More Blood Spilled by ICE
Renee Nicole Good was 37 and a mother of three. She was a member of a community, the same sort of community you and I are a part of. She lived her life day to day, that is, until that day. She had just dropped her 6-year old off at school. And then she was murdered for no reason, by an agent who belonged to the federal agency known as ICE.
Good was a part of a community that had already suffered in needless death. George Floyd was also murdered just a few blocks from Good's murder. Per the Minnesota Reformer:
Caitlin Callenson, one of the witnesses to Good's murder, said she was on a walk when she saw an ICE vehicle stuck in the snow. As more ICE vehicles arrived, bystanders blew whistles in protest, and the driver of the SUV made an attempt to block the vehicles. Callenson said there were no attempts by ICE to detain anyone at that moment.
After the shots were fired, the driver “then was completely slumped over in the vehicle,” said Emily Heller, another witness.
Federal agents wouldn’t allow a man who said he is a physician to examine the driver, Heller said. Emergency medical technicians arrived 15 minutes later, she said. First responders were unable to get close to the scene because ICE agents did not move their cars to let them through.
“There was chaos and ambulance and fire trucks couldn’t get through,” Callenson said. “They had to walk through all of the ICE vehicles on foot to try to administer first aid.”
As news of the murder spread, Good's name had already started being smeared by the same administration who deployed ICE to the city of Minneapolis, the first attempts by the Trump administration to justify her murder. Moments after, she was being accused of "domestic terrorism" by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant DHS secretary, through Twitter/X, called Good a "violent rioter" and accused her of domestic terrorism as well.
Trump, through his own social media, shared his thoughts, calling Good a "Professional agitator" and apparently "not believing the murderer in question is "still alive."
By now, we've all seen the multiple angles of footage– if not, the New York Times, through multiple sources, have put together the events as they have unfolded through use of multiple video captured. You can watch it here.
The video shows Good's SUV parked in the middle of the street, blocking traffic. Two ICE agents exit their truck and order Good to exit her vehicle. Before giving her a chance to even do so, an agent aggressively approaches her SUV, and then grabs her door handle while also reaching inside through her open window. In what looks like action fueled by fear, Good reverses and then turns her vehicle to the right, in an attempt to flee.
Meanwhile, the ICE agent– murderer– feet away, and with no provocation to do so, pulls his gun from its holster. As Good is about to pass him, he fires his weapon, doing so a few more times as she passes. Like the Times concludes to and anyone who has seen any part of that footage can plainly see, Good's murderer stands at the left of the vehicle while her vehicle's tires are turned all the way to the right, nowhere near the direction needed to try to "run him over" like Trump and his administration claim. He wasn't "viciously run over" like Trump claimed.
There was no "domestic terrorism"– there was only someone in fear for their life. Because Good was trying to get away from the potential violence ICE is known for, the violence she had the right to fear. The same violence that ended her life. The video contradicts everything Trump and those in his administration have falsely claimed.
They're lying. And even with video evidence, they have no regard for their victim. They don't care– they'd rather tell you the lie to your face. The Trump administration will lie to the American people because they think said people beneath them. That's always been their plan since the beginning: lie and deny until they hope you forget.
When confronted directly with footage of the murder, through journalists, he double-downed on his initial claims that it was Good's intent to run over her murderer, even when shown the footage again at that same press event, implying that Good brought her murder upon herself, Trump later remarking, "you're supposed to listen to law enforcement."
Trump would call her a domestic terrorist before showing compassion for Good's death, or her children, who have lost their mother, instead, wanting to eventually change the subject so that he could talk about the monstrosity that is the ballroom he is building on the White House grounds again. He would show you the same amount of respect if it was you.
So how many deaths is too many for ICE? Renee Nicole Good's death was not their first, and unfortunately, due to the racist agenda of the Trump administration, it won't be the last.
In the last four months alone, immigration officers have fired on at least nine people in five states and Washington, D.C. All of the individuals targeted in those shootings were, like the woman killed on Wednesday, fired on while in their vehicles. In each case, officials have claimed that the agents fired in self-defense, fearing they would be struck by the vehicle. At least one other person died as a result of those shootings.
In fact, Good's death especially reminds of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez's death last September, who was shot at close range through the neck after being pulled over a minute before. ICE had claimed that Gonzalez had hit and dragged one of the officers with his car and that another officer shot him in self-defense. Video shows ICE agents breaking his driver side window and then pulling him away from his vehicle, already wounded.
When an arriving police officer asked how wounded the apparently hurt ICE agent was, the ICE agent in question described his injuries as "nothing major." Yet they were enough to justify ICE's murder of Villegas-Gonzalez. This was revealed through said officer's body cam footage.
Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was killed shortly before dropping his kids off to school.
Or the incident last October when Marimar Martinez, a teacher's assistant was driving around Chicago's majority-Latino Brighton Park neighborhood, also in Chicago, warning people that federal immigration agents were coming. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents were riding in a car behind her. One of them aimed an assault rifle and shouted “do something, bitch” before opening fire.
Martinez, an American citizen, was hit five times, and miraculously survived. The agents claimed she rammed their car and arrested her. Martinez’s lawyers unearthed video footage contradicting that claim, showing agents ramming her car, and prosecutors dropped the charges. The court case produced text messages from the agent who shot her, bragging about his feat: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys."
It seems that ICE and their ilk are eager to "cry" vehicular assault after shooting and or murdering their victims. If it wasn't for the bystanders who capture footage showing otherwise, a lot more of them would get away with it.
Just ICE being present in any city, in any neighborhood poses a danger to the general vicinity. Whether its their ruthless tactics of smashing and grabbing or the fear of its victims not knowing where they are going and where they will end up, and if they will be ever be able to go home. Or whether their loved ones will ever be seen again. This is why it brings out the protest in communities. Because they want to protect their neighbors from that violence. This is why even those not on ICE's radar will still do everything in their power to flee from their presence.
Last August, Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez was struck by an SUV while running from federal immigration enforcement after they deployed an operation with the intent to arrest day laborers at a local Home Depot in Monrovia, California. According to the department of Homeland security, through a statement, Montoya Valdez was not being pursued, but that doesn't really matter. Like Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborers Organizing network stated when interviewed by NBC 4 in Los Angeles:
“Whether they were chasing him or not, the fact is that when you have operations of this kind, the first reaction of any human being is to run.”
Other also not directly involved on the operation in the same Home Depot parking lot also ran, according to others who witnessed and experienced the raid. Per one of those witnesses:
“Some people ran regardless of their immigration status because nowadays, they don’t know if undocumented or documented people will be detained.”
We haven't even touched upon the abuse and violence and death hidden behind the walls of detention centers and ICE facilities and even beyond our borders where some in custody are forced into foreign prisons. Though the Trump administration has been able to keep most of these untold stories quiet, I predict and fear we will be hearing chilling accounts of what goes on behind the curtain for years to come.
ICE tactics create fear- pure and simple. When someone fears for their lives, they are going to try to get away from the violence the agency is known for and is capable of. What happens when armed individuals also get thrown into that panic? What happens when armed individuals don't consider the safety of others and decide to pull their firearm carelessly?
That they are capable of this violence in general, that they have no real qualms in harming even innocent civilians as they seemingly have a license to do so from highest office in the land, is why ICE should be disbanded immediately. Injury and death at the hands of these thugs is unavoidable otherwise.
Where is the accountability? The ICE agent/murderer is not in any custody, In fact, he was able to leave the scene while disturbing the crime scene as all witnesses could do was watch.
While writing this, the murderer has been identified as Jonathan Ross– this identification was done thanks through the carelessness of the Trump administration, specifically through press conference held by vice-president JD Vance, who mentioned a previous incident in detail in which Ross was apparently dragged 100 yards after trying to abduct someone from their vehicle. It was enough information that news outlets were able to piece things together. Just like Vance did in that very same press conference, many on the right will use this as a justification for why Ross murdered Good.
However, the fact that Ross was apparently a firearms trainer for ICE says a lot. It says that he is only not fit to handle a firearm, let alone train, and be in situations where the fear of being abducted tends to bring out the instinct of wanting to flee. Though what is considered "fit" when it comes to being an ICE agent? If recruitment media has anything to say, the Trump administration seems to want to enlist sociopaths for the job.
Like I've alluded to in multiple posts involving ICE, all we can do is rely on the communities we are a part of, communities and organizations we can create to fight back against ICE and the fascist regime that backs them. Communities like the one Renee Nicole Good was a part of, communities like the ones the bystanders who were there to protest ICE, only to capture the murder of one of their own. Without them and the evidence they helped provide, they might have gotten away with the lie they still continue to try.
A murder that should never have happened in the first place, a murder that did happen due to the carelessness of a murderer who should have never had been there in the first place, let alone have a weapon he wielded without thought. Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota has called for unity in remembrance of Renee Nicole Good. A unity we have seen throughout the country through protest. Hopefully this unity will add strength to communities needed to tell ICE to their faces to get the fuck out.
Abolish ICE.
