A small detail has stayed with me from the video of Renee Nicole Good being shot to death in Minneapolis by ICE officer Jonathan Ross.

In the video, she’s behind the wheel, signaling with her left hand to the driver of an ICE vehicle that she’s letting him go before she goes. Then out of that vehicle come two officers. One goes straight to her door.

“Get the f--- outta the car,” says the officer, who is not Ross.

Then he tries to open her door.

That’s the small detail I’m talking about and here’s the reason it has stayed with me. I have been pulled over a few times in my life – for speeding or turning right on a red light when it should not have. But I cannot recall a time when the police officer tried to open my door.

Forget about swearing at me. That’s never happened either. But no law enforcement officer has communicated to me a hint of physical aggression, even when I deserved it (a story for another time). I don’t mean speaking sternly. I mean with his body – like he intends to hurt me. That’s surely the message received by Renee Nicole Good.

There’s another thing about this detail worth dwelling on.

The fact that I have never experienced a police officer who has communicated to me a hint of physical aggression is due, at least in part, to the fact that I am white. I’m also a man. A white man in a country that was built for white men can live his whole life in blissful ignorance of state violence experienced by nonwhite counterparts.

I bring this up, because I wonder about the role of Renee Nicole Good’s race in her experience of the ICE officer acting like he’s gonna hurt her. As I said, he strides over to her, and tries to open her door. (It’s locked.)

What did she feel? It must have been a shock.

To even the wokest white person, violence by the state is still mostly theoretical. We might believe it’s true. We might trust Black people and other people of color are speaking truthfully about their experience. We might see videos online. But we don’t know what it feels like.

What I’m trying to say is that it makes sense to me if Renee Nicole Good experienced panic on two levels at the same time. Once, because here’s a “cop” trying to open her door, acting like he’s gonna hurt her. Twice, because the abstractions of white power were suddenly real.

I would have panicked, too.

She was right to be afraid. As she focused on the ICE officer cussing her out and trying to open her door, something that I’m pretty sure she had never experienced before, ICE officer Jonathan Ross took a position in front of her car, as she was backing up. Before moving forward, she turned the wheel to the right to avoid him. That’s when Ross crouched, aimed and fired, first through the windshield, then the open window.

Ross’s defenders want us to believe the fear felt by Renee Nicole Good doesn’t count. The only fear that counts is Ross’s. They say he believed she would have killed him. They say he was justified in killing her.

It’s that classic closed-circuit logic.

“It's so f------ convenient that they get to ‘fear for their lives’ anytime they want to absolve themselves of anything,” said writer Luke O’Neil, “and when we actually fear for our lives because of them and do anything a scared person would do it's justification for our death.”

It’s also ridiculous.

“The obvious critique I have not heard explicitly articulated is that the point of making a self-defense argument would be saying ‘but for’ his shooting her, she would have killed him,” said Jonathan Kahn, a law professor at Northeastern. “Clearly, had he not shot her, the outcome for him would have been just the same - ie, no threat to his life.”

The irony is that Renee Nicole Good did not seem afraid of Ross. That’s clear from the video that Ross took during the shooting and that he leaked afterward to a sympathetic media outlet. He released it in the apparent belief that it proves he acted in self-defense. It doesn’t.

In that video, Renee Nicole Good can be seen smiling at Ross. As he’s walking around her car, recording her, taking note of her out-of-state license plate, she tells him: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

Everything changes when the other ICE officer, who can also be seen in Ross’s video, strides toward her vehicle, tries to open the door, cussing as he orders her to get out. She was evidently sensing danger. Ross was not justified in killing her. But she was justified in trying to get away.

Perhaps the most shocking thing, according to David Lurie, an attorney who writes for Public Notice, is what all this says about dissent.

Ross’s defenders argue that his video proves Renee Nicole Good and her spouse, Rebecca Good, were a threat in that they “were not fans of ICE and were in fact protesting the thugs’ activities,” David told me.

In other words, their dissent was a threat. If Ross and his defenders actually believe that, David told me, “that is also deeply creepy.”

“It is effectively a declaration that dissent merits death.”

Jonathan Ross leaked his video Friday. Afterward, I got in touch with David Lurie to discuss it. Here’s the rest of our conversation.

Jonathan Ross appears to believe that his video absolves him -- that he killed Renee Nicole Good in self-defense. I don't see it. Do you?

First of all, how that video ended up being published is a major issue, which we can discuss. Second, it is not remotely exculpatory – and it takes a truly twisted mind to see it that way.

Why is it a major issue in your view?

It is yet another indication that the FBI investigation is entirely unreliable. The FBI should have control of all of the evidence, including and especially any recordings or other records created by the officers.

And, of course, it should not be releasing those materials piecemeal.

If the officer retains control of the recording, and is engaging in his own publicity campaign, then that necessarily means the FBI is not conducting a professional and reliable investigation.

And if the FBI is itself releasing items of evidence to favored press outlets piecemeal, while freezing out state law enforcement authorities from the investigation, then that is as bad or worse.

You have seen the video. You say it's not exculpatory. Is it damning? It seems to show her steering away from him.

What I focused on is that it confirmed that the victim was – including by her words – trying to deconflict the situation, which is what cops are supposed to do, while it was the ICE thugs who were escalating.

It was chilling.

There’s another disturbing insight.

Apparently, the perpetrator or others in the Trump regime think the video "justifies" the murder, presumably because it shows that the victim and her spouse were not fans of ICE and were in fact protesting the thugs’ activities.

That is also deeply creepy, because it is effectively a declaration that dissent merits death.

That's what I was thinking. If you do not immediately comply, that is justification enough for use of maximum force. And that would be a perversion of law and order, not its preservation. Thoughts?

Agree.

Also, in fact, she was not getting clear instructions from the menacing gang of masked thugs that appeared around her, and to the extent that some of the thugs were demanding to get access to her person, she had every reason not to freely comply.

The fact that the cameraman thug turned out to be a reckless and amoral murderer itself demonstrates that she was rightfully fearful of getting out of her car.

What now? The FBI is blocking state investigators, though local prosecutors are apparently gathering their own evidence.

You are ahead of me on news of the prosecutors, but that does not surprise me. They have the ability to gather a lot of probative evidence without the cooperation of the thugs and their bosses or the FBI.

But it is obviously problematic for state or local authorities to undertake a criminal investigation of the conduct of a federal law enforcement officer while the federal government is actively obstructing the investigation.

Assuming the (clearly wrongful) obstruction of the Minnesota investigation continues, it seems more than likely that the Minnesota authorities will seek judicial intervention to force the feds to give them access to the investigatory materials.

We shall see how that plays out.

If Ross is arrested and there's an indictment and so on, a big if, couldn't the feds just ask a judge to move the case to federal court, where they can have the charges dropped? If so, what then?

There is a lot to be said on that topic. But here are the basics. If there is a criminal case, it will be tried in a federal court, even if it is a state prosecution. Although it seems a bit odd, a state law criminal prosecution of a federal officer for state criminal violations is highly likely to be "removed" to federal court under applicable law.

But if it is removed, it will still be prosecuted by state officials, and state criminal laws will apply to the case, but before there is a trial, there will likely be a "Supremacy Clause immunity" issue to be resolved.

This sounds arcane, but is conceptually simple. While the constitutions define state and the federal governments as "sovereigns," with independent authority to enforce their respective laws, where there is a conflict between state and federal law, under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, federal law prevails.

It follows that if the allegedly criminal conduct of a federal law enforcement officer was consistent with federal law, including governing law enforcement policies, then it is unconstitutional to permit a state law prosecution to proceed.

But it is not going to be enough for the officer to put Kristi Noem in front of the court and for her to make bogus claims about the facts and about federal law enforcement policies. The court will undertake its own independent review of those matters.

The first thing that should be said about the fatal shooting in Minneapolis is that the victim’s name is Renee Nicole Good.

Good, 37, was a mother, a wife, a poet and fervent Christian. Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the local newspaper that her daughter and her partner were not involved in protests.

“She was probably terrified. Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being,” Ganger said.

Good was a widow. Her husband, a veteran, died in 2023 at 36. They had a son. He’s 6. Good was with her partner when ICE shot her in the face, then dithered long enough for her to bleed out.

A video taken by a witness moments after the shooting shows Good’s partner sitting on the ground with her dog. There’s blood on the snow. Between sobs she can be heard saying, “they killed my wife. I don’t know what to do,” according to The Advocate.

"We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head."

“We have a 6-year-old at school.”

Her former teacher, Kent Wascom, a professor at Old Dominion University, posted a memorial to Renee Good on Twitter.

“I held her baby,” Wascom said. “She was kind and talented, a working-class mom who put herself through school despite circumstances that would’ve crumpled the pathetic rich boy politicians who sadistically abetted her murder.” He added:

“God damn them all.”

Good’s humanity needs to be the first thing that’s said, because the regime that killed her started erasing her humanity from virtually the moment she was murdered Wednesday morning.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Good was an “agitator” who “weaponized” her vehicle in an act of “domestic terrorism.” The ICE officer, she said, acted in self-defense.

Vice President JD Vance blamed the victim. “Don't illegally interfere in federal law enforcement operations and try to run over our officers with your car,” he said. “It's really that simple."

On his social media site, the president added his own smears.

“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting,” Donald Trump wrote. She “then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer. ... It is hard to believe [the ICE officer] is alive but he is now recovering in the hospital."

Every single word is a lie.

I spent a lot of time yesterday watching and rewatching the video of the shooting (a different one from the video I reference above). And virtually nothing, perhaps literally nothing, that the Trump regime is saying matches up with the reality of what happened.

Good was not “very disorderly, obstructing and resisting.” She did not “violently, willfully and viciously [run] over the ICE officer.” The officer in question was not injured in any visible way.

Indeed, after he shot Good three times, and after her SUV rammed into a parked car, the ICE officer checked her condition, then walked to his own vehicle and, moments later, drove away.

I’m not going to do a frame-by-frame analysis. There are pros out there who do that kind of thing better than me. For instance, Eliot Higgins, head of Bellingcat, an investigative reporting group.

“Bellingcat, the New York Times Visual Investigation Team and the Washington Post's Visual Forensic team have all published analysis showing the ICE shooter wasn't in the path of Renee Nicole Good’s vehicle when he shot her, contradicting statements by the president and his cronies,” Higgins said this morning.

Here’s the Times investigation. I will add a small but telling detail.

The masked ICE officer, who has been identified as Jonathan Ross but whose whereabouts are unknown, was not in any danger.

Good was clearly steering around him, and because of that, Ross had time to position himself in front of the car, crouch, take aim, both arms straight out, and fire. Ross shoots once through the windshield, then twice more through the driver’s side window.

Hers was an act of self-defense, not terror.

His was an act of terror, not self-defense.

The difference between what happened to Renee Nicole Good and what administration officials say happened to her is so vast and obvious that the president is no longer taking any chances.

Yesterday, the FBI said the investigation would be done jointly by federal agents in coordination with the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). Today, however, the FBI changed its mind.

The BCA “would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation,” a spokesman said.

Why would the FBI do this?

To cover up the crime in order to protect the president from the consequences of allowing his secret police to commit crimes.

The FBI is going to try hiding the ugly truth: ICE claims it can declare anyone “illegal” and that it can be the judge, jury and executioner of any accused criminal, including a white, blonde mother of a 6-year-old, who had stuffed animals on the dash and whose partner wailed in despair yards from her bloodied corpse.

But hiding the truth is only part of it. Trump must also erase Good in the same way he erased what happened five years ago, nearly to the day of her death, when he organized and led an attempted paramilitary takeover of the United States Congress.

There is a straight line of causation from January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump launched an insurrection, to January 7, 2026, when his insurgents not only shot an innocent woman but prevented a physician, a bystander, from trying to save her life.

As David Lurie noted, if the GOP cannot win by legitimate means in November, “they will return to the 1/6 strategy of seeking to remain in power with the use of intimidation and force.”

This time, David said, “they won't need to enlist an ad hoc group of thugs to serve as enforcers, because they are assembling a massive force of government-funded and armed thugs who are practicing, and honing, their violent repression skills and strategies on the citizens of cities across the country.”

We may think the evidence of our eyes is so damning that surely Good’s killer will be brought to justice. But we thought the same thing five years ago. Trump and his insurgents mounted a massive disinfo campaign to erase history. They succeeded.

Like last time, they are going to lie, but most of all, they’re going to make it seem like Renee Good’s humanity never existed, just as they made it seem like the J6 insurrection never happened.

Don’t believe me? See this video. After the morning’s shooting, locals set up an impromptu memorial that evening – chalk messages on the sidewalks, candles in solemn remembrance. In this video, an ICE officer literally kicks one of them over. He then taunts a bystander who’s visibly enraged by such disrespect.

‪They murdered her. They fled the scene of the crime. They stopped a doctor from rendering aid to her. And they lied to protect the man who did the killing. But that wasn’t enough.

They had to desecrate her, too.

This is why I said at the top that the first thing that needs to be said about all this is Renee Nicole Good’s name. The Trump regime is terrified of her humanity, because it puts flesh and bone on the consequences of autocracy – on what happens when a free society allows lawlessness to come straight from the top.

When I read that the young mother who was executed at point-blank range by one of Trump’s ICE goons Wednesday was named Renee Nicole Good, it sent a chill down my spine.

As the pain and outrage was washing through me, it also struck me as almost too much of a coincidence that she was there protesting state violence and Ben Franklin had been using the name “Silence Dogood” — as in “Do Good” — to warn American colonists about the very same dangers of state violence.

When 16-year-old Franklin slipped his first Silence Dogood essay under the door of his brother’s print shop in 1722, America had few police departments, no body cameras, no qualified immunity, and few militarized patrols prowling city streets. But young Franklin already understood the danger.

Writing as a fictional widow, Franklin warned that “nothing makes a man so cruel as the sense of his own superiority.” The remark was in the context of self-important ministers, magistrates, and petty officials, but he was also talking about raw state power itself as we saw with the execution of Renee Nicole Good.

Power that is insulated, Franklin taught, answers only to itself and believes its very authority excuses the violence it uses.

Franklin’s insight didn’t die on the printed page but, rather, became the moral backbone of the American Revolution. As Do-Good, he repeatedly cautioned us that power breeds cruelty when it’s insulated from consequence, that authority becomes violent when it believes itself superior, and that free speech is usually the first casualty of abusive rule.

In Essay #6, in 1772, Dogood wrote:

“Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech.”

Renee Nicole Good was on that Minneapolis street to express her freedom of speech, her outrage at the crimes, both moral and legal, being committed by ICE on behalf of Donald Trump, Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, and Stephen Miller.

Thomas Paine took Franklin’s warning and sharpened it into a blade. Government, Paine said, is a “necessary evil” but when it turns its legally authorized violence against its own people, it becomes “intolerable.” Authority doesn’t legitimize force, Paine argued; instead, the ability to use force without accountability inevitably corrupts authority.

And here we are. This is the ninth time ICE agents have shot into a person‘s car, and the second time they’ve killed somebody in the process.

For Paine, violence by agents of the state isn’t an aberration, it’s the default outcome when power concentrates without clear accountability. Where Franklin warned about cruelty born of a sense of superiority (as armed, masked white ICE officers search for brown people as if they were the Klan of old), Paine warned us that force will always be directed against the governed unless that power is aggressively constrained.

James Madison — the “Father of the Constitution” — then took both men at their word. He didn’t design a constitution that assumed virtue; instead, he designed one that assumed abuse.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” he wrote in Federalist 51, adding, “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Because we and our politicians and police aren’t angels, Madison pointed out, state power must be restrained, divided, watched, and continuously challenged. Which is why the Framers of the Constitution adopted the checks-and-balances system — splitting the government into three co-equal parts — that Montesquieu recommended, based on what he had learned from the Iroquois (as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Democracy).

Franklin himself became even clearer about the threat of unaccountable state-imposed violence as he aged. Governments, he repeatedly warned, always claim violence is necessary for safety and we saw that yesterday when puppy-killer Kristi Noem claimed that Renee Good was a “domestic terrorist.” Her comment is the perfect illustration of Franklin’s assertion that state violence, once normalized, always tries to claim justification.

To add insult to murder, Trump pathetically waddled over to his Nazi-infested social media site and claimed:

“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. … [T]he reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.”

Silence Dogood would have confronted him head-on, as she/Franklin repeatedly did with the petty, self-important officials of colonial New England. He repeatedly noted that surrendering liberty for a little temporary security not only doesn’t prevent state brutality but actually it invites it. In a 1759 letter, Franklin explicitly warned us about men like Trump and the siren song of “law and order”:

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Once a state teaches its agents that force is the solution, force becomes their habit. That’s how police states are formed out of democracies, as the citizens of Russia, Hungary, and Venezuela have all learned. And now, it appears, we’re learning as America becomes the world’s most recent police state.

This isn’t an uniquely American problem: it’s older than our republic. And Franklin told us exactly how it happens: when state authority stops serving the people but instead lords over them, stops being questioned by the media and the people, and stops fearing consequences because it lives behind a shield of immunity, a police state is inevitable.

As Minnesota Governor Tim Walz noted, the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis wasn’t a “tragic anomaly.” It was the predictable outcome of systems Franklin would have recognized instantly; the kind of corrupt strongman systems that reward domination, excuse cruelty, and punish dissent.

Trump wants us on the “radical left” to shut up and go away. But Ben Franklin taught us that silence in the face of power isn’t neutrality but is, instead, an extension of permission. He wrote as Silence Dogood precisely because he understood that abuse flourishes when citizens turn their eyes away and lower their voices.

If we want to live in the democratic republic Franklin, Paine, and Madison imagined where power is given by “the consent of the governed,” then outrage isn’t enough. We must demand accountability, insist on transparency, and refuse to accept state violence and a firehose of official lies as the price of order.

Three centuries ago, a teenage printer’s apprentice warned us that silence enables abuse. He was right then. He is right now.