In Minneapolis yesterday, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. The shooting occurred on a residential street in south Minneapolis (less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020).
Trump claimed that Ms. Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over” the ICE agent. Kristi Noem claimed that “our officers were out trying to get a car stuck out of the snow when they were surrounded and assaulted and blocked in by protesters.”
Several videos taken from different angles (see, for example, here) and several analyses of the videos (see here) make it clear that Trump’s and Noem’s descriptions of what occurred are blatant lies.
According to an eyewitness, ICE agents yelled contradictory instructions at Good — one telling her to leave and then, as she complied, another tried to open her door and told her to get out, while a third shot her in the face.
As horrific as this murder is, Trump and his regime’s response has been almost as chilling.
Trump accused Good of being a “professional agitator” and blamed the tragedy on “the Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate.” Noem accused Good of being engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism.” JD Vance called her “part of a broader left-wing network” and said the killing was “a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left.”
I don’t know Renee Good’s politics. But why would her political leanings be relevant to her murder? Are Trump and his sycophants suggesting that it’s okay for federal agents to murder someone based on their political beliefs?
Minnesota’s investigators have been told by the FBI that they will not be allowed to investigate; only the FBI will investigate. As Governor Tim Walz noted, it will be “very difficult for Minnesotans to think in any way this is going to be fair when Kristi Noem is judge, jury, and basically executioner.”
A cold-blooded murder was committed inside the United States by an agent of the United States federal government acting under the authority of Donald Trump.
That is cause for deep concern by us all — right and left, Democrat and Republican.
During a conversation with TheNew York Times that was reported today, Trump said, “the only thing that can stop me” is “my own morality. My own mind.”
Trump was responding to a question about checks on his power to attack nations around the world. But his response is increasingly relevant to his power domestically.
Dictators murder whomever they choose. That’s not how the United States is supposed to work.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.