Thing One: Get out of the way. Thing Two: There is no "Thing Two." Just get out of the way.

The very first thing that must be said about the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent is this. Video of the incident shows the agent had two choices in the moment Good's vehicle began to move forward. His choices were (1) move to the side to get out of the way, or (2) move to the side to get out of the way, while simultaneously firing his weapon into the face of the driver. He chose the second option.

Video evidence shows that moving to the side to get out of the way was accomplished without a lot of difficulty. (The New York Times produced a detailed analysis consisting of synchronized and annotated videos from multiple angles, for you to peruse. The Washington Post said "the agent was able to move out of the way and fire at least two of three shots from the side of the vehicle as it veered past him, according to the analysis.")

The evidence also shows that, from the standpoint of self-defense, discharging the weapon was entirely superfluous. It yielded the agent zero additional protection from harm.

This needs to be the baseline reality for all further discussion of the incident, about which much more can and should be said. Such as, for example, the observation that the vehicle's front wheels were turned (to the right, whereas the officer was positioned to the left) suggests the driver was simply trying to depart the scene, rather than run anybody over. Or that once again hot-headed law enforcement in this country is all too ready, willing, and able to use lethal force rather than do something more sensible and responsible.

Whatever the Renee Good's intentions may have been, and at some level we just can't know, the officer was readily able to get out of the way. Any reasonably nimble person without a gun could have done the same, and been equally safe from harm. He moved to the left, she to the right. The gun added nothing useful; if anything it would have slowed him down. And notice what should be obvious: In that particular situation, a side-stepping human is far more maneuverable than a motor vehicle. Had she actually wanted to run him over, it's unlikely that she could have done so, especially since he was positioned at the front corner of the vehicle, not directly in front of it.

It shocks the conscience that at least two of the three shots were fired with the officer positioned well to the side, where there's no way he could have been struck. The car was moving past him, not at him. In that sense his actions seem more punitive (or maybe just reflexive) than defensive. Had he kept the gun in its holster, as he should have, reflex wouldn't have become an issue. And it demonstrates another sad truth we've seen many times over the years: That once the first shot is fired (which happens all too readily), an officer seems committed to maximum lethality, intent on emptying as much of his clip as possible.

There is, alas, a long and sorry history of law enforcement having a seeming hair trigger with regard to the use of lethal force. We've seen it over and over. In this country it's not uncommon for police to shoot innocent and/or non-threatening people purely by reflex. One commentator noted with rueful irony that simply trying to obey police commands, which are often contradictory, is not a sure way to save your life in encounters with police. Police are actually trained that they are the ones in peril, and that they need to act fast or die. This is perverse, but it's nothing new.

As the present incident demonstrates, acting fast with a gun is not a justifiable strategy, and sometimes ends in tragedy. Getting out of the way was all that was needed. And yet, this officer's un-holstering of his gun was rapid and instinctive, and once it was in his hand the obvious thing to do was to fire it.

Another crucial observation is how quickly reality becomes manipulated and distorted. This is an unfortunate feature of the broken political, social, and ideological environment in which we live. It's also a feature of autocratic governments, which deem it more essential to wield power and control the narrative than to elucidate truth. We unfortunately live in a world of made-up realities.

And so we have the president of the United States saying the deceased woman "violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer." She did no such thing. She was not violent. She was not vicious. And the ICE officer was not run over. Trump wrote on social media that it's "hard to believe he [the officer] is alive." He called the woman a "paid agitator"—a baseless, scurrilous claim he made up on the spot. (I have previously referred to Trump as a "bullshitter," in the technical meaning of that word. Yes, there's a technical meaning.)

Stop and think. If the president of the United States is allowed to claim the ICE agent was run over when he wasn't, then reality itself is up for grabs. What a dismal situation for a highly inflamed country, where so many of us will simply believe what we want to believe rather than what is. If we can't trust the president to convey basic information truthfully to the public, how can we expect the system to hold at all?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the woman had committed an act of  "domestic terrorism," first disobeying officers’ commands, and then weaponizing her SUV by attempting to "run a law enforcement officer over." The preponderance of evidence shows she made no such attempt. And not only is disobeying police not terrorism, but civil disobedience is an established noble feature of American civil rights protest. A leader who so reprehensibly misuses the word "terrorism" relinquishes moral and governing legitimacy. Such assertions and labels are unworthy of leaders in a free society.

For his part, vice president J.D. Vance said "other angles of the video show the woman clearly hit the officer with her car while accelerating." Clearly, he said. They do not. One fuzzy low-resolution video shot from a distance seems to show that he might have been hit, but a clearer, closer video from a better angle shows that he was not. I should not have to say this, but both things can't be true, and you don't get to pick whichever video suits your preferred narrative. Either he was hit or he wasn't, and you go with the most definitive evidence. That the officer deftly dodged the car, and then walked around the scene for more than a minute afterward with no apparent difficulty, backs up that conclusion.

As for Vance's "while accelerating" claim, the most rapid acceleration happened after the woman had been fatally shot in the face. The car crashed further down the street. I'd imagine the woman wasn't even conscious when her foot slammed down on the accelerator pedal in the final convulsion of her life.

It's shameful that officials justify the shooting in part by claiming the woman was acting illegally. Vance said officers "are approaching her vehicle because she is violating the law: namely, she is obstructing a lawful enforcement operation. You're not allowed to walk up to or drive up to people who are enforcing the law to make it harder for them to do their jobs." Noem spoke of the woman "disobeying officers’ commands," as if getting shot is a rightful consequence of such disobedience. These are morally weak arguments in defense of a killing. None of this justifies deadly force, and only a sick society holds that it does.

One witness reported that ICE officers had issued conflicting orders, which is itself a common occurrence in police stops gone bad. One agent told her to drive away, the witness said, while another told her to get out of her vehicle. A TV commentator noted with rueful irony that in many situations trying to obey the police won't save your life. Again, we've seen this before.

A newly released video from the officer's own phone (he'd been recording the scene) adds some additional details. Just before the shooting, Renee Good's wife, who was standing outside the vehicle, told her to drive away, which she seemingly then attempted to do. "She then looks down as she shifts the vehicle into drive," says a Washington Post analysis of the new video. "She looks up again as she turns the steering wheel to the right, away from Ross [the ICE agent]." We'd already seen the rightward pointed wheels from earlier video.

After three shots are fired, says The Post, "A male voice — it is not clear whose — can be heard uttering two expletives: “Fucking bitch.” "

One can be forgiven for concluding that the speaker of that epithet, in the instant after Renee Good's face had been blown apart, believed she'd gotten what she deserved—as did our highest governing officials who worked so shamefully to justify the shooting and, more broadly, as does the right wing commentariat. We live in very ugly times.

I want to finish where I started, and reemphasize that from the standpoint of self-defense, discharging the weapon was entirely superfluous and completely unhelpful. It yielded zero additional protection from harm for the officer. Shooting Renee Good achieved nothing other than ending her life. It ought to be trivially self-evident that if you're a few feet in front of a moving vehicle whose driver intends to run you over, you will not stop it by shooting the driver. The only useful thing you can do is get out of the way, which is what the officer did. Unfortunately, he took the opportunity to shoot and kill a 37-year-old mother as he was doing so, ensuring she got her comeuppance for all the whistles and taunts and indignities he'd had to endure.

Copyright (C) 2026 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved 

The latest from Does It Hurt To Think? is here

The complete archive is here