Dem
47
GOP
53
The Minneapolis shooting is still a big story, and we've been collecting material for this item for 4 days. So, we're going to break it into sections. Buckle up, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.
The Administration's ResponseIf there is one thing this administration does on pure instinct, it is attempting to bury things that are adverse to its interests (see, e.g., insurrection, 1/6). This does not mean that the administration is particularly good at this (beyond the fact that the MAGA cultists will believe whatever they are told to believe). But it certainly is the instinctive response of Donald Trump, and of those who surround him.
It would not be too far wrong to say that the cover-up of the shooting began almost instantaneously. When a person has been shot, the first thing that is wanted is medical assistance, right? Well, when a physician who happened to be on-site attempted to help, he was rebuffed, and told by ICE officers that "We have our own medics." However, no "ICE medics" were seen by bystanders, and there is no record of ICE having any sort of medical staffing.
When ambulances arrived on the scene, they were temporarily blocked by ICE personnel and vehicles. Eventually, something like 15 minutes after the shooting, firefighters were able to remove victim Renee Good from her vehicle, and shortly thereafter paramedics were able to begin treatment. Good's life was not saved, of course, and probably could not have been saved, even with immediate intervention. However, what plausible explanation is there for keeping anyone (even a physician who was able to identify himself) from trying to render treatment as rapidly as is possible? We can only think of two answers to that question. The first, which is rather dark, is that ICE wanted time to somehow "sanitize" the scene, and to remove problematic evidence. The second, which is even darker, is that they believed Good might be able to survive, and a living victim was something they did not want, under any circumstances.
The cover-up continued thereafter. Initially, the investigation of the shooting was going to be a joint effort by the federal government and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). However, the FBI promptly declared that it would handle the matter on its own, and that no information whatsoever would be shared with the BCA. This decision was apparently the handiwork of United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel Rosen, who is yet another Trumpy U.S. Attorney with zero experience as a prosecutor (Rosen's specialty is eminent domain).
With Rosen, and FBI Director Kash Patel, calling the shots, one cannot seriously believe that there will EVER be a finding adverse to ICE, or to the officer responsible for the shooting. Either the FBI investigation will whitewash the whole thing, or else will make sure that the report never sees the light of day. Heck, just ask the same basic question we raise in the above paragraph: What purpose can it serve to freeze out BCA? The only answer we can think of is: To have total control over the narrative. That said, Donald Trump DID provide an alternate answer to that question. He claims it is because Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN) is "a stupid person." Uh, huh.
What this administration always seems to overlook is the observation often attributed to Henry Kissinger: "The cover-up is worse than the crime." Kissinger probably didn't say it, but whoever actually did, it's certainly on point. If we were hired to be directors of the Henry Kissinger Office of Domestic Realpolitik, our advice to the Trump administration would be to throw the shooter under the bus, then scrape up the remains and throw them under the train, and then take what's left and feed it to the wolves. Blame it 100% on him, and his incompetence/cowardice/whatever then fire him/prosecute him/whatever, to try to stick him with 100% responsibility for what happened.
Instead, the administration is going to pull a Richard Nixon, and try to obscure the shooter's potential crimes. The inevitable effect this will have is to cause everyone who is not MAGA to conclude that something untoward happened—otherwise, why the cover-up? And don't forget that with Nixon, there was only audio, and it didn't see the light of day for about a year. In this case, there's video (now several videos, in fact), and it's already public. We are not the only ones unimpressed by the sagacity of the administration's approach. Many Republicans, some within the administration, some without, fear that all the White House is going to accomplish here is to affirm that ICE is a rogue operation with zero accountability. That is not a perception that will help the GOP in this year's midterms.
By the morning after the shooting, Vancebot 2028 had finished triangulating, and had calculated exactly what he needed to say to please the president and the voters he foolishly believes will land him in the Oval Office on January 20, 2029. At a press conference, and on social media, the T-1000... er, the Vice President decreed that Good's death was "of her own making," and that anyone who says otherwise is "gaslighting." If you would like to read the extra-long harangue that the Vancebot posted to eX-Twitter, it's here. And despite posting thousands of words (and speaking hundreds more), he somehow has not found time to express sympathy to Good's family, nor even to offer up the perfunctory "thoughts and prayers."
Note that we do not use the name Vancebot lightly. We use it because we simply cannot think of any politician, of either party, who is so entirely non-credible when it comes to expressing genuine human emotion, honest opinions, or a consistent moral compass. There are some other politicians running around today who are pretty bad in this regard, but even Trump has a few real emotions he expresses, while folks like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to have at least a few non-negotiable principles. Let's put it this way: If you were to ask AI to create a vice president to serve alongside Trump, wouldn't J.D. Vance be the result? Heck, maybe that's what Vance puppetmaster Peter Thiel actually did—we've certainly never seen Vance in person. He could just be a hologram.
There were many other people who were unimpressed with the response of America's first AI VP. Particularly notable, perhaps, was John Grosso, writing for the National Catholic Reporter. Grosso also found Vance's remarks to be fundamentally amoral, and at odds with the Catholic religion that Vance claims to follow:
The vice president's comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith. His repeated attempts to blame Good for her own death are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel. Our only recourse is to pray for his conversion of heart.
Please do pray as you see fit, Mr. Grosso. Just don't hold your breath while doing so.
Vance's response, which was undoubtedly coordinated with the White House, seems to have been something of a turning point in the administration's approach to the shooting. Again, the insta-response was to try to bury it. And that is still going to be what happens when it comes to the question of whether any ICE agents committed a crime or a fireable offense. But the overall incident is now actively being reframed as a positive good, not an unfortunate tragedy.
We cannot know if this approach came about because the administration sensed this mess was not going away, or because someone in Trump's inner circle had a flash of insight and decided there was an opportunity here. In any case, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, later echoed by Trump, decreed that Good was actually a "domestic terrorist," and connected Good's actions to the alleged corruption/lawlessness going on in Minnesota. So, it's Somalis and other immigrants and Good and Walz and corruption and theft, all in some sort of bizarro bundle, and ICE are actually the heroes trying to unravel it all.
At this point, please recall that "terrorist" is a rather fungible word, but to the extent that it has a definition, that definition is something along the lines of "using violence and/or fear to achieve political goals." This would seem to describe ICE, and more broadly the entire Trump administration, and not Good. In any event, this White House just loves to designate people as "domestic terrorists," because that sounds very scary and evil and yadda, yadda, yadda. In fact, there is no such designation, and no legal authority for anyone in the government to bestow that designation. In other words, this is just meaningless branding, somewhat like the Gulf of America, or the Department of War, or the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Consistent with this framing, Noem has promised that her department will redouble its efforts to bring "order" to Minneapolis. She announced yesterday that hundreds more ICE agents will be deployed to that city. So, just what is needed when tensions are already running high. She explained that this was the only possible response to this so-called domestic terrorism, decreeing "This officer was hit by her vehicle, she weaponized it, and he defended his life and those colleagues around him and the public." Does Noem really believe this argument, or does she just think everyone else is too stupid to pick up on how ridiculous it is? Needless to say, if using a weapon, or allegedly using a weapon, makes someone a domestic terrorist, then there are tens of millions of domestic terrorists in the United States.
DHS has also launched a website headlined "ARRESTED: WORST OF THE WORST." It contains profiles of people who have been arrested by ICE. It's not clear exactly what timeframe the collection covers, but it's 1,238 pages at 12 profiles per page, working out to roughly 14,850 profiles (the last page does not have the full 12). This does not seem to be the "worst of the worst" arrested by ICE, it appears to be EVERYONE arrested by ICE. The highlighted individuals' offenses are listed, and among the crimes/alleged crimes that apparently rank a person among the "WORST OF THE WORST" are "Marijuana," "Unauthorized Use of Vehicle," "Perjury," and "Fraud."
And speaking of fraud, at his Saturday morning press conference, Vancebot announced that the administration is creating a new position, whose holder will be part of the Department of Justice, but who will work out of the White House. It is a new assistant AG who will be given broad latitude to investigate, you guessed it, fraud—anywhere in the country that this person sees fit.
Like "domestic terrorist," "fraud" is a somewhat fungible term. It does have a formal, legal definition, but that's not the way that the new post will be defined. As Vancebot explained, the need for this new official is illustrated by "the people who are defrauding the United States by inciting violence against our law enforcement officers." That is as laughable a conception of what constitutes "fraud" as Noem's conception of what constitutes "domestic terrorism."
We're not so sure that it's legal to create a new Assistant AG position without the consent of Congress, or to appoint someone to that position without the consent of the Senate. But Trump doesn't care about such niceties (though the matter will surely end up in court, eventually). In case you have any doubts that this new official will just be serving as Trump's avenging angel, the White House has already announced three different targets that will be at the top of the to-do list: Minnesota, California and Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Minnesota is for the obvious (contrived) reasons, while California is being targeted because it is, according to the President, "more corrupt than Minnesota." Somehow, no evidence has been offered in support of that claim.
Powell is in the hot seat because he allegedly stole millions (or billions) of dollars during the renovation of the Fed's headquarters. As a reminder, Trump has been carping about Powell's alleged misdeeds for months, with a particular inflection point being the occasion in July when Trump ambushed Powell at a joint press conference. Nobody seriously believes that Powell actually committed fraud or any other crime. It's just that Trump hates Powell because Powell won't take his marching orders from the administration. Trump would also like to "persuade" Powell to resign early, so Trump can appoint a lackey as the new Fed Chair.
So, the administration is very much leaning into the shooting incident, and more broadly into the Minnesota "scandal," and even more broadly into alleged crimes, like domestic terrorism and fraud, run amok. It's an increasingly unpopular administration with a long list of headaches, and someone has clearly decided that this is the best hill on which to make a big, blustery stand.
The Video FootageThere is no bigger X-factor in this situation, we would say, than the video footage. With a great many controversial incidents, all we've got is eyewitness testimony. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, and often have agendas, and so if we're left with them as the only source of information, the stage is set for "he said, she said," or maybe "she said, he said," or, most commonly, "they said, they said." In this case, however, it is not necessary to rely on secondhand information, since people can see what happened for themselves by going to YouTube, or Vimeo, or any of a thousand other sites. This is a very big problem for the revisionists in the White House to overcome. Ask the cops who beat up Rodney King what happens when there's video. Or the cop who murdered George Floyd. Or the many people convicted (and later pardoned) for their actions on 1/6.
Before our unplanned break, we wrote at length about the original video of the shooting, which was taken by a bystander. Truth be told, when we sat down to write, we were planning to use the King video as an entry point—and not in the way you think. The King video (well, the famous part) is unambiguous, because it only shows four police officers whaling upon a man who has clearly been subdued. But if you see the whole video, and you know the whole story, it gets much harder to decide who was really at fault (best answer: everyone).
Anyhow, we thought the video of Good being shot was going to be similar, and that we were going to have to write something along the lines of "When there's a lot of action going on, and the footage is not complete, and is kind of shaky and unfocused, it can be hard to reach firm conclusions about exactly what happened." But when we watched, we were shocked at how unambiguous it actually is. To paraphrase what we wrote last week, there is NO WAY to conclude that the use of deadly force was justified (more on this tomorrow). It almost couldn't be clearer. We've now read numerous detailed analyses that say the same thing, from The New York Times, Slate, Mediaite, and The Washington Post, among others.
For a couple of days, members of the Trump administration, and their supporters in the media, tried to argue that the bystander video proved that Good was responsible for what happened. And that is just... not the tale that the video tells. So, over the weekend, a second video was released. This one was taken by the shooter himself, using his cell phone (ICE agents largely do not wear bodycams). As with the first video, it's short and is not gory, and so readers should consider watching for themselves at the link.
For those who cannot bear to watch, or who struggle to make out what happened, the video picks up AFTER the shooter/cameraman had already been interacting with Renee Good and her wife, Becca Good. The first thing you hear, which would also prove to be Renee Good's last words, is her saying to the shooter/cameraman, very genially, "That's fine, dude, I'm not mad at you." Then Becca Good, who was outside the car, did a little mild heckling, and told the shooter/cameraman "You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy." Becca Good then tries to get in the car, and though it's not particularly visible in the second video, she does so at roughly the same time that an ICE agent was reaching for the driver's side door handle. Becca Good then tells Renee to take off, and moments thereafter there are a few incomprehensible frames, and then the out-of-control car crashing. Near the end, a male voice, possibly the shooter/cameraman, shouts "fu**ing bi**h" (note that this is bleeped out in virtually all publicly available versions of the video).
This second video was, again, recorded by the officer responsible for the shooting. It was leaked, by someone, to a right-wing website (Alpha News). It was then glommed onto by just about everyone in the right-wing media, and by just about everyone in the White House. For example, Vancebot reposted it to eX-Twitter, with the comment: "Watch this, as hard as it is. Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn't hit by a car, wasn't being harassed, and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self defense."
It is truly remarkable that folks on the right think the second video is exculpatory. It is true that this version of the video is more favorable to the White House's position than the first video is, for two reasons. The first is that Becca Good did do a little jawing, which nominally makes her a little culpable, at least in some people's eyes (though jawing at cops, or pseudo-cops, is not a "use of lethal force" moment). The second is that those incomprehensible frames, which include a sound we describe as "blunt," are open to interpretation. It's possible that the sound you hear is the car making contact with the shooter. It's possible that it's the gun firing or being drawn. What's most likely, in our view, is that it's the agent running his finger over the phone's microphone while shifting it around in his hands, so he can grab his firearm.
Beyond those two things, the weight of the evidence in the film actually works against the shooter. Again, "I was verbally accosted by someone" is not a legal basis for shooting a person and, in any case, it was Becca Good who was jawing. Renee Good was being perfectly pleasant. There are also some very good questions that the new video raises. For example, "How could an officer go from conversing with a person to fearing for their very life in the span of 10 seconds?" And, "If the officer feared for his life, why was he holding his cell phone, and not his gun?" And finally, "If the officer's cell phone was in his hand when the situation allegedly turned dangerous, was he really in the best position to make decisions about the use of deadly force, much less to handle his weapon properly?"
We want to reiterate, yet again, that the second video is more ambiguous than the first. And so, we are nowhere near as confident in our interpretation as with the first video. However, the explanation that seems to best fit the facts is this: (1) the officer became angry, apparently pretty quickly, about being harassed (or maybe about the fact that he was being harassed by a lesbian); (2) the officer knew or suspected that something unpleasant was about to go down, which is (3) why he made a point of getting his phone out to document the incident.
This is just our best guess. The thing we are sure about is that the second video most certainly does not prove, beyond all doubt, that it was a "good shooting." It is remarkable that anyone could think so. And yet, that is the line being pushed by the White House and its allies. And, from reading the right-wing message boards and Twitter accounts, the MAGA flock is eating it up.
Slate's Molly Olmstead had an interesting piece, in which she observes that this day was coming, sooner or later. That is to say, a day when the right looked at a video and saw one thing, and the left looked at the same video and saw the opposite. However, Olmstead notes, it certainly seemed like the whole thing would hinge on AI, with one side saying "yep, real video!" and the other side saying, "nope, AI!" As it turns out, she writes, "[T]hat technology is here, [but] it's finally time to admit it wasn't ever necessary. At least not to destroy our own shared reality. For that, we just need partisan loyalties." We have written, many times, that the two main political factions in modern America have two very different versions of reality. That now extends even to video footage, to everyone's own lyin' eyes.
But here, at long last, is the rub. At least, the rub of this section. There is some segment of the American populace, maybe a third, that will believe EVERYTHING that the Trump administration puts out there, no matter what. There is some segment of the American populace, maybe a third, that will believe NOTHING that the Trump administration puts out there, no matter what. The elections of 2026 and 2028 will be decided by the remaining third. And we take the view that because it's video, and because the video largely runs contrary to the ICE version of events, that remaining third is going to break strongly against the administration, if Minneapolis/ICE/immigration enforcement/government-sponsored violence emerge as a major issue in 2026—something that may well happen.
We have a handful of reader letters we want to incorporate into this discussion, and here is the first one of those, from reader T. H. in Edmonton, AB, Canada:
I nearly spit out my morning coffee when I read this, in your first item on the Minneapolis shooting: "Meanwhile, American voters DO NOT LIKE IT when they feel that lawlessness has taken hold, and that the government is more a cause than a solution."
I beg to differ. There is nothing more central to American culture than its frontier mentality. The American unwashed masses LOVE, LOVE, LOVE lawlessness. Or, to be clear, they love movie-style vigilantism and displays of strength. The education divide in the U.S. is staggering and the unwashed masses don't care about civics lessons. They were asleep in those classes. They believe the world should—and does—operate the way it does in movies: strong action without legal retribution. Do a body count of a John Wick movie and see for yourself.
Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart astutely observe:
Trump doesn't really bother with legal arguments. There isn't even the hypothetical stuff of the gunboat diplomacy of the 19th century. When Britain was going around and doing terrible things and taking people's territory, they were always pretending they were doing it for a good reason. You know, they were "dealing with the slave trade" or they were dealing with "some human rights abuse." Trump is almost the first person since Genghis Khan to say, "I'm just going to help myself to territory. I'm not even going to pretend, actually, this ever belonged to the United States." But instead, to quote Stephen Miller, "The U.S. should have Greenland."
When pressed if this is legal, the response from the administration is, "Well we can sit here and talk about international niceties...", a "nicety" being recognition of the sovereignty of nations, a "nicety" being recognition of treaties and international law.Pete Buttigieg is right to call this out, decreeing: "values and rules matter at least as much as brute force." Those of us who remember history, know the value of institutions and the rule of law and its role in peaceful coexistence.
That was then; this is now.
Canada has adapted to this new reality and is not pretending things will go back.
I wish it were different. I really do.
We wanted to share this perspective, but we disagree with it. First, Trump represents a fraction of the electorate. It is undoubtedly the case that most of the MAGA cultists will approve of whatever he does, either because they agree with it, or because they think and feel whatever they are told to think and feel. This does not mean that the rest of the voting public, which is a solid majority, will follow suit. We also suspect that some of the MAGA types might not speak out against, say, the Venezuela mess, but they also might not find the time and energy to vote in November.
Second, American voters have always had more tolerance for non-domestic shenanigans than for domestic ones. The Trump administration might be able to get away with a very... muscular foreign policy, we suppose. But maybe not. Because we live in a post-Vietnam, post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan world, the American public tends to pounce on military interventions with criticisms like white on rice. That is particularly true when an administration does not do the painstaking work of preparing public opinion for those interventions. And the response to the Venezuela invasion and the threats against Greenland suggest that the majority of American voters are furious about all this imperialism.
Third, and finally, what Americans—particularly actual conservatives—tend to value is order. That is arguably the core value of right-wing politics worldwide (and is certainly the core value of fascism). Vigilantes are embraced, at least by some, because they help impose order when "the system" has failed to do so. However, riots and shootings of unarmed citizens by the government, and troops marching down Main Street, USA, are not "order." Those things are the hallmarks of DISorder. And nearly all voters HATE disorder (unless they are anarchists, maybe).
And, with that said, this item is already at 5,000 words. We still have four more sections planned, in which we will discuss the shooter (who has been named; we just aren't planning to use his name until we get to that section) and the legal peril he does/does not face. We are also going to talk a bit more about the victim. We have a section on the OTHER shootings from ICE, which took place in Portland, OR. And then we have a conclusion, looking at the early indications as to which way the political winds are blowing.
If we tried to do all of that right here, the piece would run close to 10,000 words, and then there's another 4,000 words of already-written other material we held today on top of that. So, we're just going to quickly label this "Part I," and we'll do the rest tomorrow. (Z)