By Jane Lewis | Thursday, January 08, 2026 | 5 min read
There is a moment—after the sirens fade, after the flashing lights disappear, and before the official statements harden into talking points—when a country has a choice. It can pause, listen, and allow space for grief. Or it can rush to judgment, circle the wagons, and protect power at all costs. In Minneapolis, that moment came and went quickly. ICE agents had barely cleared the scene before the narrative was already set, and once again, our leaders chose defense over truth, authority over humanity.
Renee Nicole Good was 37 years old. She was a mother. She was an American citizen. On Tuesday night, she was shot in the face by a federal ICE agent and died alone in her car. By the time her family was processing the unthinkable, the machinery of government had already gone to work—smearing her name, inventing motives, and labeling her a “domestic terrorist.”
Before there was a full investigation. Before body-cam footage. Before the public even knew her name.
President Donald Trump did what he so often does: he jumped in early, loudly backing claims of “self-defense,” echoing language that framed a dead woman as a violent threat. The story was neat, familiar, and politically convenient. An ICE officer feared for his life. A vehicle was “weaponized.” Case closed.
Then something complicated the narrative. The woman was white. She was not undocumented. She was not Black or Hispanic. She did not fit the image that so often makes these stories easier for some Americans to dismiss. And suddenly, the certainty wavered. The rhetoric softened. The backtracking began.
What didn’t change was the reality on the ground. A mother lay dead. A child lost their parent. And the video—chaotic, horrifying, impossible to ignore—showed an ending that did not look like an imminent attack, but like panic, confusion, and irreversible violence.
We don’t know everything that happened in the moments before the shooting. That matters. Due process matters. Truth matters. What we do know is what happened after. Photos show a blood-soaked airbag inches away from stuffed animals in the glove compartment. A witness says a doctor tried to help Renee and was blocked by ICE. Officials went on television with total confidence about her “motive” while admitting, in the same breath, that details were still being gathered.
That is not accountability. That is narrative control.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said it plainly: a conclusion was decided first, and the facts were forced to follow. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was blunter still, calling the self-defense claim “bullshit” after watching the footage himself. Their anger is not partisan theater. It is the sound of local leaders watching federal power roll into their city, kill a resident, and then dare them to object.
This is not an isolated incident. ICE and DHS have a documented pattern of overstating threats, misrepresenting encounters, and retreating quietly when video contradicts their claims. Journalists tackled and released without charges. A sitting U.S. senator thrown to the ground on camera. Grand juries refusing to indict because credibility has already been burned.
And yet, every time, we are told to trust them. Every time, we are told this is about safety.
Minneapolis knows this story too well. Renee Nicole Good was killed just blocks from where George Floyd died under a police officer’s knee five years ago. Once again, video forced the public to confront what official statements tried to bury. Once again, people poured into the streets not because they wanted chaos, but because silence felt like complicity.
The most dangerous thing about this moment is not protest. It is the normalization of a federal government that kills first, labels later, and never truly looks back. A government that seems far more concerned with defending its agents than defending the lives of the people it claims to serve.
Renee Good was not a headline. She was not a talking point. She was a human being. And no amount of spin can change the simple, unbearable truth: her death did not have to happen.