They're fine with the violence, they're fine with the death

I’m feeling pretty messed up about the Renee Good killing. There was no reason for it. I found it really obvious from my first watchings of the onlooker’s videos that she was trying to drive away, not hit anyone with her car. She wanted to turn right to go down the road. She had an agent at her door and one crossing from right to left in front of the car. I’m not totally sure why she reversed, it may have been to get more clearance from the agent in front or maybe it was just because the car was already in reverse. But before she moves forward she was cranking that wheel to the right. It doesn’t look to me like she hit him though I acknowledge a small chance he got bumped. But she was clearly trying to drive away, not hit him. She wasn’t a real threat to anyone and her being an immediate deadly threat would be the only legitimate reason to use lethal force in this situation. Further, even if she had pointed the wheels directly at the agent and hit the gas, planting his feet and shooting her seems like a much less sure way to save himself than attempting to get out of the way.

But all this is only clear when you watch the video. I’m sure the situation was less clear to the ICE agent. He probably saw her turning the wheel but only had about a second to process that during which tensions were high, the car was moving, and people were yelling. She started to move forward. Maybe he thought he was about to get hit. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, He had a split second to make a decision and decided to pull his gun and shoot rather taking one step to the side.

We don’t know why he chose to do that. I think it’s really worth asking the question. Is it really, as Kristi Noem claims, what he’s trained to do in that situation? If so, that begs for a lot of clarification. What in particular about this situation makes this the right reaction? If, on the other hand, this turns out not to be how he was expected to handle this situation then why wasn’t his training followed? Was the training good enough? What happens to him now? I believe the bar for professionalism in all armed government jobs needs to be high enough that even an honest mistake leading to a bad kill might be the end of a career, or at least the part of the career where he gets to carry a gun among the public. The bar needs to be absurdly high because that’s the value we place on the god given rights given to humans.

And speaking of training and professionalism: why is it okay for these masked agents to walk up to the car, immediately start cursing at her and trying to yank her door open, presumably to pull her out of the car. Why is that necessary or appropriate? Is that approach going to tend to escalate or deescalate that situation? And is escalating the situation likely to make the situation better or worse, more or less likely to lead to violence? If your response to that is to tell me about Renee Good’s wife being antagonistic towards the agent as he walks around the car immediately before shooting Renee, I’ll just respond that he’s the law enforcement professional, the employee of the US government, carrying the gun. The Goods had whistles. Does behaving this way towards members of the community make it easier or harder to get their cooperation and to do the job you were sent to do? And beyond the aggression and disrespect they display, is trying to pull her out of her car while it’s still running and an officer is standing in front of it a reasonable way to arrest her. considerate of the safety of all involved? I don’t think so. I can’t see the regular police trying to arrest someone in that manner and I think her death follows directly from their aggressive attitude and the ill-considered tactics they used.

ICE operates with this level of aggression and disrespect because they’re given clear signals to do so by their bosses. They are told that they are deporting murderers and escaped mental patients, people who are ruining America. They are told that the people who disagree with the current administration are scum who are working to destroy America. When someone gets killed administration officials line up behind their agents, before time for any investigation or introspection, insisting they did nothing wrong and in fact have immunity because they’re enforcing the law. They tell outrageous lies about the victim and the circumstances of their killing in total disregard of their humanity. ICE is told they’re doing everything right, and people with concerns are told that they don’t matter. Dehumanize people and you start treating them as less than people. Situations, emotions, and tensions get escalated until people die; almost certainly the people without guns. And this administration, yet again, reacts by adding even more fuel to the fire. Nothing changes if no one in charge will admit that anything went wrong and so more of this seems all too likely.