Three images taken from videos of the slaying of Renee Nicole Good make it clear that she was not trying to run down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent when he shot her three times and killed her.
Videos taken by different people from various angles (see CNN, ABC, and the New York Times) show what happened, including one in slow motion.
We see ICE agents apparently attempting to force Good out of her vehicle, Good backing up, then Good trying escape by turning the wheels to the right and driving forward. And we see ICE agent Jonathan Ross firing a first shot at Good from near the front of the car, then firing two more shots from alongside the car.
Common sense tells us that ICE shooter Ross never considered himself in danger of being run over, since he deliberately stepped in front of the car.
What you see is not a man being run down. What you see is not self-defense. It is an execution.
Consider two screen captures from seconds 9 and 10 of the video.
In the first, Ross appears to be in front of the vehicle and he is drawing his gun.
The vehicle had been moving backward just one second earlier, so the vehicle’s forward movement was still slow. If Ross thought the car might hit him, he had only to step to his right (our left) to get out of the car’s path. Instead he draws his gun, aims, and fires.
In the second photo we see the puff of vapor that accompanies the first shot. We also see that both of Ross’ feet are to the left of the car. Ross is not in the path of the car when he takes his first shot. He is not saving himself from being run down.
Shots two and three are even more obviously not in “self-defense.” As shown in the slow motion video and the screen shot below, the car has moved forward and the ICE agent is alongside the vehicle when he stretches out his arm and shoots Renee Good in the head. He fires at point-blank range, through the driver’s side window.
What you see is not a man being run down. What you see is not self-defense. It is an execution.
Neither President Donald Trump nor Homeland Security head Kristi Noem have acknowledged that agent Jonathan Ross should not have taken out his gun and killed a law-abiding citizen who only sought to escape from aggressive ICE agents. Neither even said a terrible mistake had been made. They endorsed and excused the killing, and claimed she was a “domestic terrorist.”
The execution of Renee Nicole Good was part of a practice of unnecessary and excessive force which Trump and Noem approve of and support. ICE agents have fired their guns at people in cars at least 10 times, and, short of murder, ICE agents routinely attack and brutalize those they seize. Violence against observers and reporters represent efforts to conceal such lawless ICE conduct.
The contention that an ICE shooting victim tried to run them over has become the ICE equivalent of the German Nazi claim that slain opponents were shot while attempting to escape.
No evidence supports any terrorism claim, but Noem asserted that Good had been “stalking” ICE. President Trump pointed to a further “wrong”: “At a very minimum,” said Trump, “that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement.”
Citizens of a democracy are entitled to observe ICE agents, to deter them from lawless activity, and citizens of a democracy are not required to be respectful of law enforcement.
If the Department of Homeland Security can with impunity kill citizens for exercising those rights, America will not long remain a free nation.
