It took about a nanosecond for Democrats to seize upon the fatal shooting of a woman during an ICE operation in south Minneapolis late Wednesday morning. Renee Good’s death in an ICE-involved shooting provided a perfect opportunity to push the narrative that federal agents enforcing U.S. immigration laws are the villains.
Hoping to provoke a George Floyd–style reaction, Democratic politicians and pundits quickly characterized the shooting of a driver — who accelerated her vehicle as an ICE agent stood in her path — as a murder.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY) told reporters that “murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.”
“So this has now turned into what our greatest fear is and has been for a long time about ICE — that it would be used as an anti-civilian force that has no accountability,” she said. “At the end of the day, what we saw today was a murder, and murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.”
Apparently, she forgot that ICE is tasked with enforcing U.S. immigration laws — laws created by Congress of which she herself is a member.
In the clip below, newly minted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tells reporters, “This morning, an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis. … This is one part of what has been a year full of cruelty, we know when ICE agents attack immigrants, they attack every single one of us across this country.”
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee echoed those sentiments. After claiming that DHS lies “everyday,” they noted in a post on X, “She was murdered by ICE — and DHS’s first reaction is to blame the victim and call them a terrorist. Truly disgusting. Now we’re hearing ICE didn’t let doctors on the scene. ICE needs to leave MN now.”
Writer, journalism professor, and former defense attorney Seth Abramson explained in a lengthy thread on X why his “gut” tells him this is Second-Degree Murder.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a message for ICE: “To ICE, get the f*** out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. … People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Longtime Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy, are being terrorized and now somebody is dead. …”
For embattled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the incident provided just the distraction he needed from the massive fraud scandal that has engulfed his administration in recent months. He told reporters: “To Donald Trump and Kristi Noem: You’ve done enough. … I’ve issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard. We have soldiers in training and prepared to be deployed if necessary.”
Reacting to a DHS report about the incident on X, Walz noted he’d “seen the video” and warned people, “Don’t believe this propaganda machine.”
But here’s a reality check: this incident will not trigger the nationwide unrest that followed George Floyd’s death in May 2020 for several reasons. First, because Good was white and thus, her death mattered less than if she had been a person of color.
Second, as the commenter below correctly observes, “It’s winter and ain’t nobody of color rioting for a white woman in twenty below weather.”
But there’s a third reason. People have eyes. Video of the incident shows officers asking Good to exit the vehicle. And rather than complying with their request, as an agent stood in front of her car, she accelerated.
He responded by firing his weapon. Photographs of the vehicle afterward show bullet holes in the windshield and the front of the left side mirror, indicating that the shots were fired as the car moved toward him, not from the side.
As the X user points out in the post below, the agent was forced to “make an instantaneous decision.”
Finally, according to an article in The Minnesota Star Tribune, after a reporter filled in Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, on details of the incident, she said, “That’s so stupid. She was probably terrified.”
Ganger said her daughter is “not part of anything like that at all,” referring to protesters challenging ICE agents.“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” she said. “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.”
Well, apparently, Good was part of something “like that.” Had she not been, she would still be alive.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY