Millions have seen the video, but some reports suggest that you should not believe your eyes that saw ICE agents murder Renee Nicole Good as she attempted to slowly move her car away from them.
What you are instructed to believe, according to Donald Trump (USA Today, 1/7/26), and those in media who obey him, is that Good was “a professional agitator,” who 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.”
You’re to understand that Good was engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism,” according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (PBS NewsHour, 1/7/26), and that “an officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.”
‘Deep divide’
NPR (1/8/26) underscored the idea that you should wait before decrying a murder, saying reactions to the killing “reflect outrage over Good’s death and a deep divide in how it’s portrayed—as either a tragic abuse of power or an officer acting in self-defense.”
Only after setting up readers up with six paragraphs of (relevant, we’re to understand) details about how officer Jonathan Ross had previously “sustained injuries’ from “an anti-ICE rioter” who was a “Mexican national,” NPR allowed as how Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison “disagrees with Noem’s characterization of Good as a domestic terrorist.”
In the 13th paragraph, we get the mayor of Minneapolis: “Frey said of the self-defense explanation, ‘Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody that is bullshit.'”
Did the NPR reporters see the video themselves? Can they tell us whether or not this is bullshit? How exactly do they define the job of reporting?
‘Before facts could be established’
The New York Times (1/8/26) seeks points for having “pressed” Trump on what he insists is reality—”We Pressed Trump on His Conclusion About the ICE Shooting” read the headline—and for printing that he showed a “reflexive defense of what has become a sometimes violent federal crackdown on immigration.”
Setting aside whether there is a crackdown on “immigration” or on some and not other immigrants, that supposed journalistic bravery has to battle in Times readers’ minds with the textbook garbage they also put forward with the piece by Kurt Streeter headed “Video of ICE Shooting Becomes a Political Rorschach Test” (1/7/26).
That piece explained that you can’t really know what you saw, or what it means, because “in a polarized country, high-ranking officials were offering definitive, and starkly contrasting, accounts long before the facts could be established.”
The Times sees its role as telling you that whether or not you believe Renee Good deserved to be murdered depends on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Someone should tell them that millions of Americans are over that old line.
But still, for the New York Times, you are to ignore what you saw, and ponder:
Was the officer struck by the vehicle, as President Trump insists, or did the car pass by or around him? Was he positioned in front of the vehicle or to the side? Did he have a genuine, reasonable fear for his life in that moment, or did he create the very danger he then used lethal force to escape?
That pondering of never-answered questions, you see, is what smart people do. It leads to nothing changing, which is convenient, but you can always say you thought deeply and from all sides.
The Washington Post (1/8/26) employs an advanced journalistic technique called “looking at the video.”
Not like those “political leaders” who “deliver[ed] their verdicts within hours.” Or like all of us evidently unsophisticated people did in reaction to the slow-motion murder of George Floyd. We are all, the Times says, doing wrong by picking a pro– or anti–state-sanctioned murder side, when “facts are not established, but the first words from political leaders are conclusive and set the frame—and with it, the battle lines.”
Even the Trump-pandering Washington Post (1/8/26) was able to perform the basic function of journalism by describing the reality shown in the video. Its headline stated: “Video Shows ICE Agent in Minneapolis Fired at Driver as Vehicle Veered Past Him.”
But the subhead had to say that the video “raises questions about claims by President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem about the fatal shooting in Minneapolis.”
Corporate media are demanding we ignore what we see and only listen to what they say.
This morning I was treated to the spectacle of Vance’s entire lie filled tirade, with no blowback or response from anyone, on KRON4’s morning news show, in San Francisco. KRON, of course, is part of the NexStar Media Group.
A CNN view appears to show that when Ms. Good initially backed up, she turned the wheel which put the officer directly in front of her car, though he had previously been to her side. After backing her car up, she then accelerated forward directly into him using her 2000lb vehicle as a weapon that threatened his life. This all happened in about 9 seconds, not the 36 hours you have to judge it. Of course she could of just obeyed the lawful order to stop and instead she drove, using her car as a weapon. Sad.
Of course, ICE Gestapo didn’t have to attack her, shout conflicting orders… or shoot her. Your repetition of ICE Gestapo, Trump and corporate media lies about her actions shows how effective that propaganda is. She drove slowly away; she was shot dead from the side by a thug who knows he has the full backing of the USA’s fascist state.
If she was shot from the side why is there an obvious shot in the front windshield. Yes things happen in seconds but she was accelerating towards the agent who is a young man married to an immigrant and who has a young child. She risked her life by acting illegally when she refused to stop and exit the car, then backed-up, then drove forward into an ice agent when her wife said “Drive Baby Drive”. They were members of a group that was trained on resisting ICE officers and “de-arresting” illegals. In other words create chaos and behave illegally.
Your heroes are members of a group that is trained to shoot first and to regard anyone vaguely queer/leftist/non-white as dangerous and unamerican. ICE thugs are creating chaos, fear and violence, as is their intention. They ought to be in prison cells. As of ‘illegals’, they are ordinary, working class people, living largely peaceable lives, in stark contrast to the heavily armed, psychopathic murderers of ICE.
Your willful blindness is not a good sign for you or your future.
I usually like this site but you are wrong. You did not analyze all the videos available. If you had you would have seen that she purposely hit the Agent while her wife yelled “Drive baby Drive. Drive!”
I had to cancel my New York Times subscription, delete the app, and unsubscribe from emails/notifications a few years ago. They would make me too mad with their idiocy. Grateful I saw this here and not there.
Whoever wrote this article is very subtle about coercing their very own point of view.
“The Times sees its role as telling you that whether or not you believe Renee Good deserved to be murdered depends on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.”
If they were really non-biased it would have read:
The Times sees its role as telling you that whether or not you believe Renee Good deserved to be killed depends on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.
Very subtle and very effective.
Given the bipartisan nature of effective support for ICE violence (pseudo-leftist Zohran Mamdani, for example, has been largely silent), your comment is absurd. The USA has no real political opposition to its uniparty government, which is the way its system is designed.