The Truth of the Camera's Eye
Jan. 9th, 2026 05:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setsuledI mentioned a few days ago how abhorrent I found the practices of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the US. Yesterday came the footage of an ICE officer killing a 37 year old American citizen, Renee Good.
Since the incident is captured on video, it's easy to see the difference between how Trump and the head of ICE, Kristi Noem, have characterised the incident and how the incident actually unfolded. On few occasions has Trump's reckless disconnect from reality been so apparent and egregious. On his ironically named "Truth Social", Trump insisted that Good "violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense."
That's not what I see in the video. That's not what the mayor of Minneapolis saw in the video, who called such statements "bullshit." What I see in the video is panic. Good panicked at the sight of an ICE officer trying to open her door for no reason, and another ICE officer panicked when Good's car grazed him as she tried to flee. Her panic response was an attempt to flee, his panic response was to open fire. He wasn't reacting from an instinct for self-preservation, he was reacting in anger that this woman might escape his grasp. That's what it looks like to me. This impression is corroborated by dozens of accounts of thuggish, childish behaviour from ICE, such as forcibly feeding pork and expired food to Muslim detainees, and the multitude of accounts of ICE arresting and detaining individuals on meagre evidence and a vicious, dishonest interpretations of the laws they're sworn to enforce.
Both the ICE officer and Renee Good panicked but the ICE officer, as a member of law enforcement carrying a deadly firearm, had a responsibility not to panic. Training for ICE has reportedly become hasty and slipshod and I'd say evidence for that is clear in the video. One of the most important aspects of law enforcement training is instillation of methods for deescalating a situation, of employing psychological methods to inspire calm in all involved parties before violence might occur. What I see in the video are ICE agents looking for a reason to be violent, which fits with their reputation, a reputation that Renee Good was doubtlessly aware of and which played no small part in her panic. This is a consequence of an agency using fear as a tool. A "terrorist" uses terror as a tool and the term obviously fits ICE better than it does Good or the angry witnesses. ICE is state sponsored terrorism.
I am often critical of leftwing rhetoric but obfuscation from the right is more destructive because the right holds more power in the US. The fact that lies from the right are so transparent, so lazy and arrogant, is not a good sign. It's a sign of their impudence, of their disregard for any who might not believe them. The atmosphere is thick with lies, like a nightmare.
On the other hand, even the traditionally rightwing New York Post has this sympathetic portrait of Renee Good.
Since the incident is captured on video, it's easy to see the difference between how Trump and the head of ICE, Kristi Noem, have characterised the incident and how the incident actually unfolded. On few occasions has Trump's reckless disconnect from reality been so apparent and egregious. On his ironically named "Truth Social", Trump insisted that Good "violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense."
That's not what I see in the video. That's not what the mayor of Minneapolis saw in the video, who called such statements "bullshit." What I see in the video is panic. Good panicked at the sight of an ICE officer trying to open her door for no reason, and another ICE officer panicked when Good's car grazed him as she tried to flee. Her panic response was an attempt to flee, his panic response was to open fire. He wasn't reacting from an instinct for self-preservation, he was reacting in anger that this woman might escape his grasp. That's what it looks like to me. This impression is corroborated by dozens of accounts of thuggish, childish behaviour from ICE, such as forcibly feeding pork and expired food to Muslim detainees, and the multitude of accounts of ICE arresting and detaining individuals on meagre evidence and a vicious, dishonest interpretations of the laws they're sworn to enforce.
Both the ICE officer and Renee Good panicked but the ICE officer, as a member of law enforcement carrying a deadly firearm, had a responsibility not to panic. Training for ICE has reportedly become hasty and slipshod and I'd say evidence for that is clear in the video. One of the most important aspects of law enforcement training is instillation of methods for deescalating a situation, of employing psychological methods to inspire calm in all involved parties before violence might occur. What I see in the video are ICE agents looking for a reason to be violent, which fits with their reputation, a reputation that Renee Good was doubtlessly aware of and which played no small part in her panic. This is a consequence of an agency using fear as a tool. A "terrorist" uses terror as a tool and the term obviously fits ICE better than it does Good or the angry witnesses. ICE is state sponsored terrorism.
I am often critical of leftwing rhetoric but obfuscation from the right is more destructive because the right holds more power in the US. The fact that lies from the right are so transparent, so lazy and arrogant, is not a good sign. It's a sign of their impudence, of their disregard for any who might not believe them. The atmosphere is thick with lies, like a nightmare.
On the other hand, even the traditionally rightwing New York Post has this sympathetic portrait of Renee Good.
