The sad and needless death in Minnesota

Alex Berenson writes:

As you know, Good is the 37-year-old woman shot and killed by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis last week. The shooting, like everything else that happens in the United States these days, has become the object of a partisan fight. The Trump Administration keeps calling Good a “domestic terrorist.” The left wants to put up a statue of her alongside George Floyd, patron saint of fentanyl addicts who overdosed in the right place at the right time to get their families paid.

Neither side is right. Good was no saint. She wasn’t a domestic terrorist either.

Too bad for her. If she was she’d probably still be alive.

Like many of you, I have watched the videos of the shooting and the minutes leading up to it. What is striking is how much fun Good seems to be having as she blocks traffic in her Honda Pilot. She honks her horn and bounces along to its beat. When an officer approaches the car, she says, “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you.”

She wasn’t a terrorist, she was a thirty-something white woman who didn’t understand the mess she was making and the risks she was running, probably in part because she thought her white womanness would protect her.

This is a valid point. I’ve been to the US a lot. I know their authorities are armed and to be blunt much more triggers happy than NZ cops. One could argue they have to be, because so many non-police are armed. But regardless it is well known. If I ever have an encounter with armed authorities in the US, I go out of my way to do exactly what they say with maximum politeness and co-operation.

This is not always the case in NZ. I recall many years ago when a group of us were at Mt Maunganui for New Years Eve. One of us (Yes you Tomas) was giving legal advice to other party goers about how they didn’t have to do what the Police were saying etc. We nicknamed him a beach lawyer and quite enjoyed seeing him mark up the Police with his (legally correct) advice to drunk party goers.

In NZ this was fun. We knew the worst that would happen if a cop would think bad thoughts about you. In the US you could end up shot. Again I would never ever much around with US law enforcement. I don’t like around the TSA. I am ultra polite to Highway Patrol etc etc.

2: American citizens have the right to monitor ICE operations in public, as they have the right to monitor other public law-enforcement activities. Monitoring usually includes taping. They also have the right to protest ICE operations. Monitoring and protest are not terrorism.

3: But citizens don’t have the right to interfere with ICE. The line between monitoring, protest, and interference can be tricky. Yelling at agents from a sidewalk is protesting. What about blaring an air horn over and over? Trying to get between agents and someone they are trying to arrest is interference. But what about if an agent, or several agents, walk up to a protestor in an apparent effort to provoke him?

4: The line can be tricky, but it was not in this case. Good crossed it. She was blocking traffic on a public thoroughfare, giving the agents reason to arrest her.

She was breaking the law. Of course the punishment for that should be arrest, not death.

Good didn’t display common sense. She thought she could break the law without consequence. The fact that she was in her vehicle probably played a role. I spend a lot of time driving. I can attest to the fact that a 4,000-pound SUV can become almost a second home, a cocoon of sorts. She was jamming away without a care.

But when the consequence — the arrest — came, she panicked and escalated. And what seems like a cocoon from the inside feels more like a beehive to a person standing outside a few feet away, a potentially deadly threat.

Good may or may not have been thinking about the threat she posed as her girlfriend told her, “Drive, baby, drive,” and she hit the gas. But the officer in front of her car had been dragged by another vehicle only a few months before. He understood the risk – and he had the legal right to react as he did. It’s hard to see how the shooting wasn’t justifiable.

I don’t know if it was justifiable or not. It is clear the Trump Administration supports the ICE agents, so there will be no investigation. What is clear is it was avoidable. It should not have resulted in a young women losing her life.

A general good rule of thumb is to comply with any instructions given by armed police, and argue about it later in court if you think they were in the wrong.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this a second citizen has been killed by ICE. Alex Pretti. The videos of this killing make it clear that Pretti’s gun (which he was licensed to have and he did not present) had been removed from him when he was shot. It looks like an unlawful killing. The most benign interpretation is that a gun was accidentally discharged and ICE officers mistakenly thought it was Pretti and opened fire. There is no evidence he did anything that justified his shooting.

One can (and should) have multiple views on what is happening in the US. Mine include:

• Governments have the right, and even the duty to deport people who are in the country illegally. People have a right to secure borders and the ability to decide who can become citizens of their country.
• For illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the US for a long period of time and broken no other laws, there should be a pathway to residency and citizenship as a one off thing.
• Deportations from the US have occurred under all recent US Presidents. The number per President is:
  • Reagan around 100k a year
  • Clinton: around 108k a year
  • Bush GHW: around 120k a year
  • Bush GW: around 250k a year
  • Trump 1: around 250k a year
  • Biden: around 275k a year
  • Trump 2: Around 300k in first year
  • Obama: around 400k a year
• Cities and states should co-operate with ICE to deport illegal immigrants.
• The backlash against ICE is partly driven by antipathy to Trump, but is also partly driven by the change in ICE’s tactics where they are trying to be highly visible and intimidatory
• ICE appears to have developed a very aggressive and possibly trigger happy culture which also drives some of the backlash.
• Activists who try to disrupt legal law enforcement operations are idiots
• People have the right to be idiots and not be killed
• Any killing by law enforcement officers should be fully and independently investigated.
• It is repugnant to have senior WH staff labelling Pretti an assassin, and basically sending out a message that his killing should not be properly investigated