Provocative Policing

Minutes after Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, was fatally shot by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on January 7th, Kristi Noem took to a Texas stage backed by cops, a colonel, and a flag-draped tactical vehicle. Still in costume from the set of Save a Hoss, Ride a Cowgirl, a campy Western of unknown rating, Noem sought to reassure an anxious nation that no one who mattered had died in the incident. Renée Good was a no-good domestic terrorist who had attempted to run down a mild-mannered American hero whose vehicle was stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that was in Minneapolis. The noble agent had, with great reluctance, fired in self-defense.

Then the pompous parrots began to squawk: “Domestic terrorist, domestic terrorist, domestic terrorist!” JD Vance scolded the media for getting it so wrong. Just look at this video from the ICE agent’s cell phone, he told us. Only he didn’t really want us to examine it. We were supposed to adopt without question Vance’s insinuation that the video exonerated the agent. Sorry, JD, but your smarmy condescension is a tell: JD’s bluffing. JD’s lying.

ICE agent Jonathan Ross wasn’t fearing for his life when he switched his cell phone to his left hand and drew his weapon with his right. He was angry. Renée Good’s wife had just said to him, “You wanna come at us? You wanna come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.” She had laughed at him, poked his bruised and tender ego. F***ing b****!

The cell phone video clearly shows Renée Good cranking the steering wheel to the right—away from Ross—her attention on the ICE agent standing outside her window. If she was a domestic terrorist, she was as inept at it as Ross is at law enforcement. A good terrorist turns the wheels toward the target, not away, and tromps the gas. Renée Good didn’t accelerate sufficiently to endanger anyone until after she was shot. She initially pulled away like a fast-food customer leaving a drive-through window while trying to snag some fries from the bag.

Ross’s phone wobbles and the camera points at the sky when he starts shooting. His left hand drops—but does not drop his phone—as he concentrates on keeping his sights aligned on Renée Good’s head and squeezing the trigger. This may be the part of the video Vance wants us to believe shows Agent Ross acting in self-defense. It does not. We can’t discern the gunshots very well, but we do hear Ross say, “F***ing b****!”

Those two words say much more about Ross than about Renée Good. Every female teacher has had those words said of her after giving a guy like Jonathan Ross exactly the grade he deserved. That two-word epithet has probably been applied to every American woman who has ever shown a bit on ambition or refused an offer to buy her a drink. In this case, it means what the Trump administration is saying: that Good deserved to die. For Ross, it’s an expression of contempt and self-satisfaction; it says, “I got mine.” Things are exactly as he thinks they are supposed to be.

She laughed at me.

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Jonathan Ross is certainly responsible for firing his weapon. That is what killed Renée Good, but neither she nor Ross set the scene. Responsibility for that goes all the way to the top and back in time even further than the 2024 election. First there was a campaign that labeled immigrants as the despised other. Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. Undocumented immigrants were taking up all the housing and committing all the crime. Look at this girl who was attacked by an immigrant. Say her name. Our anecdote means more than all of the data. The data is fake news. The truth is what we say it is.

Then came the clear intention to crack down on the places that did not vote for Donald Trump. It was clear from the beginning that it wasn’t about rounding up violent criminals. It was and remains about showing that Trump’s troops can do whatever they want. You will comply, and even when you do, you will be treated as something not worthy of dignity or respect. Every interaction is a confrontation, and escalation is the norm. They shout from behind their masks and you obey.

Don’t make us hurt you more than we already intend to.

First, it was California and “war-ravaged” Portland. Then Minnesota, with its Democratic Governor and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar. She’s “garbage,” Trump said.

“Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ These are people that do nothing but complain.”

Trump added that all Somalis should “go back to where they came from.”

“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you, OK. Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason.”

ICE agents could quietly do their jobs and get better results—if it were about results. But no, the operations are announced ahead of time for a reason. They want a big production. They want attention. They are there not to protect but to provoke. Are you with them, or are you with the “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies?” asks Kristi Noem. According to her, immigrants are here to “slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS.”

This is how the Secretary of Homeland Security wants ICE agents to see immigrants. This is what she wants them to believe protesters are out to protect. No wonder ICE is such a high-strung, emotive bunch. They’re not rounding up human beings; they’re removing killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies who want to slaughter our heroes. They are collecting garbage. How dare any true patriot stand in their way? How dare anyone laugh at them?

The Trump administration’s reflexive defensiveness increases the likelihood that this will happen again. It sends the message that Jonathan Ross did everything right and that ICE agents don’t need to worry about investigations into how anyone dies at their hands. The Department of Justice office that investigates officer-involved crimes has said that it is not going to look into what happened in Minneapolis. Anyone shot by ICE probably didn’t vote for Donald Trump, after all. And truth isn’t about what happened, it’s about identity: If it comes from our tribe, then it is true. The rest of it is fake news.

And don’t you dare laugh at us!

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Thanks for reading and stay tuned. I have some new things in the works. Also, I have completed another post for tomorrow. Pretty soon, they’ll start calling me prolific.