I can’t. I just can’t. I know better than to write when emotional, but fuck it. An innocent woman is dead. I sit here sick and weeping in the wake of an unconscionable act committed in the course of an unjust, illegal and immoral operation. This woman, Renee Nicole Good, 37 and mother of a six year old, was shot to death by so-called law-enforcement. These shit-stick LEOs – and honestly I couldn’t give a fuck it they’re ICE or CBP or local cops or the bloody Mounties – are out on the streets of American cities terrorizing members of our society under the pretense of purging the country of immigrant criminals, “the worst of the worst”, the vast majority of which’s only crime has been to come to this country seeking a better life. But this woman was not even one of those people. She was a right-minded woman who was trying to defend her neighbors from the predations of these despicable thugs, because, despite the claims (lies) of their fascist overlords that these people are the root of all societal ills, they actually respect and appreciate their neighbors. Trump and Miller say the Somali population of Minneapolis is vile. The people who live and work with that same population say the opposite. As do the mayor, the governor and the bulk of the state’s elected national representatives.
But why am I going into the reasons behind or purported justifications for ICE to be there in the first place? There is no justification. There is no constitutional authority for national agencies to operate what amounts to a military operation in an American city – the only thing the Constitution has to say is that they can’t. Even if there was, it still wouldn’t allow the mass rounding up of people based solely on race, and there sure as shit is no possible excuse for the rampant suspension of due process that has inevitably followed these “enforcement actions”.
Gov. Walz had it right on the money that if this kind of crap continued, raising tensions, increasing conflicts and essentially throwing gasoline on a fire, someone was going to get hurt or killed. (It is worth noting that he also implored people to protest peacefully, pointing out that violence would only make things worse and give the fascists an excuse. They’re the ones killing people, but the people are supposed to remain peaceful. He is 100% right, but oh, the irony.)
But even if we are somehow able to overlook the illegality of it all, ignore the right or wrong of their being there in the first place, and just look at the incident in a vacuum, it is utterly fucking indefensible. That cop, agent, officer, whatever was in no way shape or form defending himself. One: get out of the way, dipshit. Two: his gun should never have been out of its holster. She was no imminent threat and had committed no crime worse than obstruction of police, which last time I checked was not a capital offense. Three: he squeezed off his first round barely after “stop” had even cleared his lips. Lastly, somebody show me the threat to his fellow officers and the public. I also have another question: when did LEOs become such chickenshits? If you think an unarmed 37 year old woman in her car is scary enough to pull your gun you ain’t cut out for the job. And anyone who would fire multiple rounds into someone’s face in that situation shouldn’t be in the same room with a gun, much less with a badge. But that is who ICE is hiring these days I guess. So this is a bad man, who is bad at his job, being placed in a situation he is in no way equipped to handle and never should have been in the first place. And a woman is dead. At the barest minimum he should be instantly removed from his position and criminally prosecuted. What happened instead, while by no means as tragic or sad, is almost as sickening.
Before Ms. Good had even been identified the people responsible for it all to begin with were firing up the spin machine and the gaslights. The energy they are spending to defend this horror show shows to me just how keenly aware they are that it is indefensible. That is further borne out by their shameless distortion of reality and lack of scruple in utterly ignoring the truth. To call it lying doesn’t do it justice. I don’t think there is a word for this kind of depraved duplicity. But boy do they cover all the bases. Exaggerate the danger: “the officers are lucky to be alive”. Blame someone else: “this what happens when Democrats demonize law enforcement”. Discredit the witnesses: “the woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator”. Demonize the victim: “the woman willfully, violently and viciously ran over the officer”. Yeah, the officer who was walking around apparently unharmed after shooting her. And don’t forget to insult anyone who has a different opinion: “the mayor obviously has no idea what he’s talking about”. Even though he is looking at the exact same video. Yes, video. This is not a case of “we say, they say”. It is on tape and quite simple, even obvious. And it used to be that a video like that, the literal smoking gun in this case, would have been enough. No more. Now we are told to ignore what we see with our own eyes and instead believe what they tell us. In this case that means accepting the idea that Ms. Good was a “domestic terrorist” – no shit – and the officer was within his rights to kill her. Fuck you, we know better. And by the way, you’re sick.
I wish I could take heart in the groundswell of outrage and disgust towards both the incident and the heinous response. But I can’t because we will never be disgusted or outraged enough. I wish I could think that this might be some tipping point, some rubicon, that would lead to a shift or a change. But I can’t because there is no travesty they can commit that is sufficient to stir the cowards to action. I wish I could be as mournfully hopeful as Gov. Walz thinking it might be their “McCarthy” moment: “Have you no decency, sir?”. But I can’t because they don’t. This is just the latest coat of blood on their hands, hands that are already soaked to the elbows. Our only faint and desperate hope is that they will blunder themselves into ignominious failure and disgrace before they have stained all of us as well.