Today the always-cruel Trump administration outdid themselves by murdering a 37 year old Minneapolis woman whose “crime,” if you can even call it that, was using her car to block a road being used by a convoy of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents.
The killing was captured on video, thankfully, because otherwise Trump and Noem (she’s the head of Homeland Security) might have gotten away with their absurd claim that the woman, Renee Nicole Good, was a domestic terrorist who tried to kill ICE agents by running them over with her car.
A Politico story describes who Good actually is.
The woman shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday was Renee Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had recently moved to Minnesota.
She was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado and appears to never have been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a traffic ticket.
In social media accounts, Macklin Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” She said she was currently “experiencing Minneapolis,” displaying a pride flag emoji on her Instagram account. A profile picture posted to Pinterest shows her smiling and holding a young child against her cheek, along with posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.
Her ex-husband, who asked not to be named out of concern for the safety of their children, said Macklin Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school Wednesday and was driving home with her current partner when they encountered a group of ICE agents on a snowy street in Minneapolis, where they had moved last year from Kansas City, Missouri.
Video taken by bystanders posted to social media shows an officer approaching her car, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. When she begins to pull forward, a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range.
In another video taken after the shooting, a distraught woman is seen sitting near the vehicle, wailing, “That’s my wife, I don’t know what to do!”
You can see the best video of the murder in this CNN You Tube story. It’s obvious that Good was trying to drive away, not hit any of the three ICE agents who approached her vehicle and tried to open the driver’s side door. The agent who pulled out his gun and murdered Good was in no danger. All he needed to do was step away from her car to be in even less danger.
Yet the agent, who needs to go to jail for many years for his crime, shot Good in the head through her windshield. What a fucking coward. A real man, rather than a scared wimp, would have done what every police department in the country advises when someone posing no threat tries to drive away from law enforcement: let them go. Get their license plate and contact them later.
It also is against Homeland Security policy for an agent to stand in front of a moving car. Yet that’s what this murdering idiot did. He wasn’t hurt at all, as is clear from him walking toward Good’s crashed car with no problem. So Trump was lying big-time when he claimed today that the agent was lucky to be alive from the serious injuries he suffered.
Now the FBI will investigate the killing. I’m worried that a cover-up is in the works. Trump and Noem already are saying that Good was trying to kill ICE agents. Trump hates to be proven wrong. So there’s going to be tremendous pressure on the FBI to come to conclusions that support Trump and Noem’s lies, rather than pursuing the obvious truth: Good was murdered by an ICE agent who deserves life imprisonment for taking the life of an innocent woman.
UPDATE: The New York Times has studied video of Good’s shooting. They concluded that the Trump administration’s claims about Good attacking ICE officers with her car isn’t supported by the video evidence. Here’s a transcript of their analysis.
Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis
An analysis of footage from three camera angles show that the vehicle appears to be turning away from a federal officer as he opened fire.
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On Wednesday in Minneapolis, a federal agent fatally shot a motorist, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. Trump administration officials said these were “defensive shots” fired because the officer was being run over. But our analysis of bystander footage, filmed from different angles, appears to show the agent was not in the path of the victim’s SUV when he fired three shots at close range.
Here’s how events unfolded. Moments before the shooting, the victim’s maroon SUV is stopped in the middle of the street. Multiple unmarked federal vehicles are idling nearby. Secretary Noem alleged the motorist “was blocking the officers in.” Bystanders are blowing whistles and yelling at federal agents. Then, federal vehicles start moving toward the maroon SUV with sirens and lights blaring. A federal agent films the scene on his phone.
The driver rolls forward slightly, turning left, then stops and waves for others to go ahead. Two agents exit this silver pickup and walk toward the vehicle. Moments later, shots are fired. Let’s look at the scene again more closely. This is the agent who shoots the driver. He walks around the car filming and disappears from view. Other agents pull up and order the driver to exit her vehicle. One of them grabs at the door handle and reaches inside.
The SUV reverses, then turns right, apparently attempting to leave. At the same time, the agent filming crosses toward the left of the vehicle and grabs his gun. He opens fire on the motorist and continues shooting as she drives past. The moment the agent fires, he is standing here to the left of the SUV and the wheels are pointing to the right away from the agent. This appears to conflict with allegations that the SUV was ramming or about to ram the officer.
President Trump and others said the federal agent was hit by the SUV, often pointing to another video filmed from a different angle. And it’s true that at this moment, in this grainy, low-resolution footage, it does look like the agent is being struck by the SUV. But when we synchronize it with the first clip, we can see the agent is not being run over. In fact, his feet are positioned away from the SUV.
The SUV crashes into a white car parked down the road. A bystander runs toward the collision. The federal agents on scene do not appear to rush to provide emergency medical care. Eventually, the agent who shot the motorist approaches the vehicle. Seconds later, he turns back around and tells his colleagues to call 911. Agents blocked several bystanders who attempt to provide medical care, including one who identifies himself as a physician. At the same time, several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.
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