America is reacting to video images of the shooting death of a 37-year-old woman in a confrontation with agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who were conducting operations in Minneapolis.
The woman was identified as Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good. The widely circulated video showed agents around the vehicle as she reversed and then pulled forward. An agent who had been in front of the car fired multiple rounds into the vehicle, resulting in the driver’s death.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the incident an act of domestic terrorism on the part of the driver, saying she “weaponized” her vehicle against federal officers. President Donald Trump, in a statement on the incident, said the driver “viciously ran over” the ICE officer.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye strongly disputed ICE’s defense of the shooting: “I saw the same videos that you saw, and the notion that this is domestic terrorism on the form of the victim? Yeah, is positively ridiculous,” he said.
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said she had also seen the video and gave her reaction during a briefing with West Virginia reporters.
“First of all, I think it’s tough being an ICE agent. It’s tough carrying out our immigration laws, particularly in communities such as where they were in Minnesota, where there’s a large immigrant community and broad push back and fomented sort of protest to them,” Capito said in response to a MetroNews question.
“Any loss of life is a tragedy, I think that we see from the video, there’s questions as to how this happened and why it happened, and I look forward to the investigation that I believe President Trump has called for and and I think that we’ll find the answers here.”
Longtime West Virginia attorney Harvey Peyton said the situation calls for a thorough and complete investigation.
“Until we get an accurate, thorough post-mortem examination report, which states the cause of death, all this is premature,” Peyton said today on WCHS Radio.
“The appropriate way I think we should be looking at this as Americans, regardless of your partisan view, is let’s wait until we get the facts.”