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After federal agents killed an unarmed American citizen in broad daylight last week, top government officials rushed to defend the shooter, labeled a mother’s attempt to escape an escalating confrontation as “domestic terrorism” and blamed the victim for her own death. Renee Good’s killing isn’t just a police failure — the public response from those in power should alarm every American who believes that being scared by armed agents and trying to drive away shouldn’t be a capital crime. Indeed, recent Supreme Court precedent illuminates why the shooting of Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross is not the case of self-defense that administration officials are suggesting. The totality of events — which has been the standard set by the court since 1989 and reaffirmed just last year — suggests that it was not reasonable for Ross to shoot Good in the head as she tried to flee from ICE agents who were trying to force her out of her car.
Last week, Ross fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, 37, a white mother of three, while she was in her SUV, apparently trying to leave an increasingly hostile situation. In cellphone video of the incident, we can see two ICE agents get out of a truck and approach Good’s car. When an agent appears to reach through the open driver’s side window and tries to open the door, Good slowly backs up, then turns to the right and slowly drives forward, trying to drive away. At that point, a third officer, standing in front of Good’s car, draws his gun and, as he moves to the side of the vehicle, fires several shots into the interior, striking Good in the head. The car continues forward and hits a parked car. Good was pronounced dead shortly after.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the agent who shot Good, saying, “This was an act of domestic terrorism. The ICE officers were stuck in the snow and were trying to push their vehicle when a woman attacked them.” President Donald Trump also weighed in immediately after the murder, writing on Truth Social: “The screaming woman was obviously a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and maliciously ran at the ICE officer, who appears to have shot her in self-defense.” None of the videos that have emerged of the shooting show Good running over the officer or attacking officers before her death.
Good was a US citizen and DHS said he was not the target of an ICE investigation. She was shot just a few blocks from her home.
Another video of the incident follows what happened before agents approached Good’s SUV. In the video, Good reaches out from the open driver’s side window and signals “Go ahead” to a pickup truck that has just stopped and stopped a few feet from her car, just before ICE agents exit the vehicle. The footage suggests Good wasn’t trying to block the agents with her car, as some have claimed.
A third video, taken from the cell phone of the officer who shot Good, shows a smiling Good with his car window down, saying, “It’s okay bro. I’m not mad at you.” It also shows a woman, later identified as Becca Good, Good’s wife, outside the car filming the ICE agent. As the agent films their car’s license plate, Becca says, “It’s okay, we don’t change our plates every morning, just so you know. It’ll be the same plate when you come talk to us later.” Seconds later, two agents approach the SUV, one trying to open the driver’s door while yelling, “Get out of the damn car!” Possibly spooked by what appears to be a hostile situation, Good puts the car into reverse, then drives forward. The camera suddenly points to the sky and we hear a thud. Three shots are heard, one right after the other. After that, we hear a male voice saying, “Fuck you bitch.”
The government argued that the officer who shot Good feared for his life and was acting in self-defense. The videos illustrate something else: an avoidable tragedy. Again, recent Supreme Court precedent helps explain why.
In assessing whether a law enforcement officer’s use of deadly force was reasonable or excessive, the court last summer rejected the 5th The circuit’s narrow “moment of threat” doctrine — which held that the only thing that matters in determining whether an officer reasonably fears for his life in a use-of-force situation is the moment of the shooting itself — as inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment. Court, in Barnes v. Felixrejected this narrow time frame approach and repeated what he retained Graham vs. Connor: In assessing the reasonableness of an officer’s use of force must be considered totality of the circumstances.
Many of those who defend the shot seem to focus on the moment even before the first shot is fired. Applying a moment-of-threat approach to this shooting would require someone to freeze the image at the moment the officer was standing in front of Good’s car and saw her drive away. Under such a narrow view of the incident, one I might concluded that at that time the officer feared for his life and therefore had to fire in self-defense.
Instead, if we widen the time frame and consider that the agent sat in front of the vehicle, which a smiling Good told the agent, seconds earlier, “Okay, boy, I’m not mad at you,” and began to drive her car forward only after other agents approached her vehicle, one reaching into the open window, trying to open it, get out of the car, get out of door, to get out of the car. the claim that the agent had to shoot Good to save his life seems less plausible. The fact that the officer was able to stay on his feet, move to the side of the car and fire two shots into the open driver’s side window while Good was turning the SUV to the right and attempting to drive away further undermines the claim that he acted in self-defense to neutralize an imminent threat to his life. The videos suggest that Good was simply trying to leave what was becoming an increasingly hostile situation, not intentionally trying to hit the ICE agent who had positioned himself dangerously in front of her car.
A question the court left open Barnes was whether it was appropriate to consider prior law enforcement conduct that increases the risk that an encounter with a civilian will turn deadly — something many have called “officer-created danger.” It seems obvious that if a totality of the circumstances approach is applied, then prior law enforcement conduct that increases the risk of the encounter becoming deadly is only part of the totality of the circumstances and should be part of the inquiry.
Some have pointed out that standing in front of a moving vehicle is not considered wise police practice. Similarly, shooting into a moving vehicle is not considered good police practice, unless necessary to stop an armed or dangerous criminal (neither of which accurately describes the Good), because of the risk of injury to the vehicle occupant and bystanders. Although the first shot appears to have gone through the windshield of the car, the second and third shots appear to have been fired by the officer into Good’s head through the open driver’s side window as she tried to drive away. At the time, the officer was firing from the side of the vehicle, not shooting someone who was trying to hit him, as claimed. If he simply wanted to stop the vehicle from escaping, why did he aim for the driver’s head rather than the SUV’s tires?
Discussing the shooting, Noem said, “Any loss of life is a tragedy and I think we can all agree that in this situation it’s preventable,” suggesting it was Good’s fault she was shot. Similarly, Vice President JD Vance said Good’s death was “a tragedy of her own making.” With these comments, Noem, Vance and others defending the officer assume that if Good had simply followed orders and gotten out of the car, none of this would have happened.
Ironically, Good’s death was entirely preventable, not because Good disobeyed orders to get out of the car, but because the officer could have exercised restraint and refrained from shooting her. He had made a video of her license plate number, so if the agency wanted to find it, they could do it later. When the officer fired two shots into the open driver’s side window of Good’s car, Good did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to himself or any other officer. Good was not a violent criminal who tried to flee the scene of the crime. She was just trying to get home to her three children in one piece.