Renee Good
Jan. 13th, 2026 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribI've been reluctant to post about the recent shooting of Renee Good. I have decided to overcome my reluctance. Anybody who's looked at the videos of the shooting and sees anything other than a murder of somebody who was at most guilty of a misdemeanor traffic violation is willfully deceiving themselves. I intend to address the excuses offered up by the defenders of ICE.
1) "The officer was in danger" - No, he was not. He was not hit by the car and had he felt that he was in danger, taking a step to the side would have been a better choice. (Sorry, not going to argue further on this point.)
2) "But she was a lesbian / poet / bad mother (etc.)" - This is irrelevant. Nobody at the scene knew any of this, and using these as defenses is merely smearing the victim.
3) "She was obstructing" - Maybe, although if your operations are so poorly-planned that an unarmed woman in a minivan on a public street can hamper them, you should reconsider your plan. In any event, since she was leaving and thus un-obstructing the operation, shooting her was counterproductive.
3) "You should always comply with police" - It may be good practical advice, but failure to move your car from a public street is not grounds for execution. I feel that people saying this are mostly trying to reassure themselves that this won't happen to them. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when poorly-trained cops issue conflicting orders, it could happen to you.
4) "We should respect the police" - I respect the police. I also know that police officers are human beings and thus fallible. Respect is a two-way street, and police need to earn that from us by admitting when one of them made a mistake.
I'm going to repost a quote from earlier thoughts on policing: When a profession commands our respect, we often feel tempted to “virtue-cloak” it, insisting against all opposition that members of that profession really are what we know they should be. This is how people end up defending clearly bad police shootings, or saying criticizing police has a "chilling effect" and leads to higher crime. It's also how the Catholic Church ignored pedophilia in its ranks for far too long.
The larger problem, which is that our immigration system is broken and has been for years, is something I shall address in a later post. Right now, all this street theater is getting people hurt and killed without solving much of anything.
1) "The officer was in danger" - No, he was not. He was not hit by the car and had he felt that he was in danger, taking a step to the side would have been a better choice. (Sorry, not going to argue further on this point.)
2) "But she was a lesbian / poet / bad mother (etc.)" - This is irrelevant. Nobody at the scene knew any of this, and using these as defenses is merely smearing the victim.
3) "She was obstructing" - Maybe, although if your operations are so poorly-planned that an unarmed woman in a minivan on a public street can hamper them, you should reconsider your plan. In any event, since she was leaving and thus un-obstructing the operation, shooting her was counterproductive.
3) "You should always comply with police" - It may be good practical advice, but failure to move your car from a public street is not grounds for execution. I feel that people saying this are mostly trying to reassure themselves that this won't happen to them. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when poorly-trained cops issue conflicting orders, it could happen to you.
4) "We should respect the police" - I respect the police. I also know that police officers are human beings and thus fallible. Respect is a two-way street, and police need to earn that from us by admitting when one of them made a mistake.
I'm going to repost a quote from earlier thoughts on policing: When a profession commands our respect, we often feel tempted to “virtue-cloak” it, insisting against all opposition that members of that profession really are what we know they should be. This is how people end up defending clearly bad police shootings, or saying criticizing police has a "chilling effect" and leads to higher crime. It's also how the Catholic Church ignored pedophilia in its ranks for far too long.
The larger problem, which is that our immigration system is broken and has been for years, is something I shall address in a later post. Right now, all this street theater is getting people hurt and killed without solving much of anything.
