cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7276258
[tweto]
News article
The woman who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Wednesday in Minneapolis seemed “obviously scared” and was trying to leave, an eyewitness to the killing told HuffPost, disputing government claims that the ICE agent acted in self-defense.
Emily Heller, 39, stepped outside her home around 9:30 a.m. after hearing whistles and honking by community members who were alerting their neighbors about ICE agents’ presence. Heller said she saw a woman, since identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in a vehicle blocking a convoy of six or seven ICE vehicles on a one-way street.
“The ICE agents got out of their vehicles and were screaming at her to ‘move, move, move,’” Heller said. “She wasn’t moving at first, and then they came over to her side of the car and tried to open the door, I assume to drag her out.”
“She was obviously scared — she was going to leave,” Heller said. “She reversed a little bit and then started to move forward. And as she was starting to move forward, one of the ICE agents stood in front of her car, leaned across her hood and then fired three or four shots right into, it seemed like, her face.”
Good, was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”
Good had a young son, whose father died in 2023, according to the Star Tribune. “There’s nobody else in his life,” Timmy Ray Macklin Sr., the boy’s grandfather, told the paper. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come get my grandchild.”
Other eyewitness videos corroborate Heller’s account of the shooting. One, which shows a clear view of the driver’s side of the vehicle, shows multiple armed agents approaching Good and attempting to open the driver’s door. The vehicle begins to leave when one of the officers fires multiple shots.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good had committed an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers and “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle.” Noem claimed the officer “acted quickly and defensively” to “protect himself and the people around him.”
“No way,” Heller said of DHS’ claim that the ICE agent acted in self-defense. The masked agent who shot Good “put himself in front of her,” Heller said.
Trolley problem.
Fascists need their enemies to be simultaneously strong and weak. Emphasizing that violence is not what we actually want and putting them at ease has not worked. They fundamentally cannot be at ease. Combat deaths tend to be useful to them. I'm not sure anyone's tried actually making them afraid. All of them, not just the front. Because yeah it's gross. Going after what they say they value because they say they value it. But it would undermine their professed motives and values by making them culpable in putting those around them at risk. Putting material reality in their fucking lives where they cannot continue to ignore it.
It's a bit academic. I'm not well suited to violence. I don't feel like repeating anything too many times is very useful.
But I've watched these monsters take people away, people who were never seen again. Hell I saw it during the biden admin where it took me a minute to figure out what the fuck was happening and by the time I did, it was too late to slash their fucking tires or something. Letting them define the terrain of struggle is insane. It limits us to literal reaction, and that's not a good place to be. we've all read the fucking history books. We all know where this is going if it isn't stopped; don't need to be a fucking oracle to call that one. The only moral issue I care about wrt stopping fascism is 'would it work'.
It is gross. But doing nothing is gross too, and I am thinking in terms of triage. Letting them define the terrain of struggle is stupid. Liberating camps would be better, but the american left isn't organized or brave enough for that. We're limited to libshit and shit that unhinged alienated assholes who aren't middle aged cripples can do alone.
I'm not committed to it and don't know for sure it would work, and can't really talk about why I think it might work somewhat. It's not the best use of my time as an action; I'd get like one and I'm busy with other shit. But I don't feel like anything should be off the table. I do not feel like ethics apply to fascists or their support networks. I don't want to condemn literally any action against them except on grounds of efficiency. If you feel morally legally or tactically uneasy hosting this, I expect I would think no less of you deleting this whole series of comments. Because I don't necessarily disagree with you. It is gross.
yeah the cannon fodder will only have so much effect when there are golf courses that should feel it.