The recent shooting event in Minneapolis was entirely predictable. Trump authorized a bunch of untrained but armed ICE agents to “invade” an area miles from any border. The publicized reason was to round up the “worst of the worst” undocumented aliens and eventually deport them. Instead this untrained force-which was given unbridled rein to do whatever was necessary–chose to antagonize and bully American citizens. In other words, they mimicked their “leaders”. That kind of attitude and behavior is all-Trump/Homan/Noem/etc. They were handed power without any imposed restraint and they approached their jobs boldly. Now, let’s talk the specifics. Renee Good was blocking the street (partially) when she was approached by ICE. She was heard to say something like “I’m not mad at you guys” but they kept coming and ordered her out of her car. Fearing their tone she attempted to escape by turning the front wheels of her car and steering away from the approaching ICE personnel. Remember, this is a 30 something woman who is being overtly friendly to the ICE patrol. As she attempts to pull away (her front tires are clearly shown as being turned away to the right) she comes near to an ICE agent that–up to the moment–she was not even aware of. He was standing off to her extreme right and not part of any conversation. When she attempted to escape, this ICE agent who was unknown to her fired three shots in the lower right hand windshield of her car and she died. Comments: They wanted her to get out of the way because she was (partially) blocking their vehicles but when she tried to leave they killed her. The agent who fired the shots was unknown to her so she couldn’t have intended to run him over–as all the faithful GOP have attested. And police protocol requires that police officers not shoot at moving vehicles because the results can be disastrous for many innocent bystanders if the car goes out of control. So, bottom line: we have an uninvolved ICE agent killing a friendly American citizen as she attempts to comply with the original ICE orders to clear the road. The position of the bullet holes in the windshield proves that she was almost beyond the agent who pulled the trigger when he fired. Now that the ICE/FBI/other Federal Agencies have sealed off the investigation, including the evidence (videos) it will be difficult to prove a case against the ICE agent. But–even more important than that–it will provide confidence to these bullies that any time they need to use violence of any sort they will be insulated from prosecution. Yes, it will happen again. This is no different from Hitler’s “brown shirts” in the Nazi-dominated period from 1936 to 1945 in Germany. They acted with total impunity. And now we have ICE. If ICE was intended to make communities safer, why are we planning the burial of an uninvolved American citizen who would not have died if ICE hadn’t been there? Today it’s Minneapolis and tomorrow it will be other places. But violence without restraint is a foregone conclusion. We applaud the citizens of Minneapolis and other communities who have shown great restraint in the face of the execution of an American citizen. Escalating the ICE-inspired violence will only escalate the scale of the response. And that spiraling is a picture of what is happening in Iran right now. We can’t respond “in-kind” but we must stop this pattern.
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