When the Outcome Takes a Life . . .
My Position . . . .No matter what your level of authority, you do not arbitrarily shoot people. You do not get to shoot civilians. You error on the side of life and not death. It is obvious Bump was not trained to understand such. There are no fantasies or stories which can be told justifying the shooting of a civilian by authorities. The shooter was not being threatened by Nicole Good.
The one thing I will say is to be careful amongst these amateurs.
January 7, 2026
Letters from an American
On MS NOW today, columnist Philip Bump broke down when talking about the shooting of Renee Nicole Good yesterday in Minneapolis. “I have a six-year-old,” he said. “And . . . seeing the image of the stuffed animals in the glove compartment of her car—really emotional for me and . . . what I take away from this is, for me that’s the thing that stands out: that this was a family that could have been like mine.”
Bump went on to emphasize that “there are a lot of situations, a lot of incidents that have involved ICE, have involved the government over the course of the past thirteen months in which there is resonance for other families in similar ways,” but what he hit on in his first reaction to Good’s killing was the one the administration must fear most of all. Good was a white, suburban mother, whose ex-husband told reporters she was a Christian stay-at-home mom, and Bump is a white man.
President Donald J. Trump’s people see that demographic as their base. If it turns on Trump, they are politically finished. They are as finished as elite southern enslavers were when Harriet Beecher Stowe reminded American mothers of the fragility of their own childrens’ lives to condemn the sale of Black children; as finished as the second Ku Klux Klan was when its leader kidnapped, raped, and murdered 28-year-old Madge Oberholtzer; as finished as the white segregationists were when white supremacists murdered four little girls in church in 1963.
Evidence that President Donald J. Trump has sexually abused children would likely be enough to crater his political support from this group, making it no accident that the administration is openly flouting the law that required the full release of the Epstein Files by December 19, 2025. The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of those files, and many of them were so heavily redacted as to be useless. In a court filing on Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said “substantial work remains to be done” before it can release them all.
But there is no hiding the murder of Renee Good, captured on video by several witnesses as it was. And so the Trump administration is working desperately to smear Good and to convince the public that, contrary to widespread video evidence, the federal agent put in place by the Trump regime shot her in self-defense.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DHS secretary Kristi Noem, and Trump himself have all insisted that their false narrative is true. Media Matters for America compiled a timeline showing how the Fox News Channel first told viewers that Good had tried to ram officers whose vehicle was stuck in a snowbank, then moderated their language as video appeared, and then, by the evening, parroted the administration’s talking points.
Today, in a press conference on the shooting, Vice President J.D. Vance made even more extreme statements, claiming—all evidence to the contrary—that the woman shot in Minneapolis was part of a “left wing network” and that “nobody debates” that she “aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator.” In fact, among those who “debate” Vance’s version of events are the journalists at the New York Times, who today published a slow-motion analysis that demonstrated conclusively the vehicle was turning away from the officer when he opened fire.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt increased the attack on Good even more today by saying: “The deadly incident that took place in Minnesota yesterday occurred as a result of a larger, sinister left-wing movement that has spread across our country, where our brave men and women of federal law enforcement are under organized attack.”
The administration appears to be trying to make sure their narrative will get an official stamp of approval by silencing a real investigation. Today, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), a statewide criminal investigative bureau in the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has shut its officials out of the investigation into Good’s death. The FBI will no longer allow the BCA to “have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.” The BCA has, it said, “reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation.”
Law professor Steve Vladeck commented sarcastically: “This is *definitely* how you behave when you’re trying to bring every resource to bear, rather than trying to cover up the unlawful behavior of your own personnel.”
The FBI location is within the Department of Justice (DOJ). This is run by Trump loyalists Bondi and Blanche. As Vladeck suggests, there is appropriate concern that it will not conduct a fair investigation. In an illustration of how Trump has tried to stack the DOJ, today U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that John Sarcone, Trump’s temporary nominee as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, does not hold that position lawfully. For Sarcone, as for four other U.S. attorneys, Trump has ignored the law to keep his loyalists in control of key Department of Justice offices, where they have targeted people Trump considers enemies. Although judges have said five of Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys are in office illegally, at least three have refused to step down.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty issued a statement saying that her office is “exploring all options” to ensure that a state level investigation of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good continues.
Today Trump appeared to settle into his new role as an American dictator. He announced plans to make the ballroom for which he bulldozed the East Wing of the White House even bigger: despite a longstanding norm that additions to the White House—the People’s House—have a lower profile than the main building, Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported today that Trump is now planning for his ballroom to be as tall as the White House. Trump’s architect also said they are considering adding a one-story addition to the West Wing colonnade that runs alongside what used to be the Rose Garden. White House director of management and administration Josh Fisher also said that administration officials plan to renovate Lafayette Square, north of the White House.
And Trump told New York Times reporters David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs that as commander-in-chief, he has only one limit on his power: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” He claimed he gets to determine what is legal under international law, and seemed to stretch that authority to domestic affairs, too, saying that he was already considering getting around a possible decision by the Supreme Court that his tariffs were unconstitutional by simply calling them licensing fees and that he could invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in the U.S. if he “felt the need to do it.”
Meanwhile, Hamed Aleaziz and Madeleine Ngo of the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is sending more than 100 Customs and Border Protection agents and officers from Chicago to Minnesota after yesterday’s shooting.
This afternoon, federal immigration agents shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon. According to Claire Rush and Gene Johnson of the Associated Press, the shooting took place outside a hospital where the two were in a car. Portland mayor Keith Wilson and the City Council asked ICE to end operations in the city during a full investigation of the incident.
Democrats have spoken out loudly against Trump’s grab for dictatorial powers since he took office, and today some Republicans began to push back as well.
Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), the leading sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, asked U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer to appoint “a Special Master and an Independent Monitor to compel” the DOJ to produce the Epstein files as the law requires. “Put simply,” they wrote, “the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act…. [W]e do not believe the DOJ will produce the records that are required by the Act.”
Last month, House Democrats launched a discharge petition to force a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years. Frustrated that Speaker Johnson would not take up such a measure, four Republicans signed the petition to force it to the floor. Today, seventeen Republicans joined the Democrats to pass the measure by a vote of 230–196. It now heads to the Senate.
The Senate also pushed back today.
Senators voted to advance a bill that would stop the Trump administration from additional attacks on Venezuela without congressional approval. The vote was 52–47 with five Republicans joining all the Democrats to move the measure forward. Republicans killed a similar measure in November, but Trump’s enormously unpopular incursion into Venezuela and threats against Greenland prompted five Republicans to reassert congressional authority over military action. CNN called it “a notable rebuke of the president.”
The five Republicans voting for the bill were Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Todd Young of Indiana. Immediately, Trump posted on social media that the five “should never be elected to office again.” By reasserting the power of Congress, he wrote, they were “attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America.”
The Senate also unanimously approved a resolution to hang a plaque honoring the police who protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. In March 2022, Congress passed a law approving the plaque and requiring that it be installed, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has refused and the Department of Justice has complained that because the plaque lists departments and not individual officers, it does not comply with the law.
On this year’s fifth anniversary of the January 6 attack, the Trump administration blamed the police officers themselves for starting the insurrection, making the Senate’s vote appear to be a pointed rebuke of the president. In response to Trump’s calling the rioters “patriotic protesters” retiring senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) called the January 6 rioters “thousands of thugs” according to reporter Scott MacFarlane.
Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) has agreed to let the plaque hang in the Senate until the Architect of the Capitol—the federal agency that maintains, operates, and preserves the U.S. Capitol—determines its permanent location.
Today, as there were yesterday, there were protests against ICE around the country. Tonight, as there were last night, there are vigils for Renee Good.
Nutted gutter-monkeys best be praying for a polar vortex
Sparks flying don’t take very long to light a fire
🎶 Gotta’ get down to it, NAZIs are cutting us down
… Should have been done long ago … 🎶
That guy never should have had a live handgun out in the first place. Blocking traffic didn’t justify it.
Jack:
Here is a “what-about the riot that happened January 6, 2021 as promulgated by Herr Trump? No bullet – spewing weapons by them but bombs were to be located. People seem to forget the attack on the capitol. One person was shot who was coming through a window and who was warned.
These guys dress up like masked goons so nobody can see their faces which hides their identity so as to be unknown for what? So, they can not be held responsible? If they were that insecure, it would have been better to call out the military.
We did not carry live – rounds. Those were confined to a couple of sharp shooters. If you are going to set up a road block, than make it one. Not with guards standing in the middle of the rod. These are civilians and you treat them with respect.
But my excursion was in 1970-71. We did not have a jackass as president then. And boy has Trump made it so obvious when compared to Nixon.
There is good video of this killing, but that’s as much of a problem as a good thing. Are there reports of people doing risky Tik Tok challenges without video? No, because that would just be stupid. It can’t be proven that she would be alive today if she felt there would be zero video for social media, but I think it is a reasonable hypothesis. This was done fully expecting video to use on social media promoting her bravery in the resistance to ICE. That it was illegal and foolishly reckless likely could not compete with the chance at getting social media “likes”.
I dispute Jack D’s contention that this was a traffic situation. I think it oddly dishonorable to contend that that was the nature of this event. Good intended to disrupt federal law enforcement and she chose to do so with a vehicle capable of inflicting great harm and even death. She did not think of this as a traffic maneuver and for sure those creating video did not think of her as a woman that lost control of her car or went the wrong way on the street. We should take seriously descriptions of her as a “warrior”. ICE agents have been threatened and assaulted for months, including specifically with vehicles. No one involved was thinking this was a traffic stop and there is little reason for us to weave that idea into this tragedy.
Just my own opinion here, but I suspect she was a fairly weak-willed person who was enjoying the sense of danger that opposing ICE gave her. Social approbation was like a big reward. But at the critical moment it broke down for her and instead of just getting out of the car, she panicked and hit the gas. She was aiming at no one, but unfortunately there was someone there. This doesn’t mean it was a justified homicide, but nobody at iCE was thinking of killing her prior to the vehicle moving at an agent.
@Eric,
“Good intended to disrupt federal law enforcement and she chose to do so with a vehicle capable of inflicting great harm and even death. She did not think of this as a traffic maneuver and for sure those creating video did not think of her as a woman that lost control of her car or went the wrong way on the street. We should take seriously descriptions of her as a “warrior”.”
You have no idea what her intentions were. You have no idea what she did and didn’t think. We should ignore the crass and baseless propaganda descriptions of her as a “warrior.”
Apparently, her last words were “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” Doesn’t sound like a warrior to me.
Nobody at ICE should even have drawn a firearm. They should have stepped out of the way, which would have been simple and easy.
Think about what you see here. You come to a place in the road where a number of individuals are dressed in military garb, carrying weapons, and looking ready to go to battle. The news cites many instances of people being apprehended, dragged from vehicles, and treated gruffly. Why would a young woman trust such a person carrying a weapon with their finger always near the trigger, she can not see their faces because they are masked and wearing sun glasses, and they address civilians in an aggressive manner?
Look when we were doing our duty, we were in utilities, with our dark green utility covers, and a civilian can see my hands, my face, etcetera while I had a holstered 45 or a slung over my shoulder M14. We treated them as civilians and ICE treats them as combatants. If you need an armed guard at the ready, they are set at a distance. That was our grab if we were called into Washington DC in 1970-71.
Now look at how they are garbed now:
Picture by (Adam Bettcher/The Associated Press)
They do not look too friendly.
I recall taking a trip years ago as part of a tour, and as we were leaving the plane, the guide who met us warned us not to look at, or take pictures of, any of the armed police (dressed much like ICE) because the could and would arrest you or shoot you, even if you were an American citizen.
I guess some folks are willing to live in a dictatorship as subjects, and will rationalize the atrocities to do so.
@Fraud,
“I guess some folks are willing to live in a dictatorship as subjects, and will rationalize the atrocities to do so.”
Yep. I’ve been to Moscow (twice) and the former GDR (three times). I’ve also read dozens of histories of the Soviet Union, China and the GDR, and I’ve known and worked with people from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and China.
With that experience, this quote rings true:
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
~ Ronald Wright
Fraud Guy:
That sounds like parts of Asia.
Mexico, in the 90’s.