On a snowy residential street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday morning, January 7, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, age 37, and a mother of 3 children, fatally crossed paths with Jonathan Ross, a 10-year Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer and Iraq War veteran. Good was using her Honda Pilot SUV to deliberately obstruct the flow of traffic as Ross and other ICE officers responded to a call for help from one of their colleagues whose car had become stuck in the snow.
Good was part of an anti-ICE group whose members were trained to “document and resist” the federal crackdown on illegal immigrants in Minnesota. It had been organized by the “woke” Southside Family Charter School, which her six-year-old son attended. The school proudly claims to put “social justice first” and to prioritize “involving kids in political and social activism,” and apparently, their parents as well.
In videos of the incident, ICE officer Ross can be seen walking around Good’s car while holding up his own cell phone to document the encounter. Rebecca, age 40, who was with Good, got out of the car and began berating Ross.
Meanwhile, another ICE vehicle pulled up. Two officers got out of the car and approached the driver’s door of the car, as one of them grabbed the door handle and can be heard on the videos ordering the driver to “Get out of the car!”
A Brief but Tragic Fatal Confrontation
But, Rebecca Good did not follow the orders of the ICE agent to leave her car. Instead, as Rebecca Good could be heard yelling from outside the vehicle, “Drive, baby, drive!” Renee Good put the car in reverse and started backing up. At that point, ICE agent Ross had circled the vehicle and was standing in front of it. Then, Renee Good shifted gears, and her car started moving forward. In one of the videos of the incident, it appeared to hit ICE Agent Ross.
Ross then drew his gun and fired three quick shots. The first shot penetrated the car’s windshield and the car began to move past Ross. The next two bullets passed through the open driver’s side window. A few seconds later, the SUV slowly crashed into a parked car on the other side of the street, with Renee Good in the driver’s seat, with a fatal head wound.
Drawing Opposite Conclusions from the Same Evidence
That brief but tragic confrontation between Renee Good and ICE agent Ross is now at the center of furious public debate. Liberal Democrats, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who had previously condemned the Trump administration for dispatching 2,100 federal immigration agents to Minnesota, were quick to accuse the ICE agent of using excessive force.
Senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, as well as President Trump himself, argued that Agent Ross was justified in opening fire on Renee Good in self-defense, because, in that crucial split-second of decision, he reasonably believed that she was using her vehicle as a deadly weapon against him.
Homeland Secretary Noem Refutes A CNN Reporter
In a contentious interview with CNN reporter Jake Tapper on Sunday, Kristi Noem doubled down on her initial characterization of Good as a domestic terrorist. “This officer was hit by her vehicle, she weaponized it, and he defended his life and those colleagues around him and the public,” Noem said. She also said that Renee Good and Rebecca had been “stalking and harassing” ICE agents in Minneapolis throughout the morning before the deadly incident. The claim was substantiated by a video that showed that Good’s car had been deliberately blocking the road to hinder ICE operations for several minutes before ICE agent Ross arrived at the scene.
Noem also reported that ICE agent Ross received treatment at a nearby hospital after having been “hit by the vehicle” that Renee Good was driving.
In her interview, Noem called on both Governor Walz and Mayor Frey to “tone down the rhetoric,” including obscenities, that they directed against ICE in the aftermath of the shooting. She noted that New York Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was quick to accuse the ICE agent of being a “murderer” before she had access to the facts in the case.
New York City Mayor Mamdani Butts In
New York City’s newly installed socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, decided to join the liberal mob demanding the ICE officer’s head by declaring, “This morning, an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis — only the latest horror in a year full of cruelty.”
Fortunately, Mandani’s words do not influence the investigation of Renee Good’s death. But his words were no doubt disturbing to members of the city’s police force, the NYPD. If they ever had any doubts, they now know for certain that they cannot rely on their mayor’s support should one of their officers get involved in a controversial shooting incident.
Noem continued her criticism of the state and local Democrat elected officials in Minnesota, saying, “They’ve extremely politicized and inappropriately talked about this situation on the ground in their city. They’ve inflamed the public.”
Noem Calls on Elected Democrats to Act Responsibly
Noem was referring to the fact that state and local elected officials who encourage their followers to interfere with the enforcement activities of federal immigration authorities are putting the lives of their followers at risk.
“I would encourage them to grow up, get some maturity, act like people who are responsible, who want people to be safe and the right thing to be done,” Noem said, and added that, “when you use the kind of language that [they] used against law enforcement officers, they lose their credibility.”
When CNN reporter Tapper claimed that Noem had misrepresented what the videos of the incident depicted, she responded forcefully, “It absolutely is what happened, [Renee Good] blocked the road for a long time and was yelling at them [ICE agents] and impeding a federal law enforcement operation.”
When Tapper asked Noem why she was so certain that Good wasn’t “trying to move her car and flee and get away” rather than trying to injure Ross, the Secretary of Homeland Security answered, “You see how quickly the situation unfolded, how the officer was in front of the vehicle when she sped off. How she ran into him. And how he had to take quick action based on his training to defend himself and his colleagues.”
You Can’t Change Facts Just Because You Don’t Like Them
Then, in a direct rebuke of Tapper’s narrative, Noem added, “When there is something [Good’s vehicle] that is weaponized to use against the public and law enforcement, that is an act of domestic terrorism. You don’t get to change the facts just because you don’t like them.”
Noem also said that there have been too many incidents in which an anti-ICE activist has tried to use their vehicle to try to kill law enforcement officers, and that, “I’m asking the DOJ [Department of Justice] to prosecute it as domestic terrorism.”
In an interview with Fox News reporter Maria Barteromo, Noem said that the Department of Homeland Security would be sending several hundred more officers to Minnesota this week to protect the 2,100 ICE and Border Patrol officers already in the state, because local and state police are refusing to provide them with any protection from harassment, obstruction and attacks by illegal immigration activists like Good.
Ice Agent Ross Had Been Dragged by a Car Before
In fact, ICE agent Ross was involved in such an incident on June 17, 2025, when he was dragged by his right arm by a car driven by an illegal immigrant trying to flee during a traffic stop. Ross responded by firing his Taser repeatedly at the driver, while suffering a cut on his right arm that required 20 stitches and a second cut to his left hand that took 13 stitches to close. “I was fearing for my life,” Ross testified during the December trial of the immigrant who was behind the wheel, and who was convicted of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon and resulting in bodily injury.
Agent Ross is a veteran law enforcement agent. He joined ICE in 2015 and has recently been involved in ICE fugitive arrest operations in the Minneapolis area as part of a special ICE response team. Before joining ICE, Ross served with the Indiana National Guard during the Iraq War. He became a U.S. Border Patrol agent in 2007.
Who Was Renee Nicole Good?
Renee Nicole Good was an American-born writer and poet who grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia in 2020 with a degree in English. She was married twice and had three children: a daughter, age 15, and a son, age 12, with her first husband, and a son, age 6, with her second husband, who died in 2023. After the 2024 presidential election, she moved to Canada as a protest against Donald Trump’s election. She returned to the United States and settled in Minneapolis in March, 2025. She had previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union, but shortly before her death, she described herself as a stay-at-home mom for her 6-year-old son.
Immediately after the shooting, Rebecca was seen sobbing at the scene of the shooting and blaming herself for the death of Renee, saying, “I made her come down here, it’s my fault.”
Another Immigrant Shooting Event in Portland, Oregon
On the day after the shooting in Minneapolis, there was another shooting incident in which a federal Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, opened fire in self-defense and wounded two illegal aliens from Venezuela who are affiliated with the notorious Tren de Aragua terrorist gang, after they tried to run the agent over with an automobile. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified the driver as Luis David Nino-Moncada. He entered this country illegally in 2022 and was allowed to remain here by the Biden administration. He had been arrested for driving violations in the United States, and, according to DHS, he has a court order for his removal from this country against him.
The wounded woman was identified as Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras. She entered this country illegally in 2023 near El Paso, Texas, and was also permitted to remain in the country by the Biden administration. She has been tied to a criminal ring run by Tren de Aragua in the United States and has been connected to a prior shooting incident in Portland.
The shooting took place when Border Patrol agents conducting a “targeted vehicle stop” pulled over a truck driven by Nino-Moncada, in which Zambrano-Contrares was a passenger. One of the agents opened fire when Nino-Moncada tried to run them over.
The next day, Portland Police Chief Bob Day reluctantly confirmed the criminal connection of the two aliens with Tren de Aragua and confirmed that the two were in stable condition and recovering from their wounds in a local hospital. He also said that the two wounded aliens appear to be involved in active criminal cases in Portland’s Washington County suburb.
At the same time, Chief Day tearfully admitted that he was reluctant to share that information with the public for fear that it would harm the reputation of other members of Oregon’s Latino immigrant community and add to their fears about the current federal crackdown on illegal immigration.
Oregon’s Democrat attorney general, Dan Rayfield, said that the Oregon Department of Justice is conducting a “concurrent” investigation of the Portland shooting with the FBI, and that so far, the “limited” cooperation between the two agencies seems to be going well. That is in contrast to the conflict between the two agencies last year, when federalized National Guard troops, attempting to control protests at an ICE building in Portland, were accused of using a disproportionate amount of force against the violent protesters.
Portland’s Mayor Says Federal Officials Can’t Be Believed
However, Portland’s Democrat Mayor Keith Wilson cast doubt on the Trump administration’s description of the shooting in Portland. “We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time has long passed,” Wilson said as he called ICE to halt its immigration operations in Portland until the shooting investigation is complete. In addition, Mayor Wilson stated, “Portland is not a training ground for militarized [federal] agents.”
Predictably, despite their association with the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, the shooting of two illegal immigrants in Portland by a Border Patrol agent immediately triggered another protest outside the ICE offices in Portland, in which six of the demonstrators were arrested.
Over the weekend, anti-ICE and Border Patrol protests, organized by a variety of left-wing groups, some of which sponsored last year’s “No Kings” and “Hands Off” anti-Trump demonstrations, were held in Minneapolis, Portland, Houston and San Antonio, Texas, Omaha, Nebraska, Seattle, Washington, New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.
FBI Refuses to Cooperate with Minnesota Police on the Investigation
In addition to the controversy over the death of Renee Good, a separate clash erupted when federal officials said that the investigation of the incident would be conducted entirely by the FBI without the participation of city and state law enforcement agencies. Trump administration officials explained that the harsh initial condemnations of ICE agent Ross by both Minneapolis Mayor Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would make it impossible for the state and local agencies they control to conduct a fair and impartial investigation of the case.
Specifically, a senior federal law enforcement official said that the finger-pointing by Mayor Frey had ordained a predetermined outcome for any local or state investigation, which would inevitably blame the shooting on the ICE agent and the immigration operations that the White House had ordered for Minneapolis. As a result, the White House, Justice Department, and F.B.I. excluded the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which has collaborated with federal law enforcement agencies in the past, from sharing the evidence that they will find in the investigation into Good’s death.
Shortly after the shooting took place, Frey not only declared the ICE agent Ross to be a murderer, but also called the Trump administration’s claim that Ross shot Renee Good in self-defense [garbage] and told ICE agents to get out of his city of Minneapolis. Adding insult to injury, Frey also pretended to apologize to his critics for his excessive use of profanity if it “offended their Disney princess [delicate] ears.”
Governor Walz followed suit. At the same press conference, Minnesota’s top public safety official insisted that he would not speculate on the outcome of the investigation into the shooting. Walz, standing beside him, declared that Renee Good was killed for no reason and portrayed ICE agents as terrorizing the state of Minnesota. Previously, Walz denounced ICE as “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo … scooping folks up off the streets … being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons.” Ironically, Walz then added that the people ICE detains have “no chance to mount a defense,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that his prejudgment of ICE agent Ross’ guilt, without giving him a chance to tell his side of the story, was equally unfair.
Walz Prepares His National Guard to Fight Immigration Authorities
In addition, on the day that Renee Good was shot and killed, Governor Walz said that he was issuing a “warning order” to the Minnesota National Guard to be ready to deploy “if necessary,” to protect the “peaceful resistance” to the efforts by ICE and Border Patrol officers to enforce federal immigration laws. Governor Walz’s order amounts to an egregious, open challenge by the governor of Minnesota to the legal authority of the federal government. Given these tensions, is it any wonder that the FBI and the other federal agencies involved in the Minnesota immigration enforcement operation are unwilling to share any information in their investigation of the circumstances of Renee Good’s death?
Governor Walz also talked openly about his “anger” over Good’s death, and encouraged the people of Minnesota to continue their “peaceful” efforts to harass and obstruct ICE immigration enforcement operations, regardless of the potentially dangerous confrontations they are likely to lead to.
Chicago Police Chief Warns Protesters Against Dangerous Tactics
That danger was vividly described in a widely viewed video clip in which Chicago Chief of Police Larry Snelling warned anti-ICE protesters not to use a vehicle to interfere with immigration enforcement operations by federal agents, because they could then suffer the same fate as Renee Good.
“Let me make this clear,” Chief Snelling began. “Federal agents, ICE, HIS [Homeland Security investigators], are officers. They are agents of law enforcement.
“If you box them in [using] a vehicle, you’re using deadly force, and they can [legally] use deadly force in response to stop you!
“We need to be clear about these laws. We cannot become a society where we just decide to take everything [into] our own hands and start to commit crimes against law enforcement!
“It is a crime. You may not like what they’re doing. I can understand that there are a lot of emotions out there, but that does not mean that you get to commit a crime, especially one that could lead to deadly force.
“We need to keep everyone safe. . . [and to do so] we [must] not interfere with the duties and responsibilities of federal agents.”
Four Other Fatal Immigration Enforcement Incidents
In fact, Renee Good is the fifth individual to die over the past year during a federal immigration enforcement operation.
Last July 10, Mexican immigrant farmworker Jaime Alanis, age 57, fell from the roof of a greenhouse in southern California and suffered a fatal broken neck trying to hide from an immigration enforcement raid. According to the DHS, Alanis was never taken into custody and was not one of the raid’s targets.
On August 14, 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, who came from Guatemala, was killed running away from a raid by immigration authorities on a Home Depot store in Monrovia, California, when he tried to cross a nearby freeway and was hit by a passing SUV traveling at 50-60 miles per hour.
On September 12, ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, age 38, during a traffic stop in suburban Chicago after he had dropped off one of his children at day care. DHS said that Gonzalez, a cook from Mexico, had entered the country illegally and had a history of reckless driving. He was killed while trying to evade arrest by dragging and seriously injuring an immigration officer with his vehicle.
On October 23, Josue Castro Rivera, age 24, from Honduras, was driving with three passengers to a gardening job when ICE officers pulled over his vehicle on Interstate 264 in Norfolk, Virginia, as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based operation,” according to DHS. When he “resisted heavily and fled” by trying to cross the highway on foot, he was struck and killed by a passing pickup truck.
On the other hand, in October, Marimar Marinez, age 30, who works as a teaching assistant, survived after being shot five times during an incident in which she was accused of trying to use her car to run over a Border Patrol agent in a southwestern Chicago neighborhood. She was tried but not convicted on charges of assaulting a federal officer, when a video of the incident undermined the testimony of the Border Patrol agent against her.
Another senior Trump administration official defending the actions of ICE agent Ross and condemning the “corporate” news media coverage of the shooting incident was Vice President JD Vance, who has asserted that Ross has “absolute immunity” from local or state prosecution for his official actions as a federal agent.
Discussing the incident with reporters at a White House press conference last Thursday, Vice President Vance said, “The way that the media, by and large, has reported this story has been an absolute disgrace, and it puts our law enforcement officers at risk every single day.”
“Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn’t hit by a car, wasn’t being harassed, and murdered an innocent woman. . . The reality is that his life was endangered, and he fired in self-defense.” Referring to the video showing Good’s car hitting Ross as he opened fire, Vance added, “What you see is what you get in this case.”
VP Vance Calls Renee Good a Brainwashed Left‑Wing Victim
The vice president also said that part of him felt “very, very sad” for Good. He called her “brainwashed” and “a victim of left-wing ideology,” who was acting as part of a “left-wing network” trying “to incite violence” against federal agents in Minneapolis. . .
“A tragedy? Absolutely. . . I can believe that her death is a tragedy, while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement — a lunatic fringe — against our law enforcement officers. . .
“[It is] a tragedy that falls on this woman and all of the radicals who teach people that immigration is the one type of law that rioters are allowed to interfere with,” Vance said in a tweet.
Vance also condemned the dominant liberal media narrative that Ross should not have fired at Good because she was trying to escape.
“The gaslighting [deceptive reporting of the incident] is off the charts, and I’m having none of it. This guy [ICE] agent was doing his job,” Vance insisted. “She [Renee Good] tried to stop him from doing his job. When he approached her car, she tried to hit him.”
“The officer didn’t discharge his weapon to prevent her from fleeing,” Vance insisted. “When he discharged his weapon, she had pointed the vehicle at him and pressed the gas. He discharged his weapon in self-defense, and other angles of the video show the woman clearly hit the officer with her car while accelerating.”
“Again, you’re not allowed to interrupt a lawful enforcement operation, which is exactly what this woman was doing,” Vance reminded reporters.
White House press secretary Karoline also said on social media that the video vindicated President Trump, who has said the driver had tried to “run over” the ICE agent. She also called Renee Good’s killing the “result of a large, sinister left-wing movement.”
President Trump Defends Ice Agent Ross as Justified
When four New York Times reporters asked Trump about Renee Good’s death in an interview a few hours after the shooting took place, he said that it was the woman’s fault because she had tried to “run over” the ICE officer. He then added, “I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either.”
When the reporters continued to challenge his contention that Good was responsible for the confrontation, he showed reporters a video clip of the incident, which he said proved that Good had tried to attack the ICE officer. “She behaved horribly,” Trump said. “And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.”
Trump also said that when he watched video clips of the incident, he was struck by the fact that “woman was screaming: ‘Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!’ She was… probably a paid agitator. . . a very high-level agitator, so professional. She wouldn’t stop screaming.”
Later, during the same two-hour-long interview with the New York Times, Trump made his strongest public declaration yet, condemning prominent conservatives espousing antisemitic views and declaring that they have no legitimate place in his Republican Party or his MAGA movement. “I think we don’t need them. I think we don’t like them,” Trump said.
The only administration official who was more circumspect about passing judgment on the incident was Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, who told CBS News he would not draw any conclusions from watching videos of the incident circulating on social media. “Let the investigation play out,” Homan said, “and hold people accountable based on the [findings of that] investigation.” But at the same time, Homan emphasized that it is a serious federal crime for any individual to interfere with immigration law enforcement, and that those who do so are helping some of the most heinous criminals in our country today.
Democrats Unified in Condemning the Ice Agent
Democrat congressional leaders were also quick to pass judgment, joining with Minnesota Governor Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Frey in rejecting the possibility that ICE agent Ross opened fire out of a legitimate fear for his life as Good’s SUV started moving towards him.
Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a press conference the morning after the incident, “The killing of Renee Nicole Good was an abomination, a disgrace, and blood is clearly on the hands of those individuals within the administration who have been pushing an extreme policy that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement connected to removing violent felons from this country.”
At the same press conference, Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that in watching the video of Renee Good being shot, “You felt like your stomach was being punched. Looking at the video, there seemed [to be] no justification for what these agents did.
“There needs to be a full investigation at the federal level, although I have little faith in the FBI of doing a fair investigation or DHS, but at the local level as well,” Schumer added.
Two days after the shooting in Minneapolis, Rebecca Good issued a statement to Minnesota Public Radio in which she summed up the deadly confrontation between her and Renee against the ICE agents, saying, “We had whistles. They had guns.” The rest of Rebecca’s message was devoted to praising Renee and the more than 38,500 donors who contributed more than $1.5 million to a GoFundMe campaign for the support of Renee Good’s family, which has now been closed.
New Video Surfaces Showing the Ice Agent’s Point of View
Last Friday, two days after the shooting, a conservative news outlet called Alpha News published 47-seconds-long cellphone video made by ICE agent Ross as he approached Renee Good’s car, and its authenticity was subsequently confirmed by DHS.
The video shows Ross getting out of a vehicle and approaching Renee Good’s Honda, partly blocking the street. A black dog is also seen sitting in the rear seat with its head sticking out of the window.
As agent Ross is seen walking around the front hood of the vehicle, Renee Good comes into view, wearing a knit cap and a plaid jacket over a sweatshirt. She is then heard saying, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad,” though it is not clear to what she was responding. As she continues to talk, her words become harder to make out, as Agent Ross moves toward the rear of the car.
When Ross reaches the back of the car, his video shows several bumper stickers as well as the car’s Missouri license plate. At that time, another woman’s voice can be heard on the video’s soundtrack, believed to be Rebecca, telling agent Ross, “That’s OK, we don’t change our plates every morning, just so you know. It’ll be the same plate when you come talk to us later.” Rebecca, wearing sunglasses and an orange whistle around her neck, then appears on Ross’ video, standing outside the car holding up her phone, apparently taking a video of Agent Ross.
“That’s fine,” she adds. “U.S. citizen, a former… veteran,” apparently describing herself.
Agent Ross then walks toward the front of Renee Good’s vehicle, as the other woman keeps talking to him. “You want to come at us?” she asks. “I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead.”
At that point, additional federal agents can be heard on the video approaching Renee Good’s car from the other side. “Get out of the car,” one of the newly arrived ICE agents says, while pulling on the handle of the driver’s door, and then repeats the demand.
Renee Good’s Fatal Decision
But Renee Good ignores the demand and remains behind the wheel as her Honda Pilot starts to move in reverse. Renee Good can then be seen on some of the videos turning the steering wheel to the right. By then, Agent Ross is standing in front of the vehicle. Then a voice, presumably belonging to Rebecca, who had tried to get back into the vehicle only to find that the doors were locked, tells Renee Good to “Drive, baby, drive.”
As Renee Good shifts gears and the Honda begins to move forward, Ross, who is in front of the vehicle, is clearly caught by surprise. As his cellphone camera is suddenly pointed toward the sky, Ross can be heard exclaiming, “Whoa!” Then a rapid series of gunshots can be heard on his video’s soundtrack. However, because Ross’ cellphone camera is no longer pointing in the right direction, it is not clear from his video whether the front of the Honda made contact with him, or exactly where he was standing when he opened fire at Renee Good in the car.
However, other videos of the incident taken from different viewpoints show Ross standing in front of the vehicle and being grazed by it as he tries to get out of the way and fires three quick shots. His first bullet, apparently fired from in front of the car, passes through the windshield, followed by two more, which pass through the open driver’s side window as Renee Good’s SUV passes him.
A third video clip from another viewpoint depicting the minutes leading up to the shooting of Renee Good was released by DHS over the weekend. The video, which runs for three-and-a-half minutes, was taken by a resident from inside a nearby home and showed several ICE agents and multiple vehicles on the residential street. On the clip’s soundtrack, a car horn can be heard honking its horn repeatedly while someone else nearby can be heard continually blowing a whistle, both of which are warning signals used by anti-ICE activists to alert any illegal immigrants that may be nearby that an immigration enforcement raid is in progress. At one point, the video pans over to what appears to be Renee Nicole Good’s Honda Pilot that is parked to block the middle of the street, confirming her intention to interfere with the ICE operation.
Both Sides of the Controversy Rush to Judgment
As the controversy continues over who was responsible for the fatal confrontation that cost Renee Good her life, George Washington University Law School constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, writing for Fox News, lamented the rush to judgment by both sides based on their biased interpretation of the inconclusive video clips of the incident that have surfaced so far. In particular, Turley criticizes the incendiary comments by New York Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman, who declared that Renee Good’s death “was an outright murder.”
Goldman then goes on to demand that ICE agent Ross “needs to not only be fired and suspended but — based on the video — charged [with murder].”
However, Turley disputes Goldman’s conclusion that the videos of the incident in Minnesota support such a claim. Echoing the point made by Chicago Police Chief Snelling, Turley writes that, “Under governing case law, an officer [of the law] may use lethal force when facing an imminent threat to his life or the lives of fellow officers or third parties.
“In this case,” Turley continues, “the officer had a fraction of a second to decide whether to fire his weapon after Good sped toward him.”
Turley concedes that, “Good appears to have been attempting to flee the officers, and flight alone is not a justification for [the use of] lethal force. However, when a suspect accelerates toward an officer, the vehicle may be treated as a weapon, permitting the use of lethal force in self-defense.”
In Turley’s opinion, when elected Democrats like Congressman Goldman, Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, Mayor Mamdani, and others rush to judgment, condemning ICE Agent Ross for the shooting of Renee Good, “this officer is no longer treated as a human being; he is a prop to be used for political gain. . .”
Democrats Too Eager to Find Triumph in the Minneapolis Tragedy
“[These Democrats] are traffickers in rage, feeding an addiction in the hope that mobs will propel them to greater power. Law enforcement officers are simply expendable when political advantage is at stake,” Turley concludes, and adds that these Democrats are too “eager to find triumph in the tragedies of our times.”
Fox News commentator Mark Halperin adds that, “the tragedy in Minneapolis… has already polarized red and blue America faster than social media can refresh.”
While the investigation into the shooting has just started, and new facts are still emerging, Halperin notes that “the progressive press has made clear it cannot be bothered to wait. It is marching ahead with a predetermined narrative crafted more for political warfare than public understanding.
“Many major [liberal-dominated] newsrooms, which claim to be publishing careful, definitive deconstructions of the publicly available videos, are excluding, and not even acknowledging, videos that cut in favor of the shooter. Outlets that insist they are providing “context,” “fact-checking” and “accountability journalism,” have deliberately airbrushed away anything that complicates their “preferred storyline” which paints ICE agent Ross as the villain and Renee Good as the new liberal martyr, who was shot less than a mile from the Minneapolis street corner where George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis cop, setting off a nationwide wave of violent, liberal-supported race riots in the summer of 2020.
In an op-ed published by The Hill, former Reagan and Bush White House staff member and conservative commentator Douglas MacKinnon offers a broader perspective on recent politically motivated acts of violence, including the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah; the fatal sniper attack in September on an ICE facility in Dallas; and the attempted assassination of candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania during the 2024 presidential campaign.
The Left Is Deliberately Stoking Political Violence
MacKinnon suggests that much of the blame for the most recent surge in political violence can be attributed to “many on the left [who] have dialed up hateful rhetoric aimed at ICE and its officers, trying to paint them as evil monsters. Pejoratives such as ‘Gestap’ and ‘Stormtroopers’ are regularly hurled at them,” and MacKinnon believes that this “barrage of dehumanizing attacks” on any one individual or organization could trigger an already disturbed mind to cross an uncrossable line and attempt the worst [an act of violence].
MacKinnon reminds us that “the men and women who work for ICE are not monsters. They are fellow Americans seeking to serve and protect our nation. . .
“Many on the left have sought… to paint the mothers and fathers working in ICE on behalf of the American people as the enemy. Mothers and fathers simply trying to do their jobs now have to constantly look over their shoulders; fear for their lives; and worst of all, fear for the safety of their children as some on the left seek to personally identify and doxx them. . .
“Quite disgustingly, those trying to smear ICE officers as the enemy have been aided and abetted by some in the political, media, pundit, and academic class. . . [In an effort] to damage the Trump administration. . . these leftists [are] knowingly pouring gasoline onto a fire that has the very real possibility to rage out of control.”
MacKinnon then asks those who disagree with his analysis, “How did we get to this truly tragic point? What triggered the two assassination attempts against Trump and the assassination of Kirk? Who and what are responsible for those outcomes?”
Direct Action Liberal Protest Tactics Can Be Deadly
Fox News columnist David Marcus assigns most of the blame for Renee Good’s death on the method of leftist protests called direct action, “which is basically anything that might get you arrested,” as opposed to traditional non-violent protest methods, such as holding up a sign, chanting a slogan, or marching peacefully along a police-approved route.
Marcus concedes that, “Nobody will ever know if [Renee] Good intended to hit the officer with her car, or just panicked trying to get away. . . [But] the purpose of Good and her comrades was to create confrontation with law enforcement, and that is exactly what happened. . . Her death [was] the wages of direct-action vigilantism.
“The problem for cops is that the use of vehicles as weapons against them has skyrocketed in recent years, along with flat-out ambush attacks on them. . . Their threat level has never been higher. . .
“The mantra of many on the left,” Marcus continues, “including Antifa, whose tactics Good was employing, is ‘resistance by any means necessary.’ And if that puts lives at risk. . . so be it, according to these radicals.”
Liberal Police Forces Ceding the Streets of Our Cities to Antifa
“In fact, it is these agitators and the local police departments in places like Minneapolis and Portland who won’t arrest them, that create the very circumstances that lead to deadly confrontation. And they do it on purpose.
“The unwillingness of these police forces to punish direct-action protesting has sent a clear message to the Antifa types that the streets belong to them. . .
Furthermore, Marcus concludes, “If the feckless mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, actually allowed his police to arrest people for criminal protesting, [the tragic death of Renee Good] never would have happened.
“Anti-cop vigilante violence does get people killed, and sadly, though predictably, given the coddling of the criminals, that is exactly what happened in Minneapolis.”
