The Renée Good Shooting: Everybody Was Wrong

As usual, everyone is an idiot. It’s time to talk about the shooting of Renée Good.

I know this one’s kind of old news, but I’ve been so busy with other projects that I’m only just now getting around to writing about it. The shooting of Renée Good is something I’ve wanted to write about since it happened back in January, and I’m still going to do it, even if it’s a couple of months late.

Originally I was going to talk about this as part of “Why I don’t support ICE or Trump’s immigration crackdown“, but I ended up having a lot more to say than I thought I would, so I broke it off into its own article.

As I said previously in the other article, I’m against this heavy-handed roundup of illegal immigrants that’s being carried out nationwide. Many of these people are here working, and they’re contributing positively to the American economy by providing cheap labor while spending their money here. I don’t see the need to have government agents dressed in shock trooper gear booting down doors and terrorizing communities, all supposedly in the name of getting rid of illegals.

With that said, the incident in January with Renée Good is yet another instance where I’m left wondering what the hell happened to basic common sense. In this particular situation, both sides were idiots, and someone paid for it with their life while someone else got seriously injured.

The left has done nothing but harass, agitate, and provoke ICE since the deportations began. If you want to protest, that’s fine. If you want to hide illegal immigrants and generally make ICE’s job harder by bogging down their system with bogus tips and information, I’ll even say that’s fine too.

What’s NOT fine is following them around picking fights, stalking them, and threatening their families. You’re picking a fight with a militarized federal agency, you morons. Do you really think it’s a good idea to chase heavily armed federal agents around in your car all day and make threats against them? How exactly do you think that’s going to end for you? You’re not Che Guevara or John Connor leading some resistance force, you’re not the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France, you’re just a bunch of mostly-unarmed idiots chasing down cops and yelling verbal abuse at them. You’re not helping anything in the least.

The details of what happened seem to be all over the place, but from what I’ve been able to gather, the gist of it is this.

According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, several ICE agents were on their way back to their office, when they became stuck in the snow. Renée Good and her girlfriend had been either following ICE around in their SUV, or dropping Renée’s kids off at a nearby school, depending on who you want to believe. Eventually, one of the agents told Renée to get out of her car, presumably to arrest her. Meanwhile, another agent was ordering her to leave. The entire time this was going on, Renée’s girlfriend kept behaving in an antagonistic manner. Renée, who was stopped sideways in the middle of the street, attempted to turn her vehicle around and leave. One ICE agent decided that it was a good idea to place himself in front of the vehicle, and as a result ended up getting hit when Renée attempted to leave. The other agent then drew his gun and shot Renée three times, killing her.

Am I the only one who realizes how utterly stupid both parties involved were here?

We’ve already established that it’s a dumb idea to follow around law enforcement and harass them, and I can’t seem to find any conclusive evidence as to whether or not that was what they were actually doing (I wouldn’t put it above the left-leaning media to lie, but I also don’t trust Kristi Noem any further than I can throw her) so let’s start with Renée’s girlfriend Becca and her antagonistic behavior.

In the videos that were released, you can hear Becca do nothing but talk shit to the ICE agents and act tough while she films from outside the SUV. Rather than try to deescalate the situation, she’s there shouting stuff at them, like “You wanna come at us?” Finally, at the end, she encourages Renée to hit the gas, yelling “Drive, baby, drive!” It’s entirely possible that Renée Good was in fact coming back from dropping her kids off at school, and that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But her girlfriend getting out of the car and acting the way she did only served to enflame things, and her behavior contributed to Renée getting shot. Great job, you big-mouthed bitch.

Now let’s talk about the dipshit ICE agents, who don’t seem to know their heads from their asses.

If Renée and her girlfriend really were following the agents around all morning hassling them, then I can’t blame the agents for finally turning around and telling them to get lost. You can’t just go around interfering with law enforcement operations, even if those operations are questionably heavy-handed.

All the agents had to do was tell them to leave, and warn them that they could be arrested for interfering with a law enforcement operation. Instead, three different agents did three different things.

According to eyewitness reports, one agent did tell her to leave, but the other agent approached her window and demanded she get out of the car, as he filmed her with his own phone. Meanwhile, another agent decides to walk in front of her vehicle.

Since nobody else seems to want to, I’ll ask the obvious question: Why the fuck did the ICE agent walk directly in front of the vehicle while the vehicle was on and the driver was in the seat?

Standing in front of a vehicle while the engine is on is one of the dumbest things you can do. That’s why departments generally train their officers not to do this during traffic stops. It’s Law Enforcement 101. This ICE agent ignored one of the most basic rules that even rookie cops know to follow, and he paid the price when Renée panicked and floored it. I feel absolutely no pity for the ICE agent, who couldn’t be bothered to follow the most basic of law enforcement protocols and willingly put himself in front of Renée’s vehicle during a tense situation, especially while one agent is ordering her to leave. Strip this dumbass of his badge, he’s not even fit to be a mall cop.

So this woman is being told by one agent to leave, while another is at her window screaming for her to get out, while yet another agent positions himself in front of her vehicle. That’s a lot going on at once. I can’t blame Good for panicking here, I might have reacted the same way. I’d even go so far as to say it’s possible that the agent at her window might have distracted her and she might not have noticed the agent walking in front of her car. I’m by no means justifying her hitting the gas and running into the ICE agent, but I can definitely understand how it happened.

Even if Renée and her girlfriend had been following the agents around, that doesn’t excuse the complete lack of professionalism and intelligence from ICE here. You guys are supposed to be federal agents. Even local cops would have handled this situation with more decorum.

This entire situation could have been avoided if literally anybody involved had bothered to stop and use their head for even just a moment. Nobody took a moment and said “You know what, what are we doing here? This ain’t worth it.” Nothing but posturing and provocation from both sides. They all played a stupid game, and they all won stupid prizes.

Society has become so infected with political extremism, and as a result has lost the ability to deescalate situations. Nobody is capable of thinking critically, they’re so hung up on political party lines that they’re willing to turn even the most mundane of conflicts into deadly events. Protestors are willing to die to protest ICE, and ICE agents are more than willing to oblige. Are you people serious?

I understand why people are upset over what ICE is doing, but following them around and harassing them isn’t going to achieve anything worthwhile.

If you really want to fight the system, crush it under its own weight. Bog it down with fake tips and bogus information. Make it so they have to waste their time seriously evaluating every single tip before acting. Study their tactics and use that knowledge to evade them. Hell, join ICE and intentionally do a terrible job, or spy on them from the inside. Make them waste so much time and money that it becomes inefficient for them to operate.

I’m not going to preach love and tolerance, I’m not that naive. All I’m saying is, Americans need to stop thinking along party lines and start using our heads. Don’t make politics your entire life, and definitely don’t risk your life over it.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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