, lose his badge.
The first goal of law enforcement is to make the community safer. He completely fails at this task.