Written By:
- Date published:
6:55 am, January 26th, 2026 - 268 comments
Categories: atlas, david seymour, Donald Trump, media abuse, social media -
Tags: Alex Pretti, Atlas Network, Heritage Foundation, Media, Misinformation, Project 2025
American civil war feels increasingly likely.
A “kind hearted, caring” ICU nurse for American Veterans was executed by American ICE and Border Patrol officials for the crime of being a decent human being.
His name was Alex Pretti.
Early reports claimed Alex had a gun, and MAGA officials, including Judith Collins bestie Kristi Noem and Steve Miller, accused the medical professional of being a dangerous assassin trying to inflict “maximum damage”.
Videos however, prove Alex was friendly and helpful, only had a phone in his hand, was later surrounded by armed officers, never attempted to use the legal gun – which was removed well before he was shot – and executed at point blank range, shot multiple times.
An affidavit backs up the videos:
Democrat Governor Tim Walz’s pain and exasperation was clear to see as he urged President Trump to withdraw:
I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.
And:
They think they can provoke us into abandoning our values. They are wrong. We will keep the peace. We will secure justice for our neighbors. And we will see this occupation end.
Earlier this month, I had an exchange with a Kiwi socialist who was relishing the idea of civil war in America.
She and I often agreed on the Coalition government in New Zealand, but here she was – willing civil war in the States like it was a policy idea and as the “only” way to break the ‘evil American’ system.
She, who would never have to suffer the intimate consequences of death, battle, intimate loss, injustice, militant power, willed it on others.
I can’t respect anyone who wants war.
No-one but the mad want war, in my view.
And if you are going to want it, you should front it for yourself.
David Seymour, ACT leader, himself reportedly welcomed a civil war in Aotearoa New Zealand
Last year I wrote:
The people who control America’s government would love the opportunity to hurt people who don’t agree with them and hold them up as an example for all.
But it’s hard to temper emotions in the face of ongoing provocation and denial of human and legal rights.
And
On the day Trump won, America was no longer what it used to be – even if only superficially.4
Those who rallied against the Democrats, and said all parties were the “same” or “Republican lite” will increasingly see if this is true or not.
The “circular firing squad” of the progressives never disappoints.
And
The vision of the Heritage Foundations and the like were always that of a Christo-fascist-fossil-fuel-corporate-authoritarian state, where the people will be subsumed by state-corporate power in every Western democracy that exists.
It was written in Peter Thiel’s essay many years ago where he said he does not believe democracy and freedom can co-exist. Today Thiel’s company is creating a database to track every American citizen with unparalleled powers, and his backed politicians are in power.
A lone Kiwi socialist isn’t the only one who wants war.
Many on the far right also do.
A year ago, Elon Musk claimed UK civil war was “inevitable”
The richest man in the world amplified misinformation and violence accounts in the process.
But Musk’s words signaled an intention – a desire for blood after earlier claiming the “woke, left wing virus” must be exterminated.
And before Trump won, his key backers via the Heritage Foundation “Think Tank” leader described Trump’s Project 2025 manifesto as the “second American Revolution” – it will be “bloodless” if “the left allows it to be”.
None of this American violence by the state was unforseeable if you saw the politics before hand.
But today is a day of mourning for Alex.
His family mourns a beloved son, a kind man, a hero, a treasured human being, a man who signaled the signs of surrender even as he tried to protect a woman under unfair assault.
We mourn him together – many do, I know.
The circumstances of loss focus the mind, draw attention.
Humans enjoy drama, and are drawn to its power.
But the power and attention shouldn’t be only drawn by violence and tragedy.
It should be drawn by honour, compassion, friendship and integrity.
Well before these losses occur.
And that is the greatest tragedy here.
On the day Trump won, I said that America is gone and fascism had risen.
This is why we vote.
This is why politics matters.
This is why “free speech of hate and misinformation” is a ruse that too many have bought into because you shouldn’t be free to lie and to incite hate, and to spread discourse with malevolent intentions.
This is why all governments matter.
This is why political parties “aren’t all the same”.
This is why simplistic thinking ruins both left and right.
This is why everything is political.
This is why you should care about values above all.
This is why we should be careful not to become what we fear/criticise.
This is why you should enrol to vote and encourage others to too.
This is why you should be wary of all three arms of the right wing government – and the affiliates and money that boosts them.
Vale, Alex Pretti. We honour you and who you were, and always will be.
One of us.
Repost from Mountain Tui Substack
Thank you Mountain Tui.
You have said everything that needs to be said and said so well.
Thank you Anne.
Very prescient movie…..well worth a watch if not viewed already…………..
[Image resized]
Is that the movie where Texas and California team up?
If only the Repugnants could grow a pair and Impeach this dreadful administration.
They must see the tide of voter opinion slipping away from them.
Now I'm no fan of MTG but over recent weeks she has been showing far more concern for Social Justice and fairness than one would previously have given her credit for.
On the matter of this recent incident she along with others has taken a far more nuanced stand than the Trump Administration.
Biggest eye-opener for me has been the blatant, easily disprovable lies by administration officials. It's not unusual for people in these roles to lie to protect their employees, but in this case they're lying about something recorded on video from multiple angles, and those videos make the lies immediately obvious.
I think US society is now so polarised that the administration knows it doesn't matter how obvious the lies are, because anything that advantages one's own political tribe is inherently good.
It's borne out on social media too. X is currently full of alleged liberty enthusiasts who are keen to explain how the 2nd amendment and a concealed-carry licence don't mean federal agents can't shoot you dead if they take a dislike to you and you're armed, how essential it is that you instantly obey any orders given you by a law enforcement official, and how it's justified if the officials summarily execute you for impeding their activities. I never thought I'd be arguing with right-wing Americans that the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution makes it entirely legitimate to be carrying a gun.
https://x.com/lionel_trolling/status/2015176852948570271
It's not looking promising so far!
First, you all might like to think about why this isn't happening elsewhere in the USA where ICE and Border Patrol are arresting criminal illegal immigrants, often in greater numbers? It's not happening even in the equally Deep Blue states of California and Illinois.
Second, I'm going to put up this Instagram video from the time of the Renee Good shooting in which a veteran of many protests, and many arrests. angrily explains how not to get beaten up, let alone shot dead, especially on behalf of whoever is behind "ICE Watch".
Third, I'm going to point to the many incidents of little home-grown Red Guards now patrolling Minneapolis streets for ICE agents and instead end up demanding identification from civilians, including one of their own – but only after they beat him to the ground. All of this the logical endpoint of the encouragement to fight ICE by Mayor Frey and Governor Walz.
At this rate the locals are going to end up more frightened of ICE Watch than ICE.
Ah yes, if only they'd obeyed the illegal orders of the ICE thugs, they'd still be alive now.
So, the fault squarely lies with the victims!
I'm glad we've cleared that up!
Has the administration made these demands of Illinois and California?
https://www.jezebel.com/pam-bondi-basically-tells-tim-walz-to-hand-over-voter-rolls-if-he-wants-ice-to-stop-killing-americans
Really? I would have thought HS practice to place protestors and observers onto a domestic terrorism data base (ICE spend much of their time in Minnesota doing this) was a direct breach of a number of "amendments". Or is that of no concern?
It's true, Minneapolis currently looks like the bad guys from The Handmaid's Tale are in a struggle against the world's most annoying morons. That said:
1. The world's most annoying morons aren't summarily executing people in the street.
2. If the citizenry needs advice or training on how not to get shot by law enforcement officials, there's a problem with law enforcement, not with the citizenry.
3. The world's most annoying morons can be partly forgiven for looking like an aggressive, violent, poorly trained mob, because they are after all just a loose assemblage of the world's most annoying morons. Law enforcement officials should not, ever, look like an aggressive, violent, poorly trained mob and yet that's what these masked, armed thugs look like in every single video from Minneapolis.
Your first point.
Are you unaware the relative size of the Minnesota action?
At one point this month 9% of total national staff – when the state has a relatively low undocumented numbers (1%).
The other factor is a focus on refugees in the state and reporting some of them onto ICE.
https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-launches-landmark-uscis-fraud-investigation-in-minnesota
Texas has 2.1M undocumented immigrants and Florida has 1.2M. Minnesota has 130,000.
ICE has flooded Minnesota because it is a Democrat state – putting a reported 15% of all resources in MN. Trump lost MN three times.
And Pam Bondi has said she will remove the troops/ICE if Minesotta agrees to hand over the voter rolls.
This is political extortion, and likely because they want the data for the mid terms.
Such state sanctioned terrorism on the streets is unbecoming of the USA and its current leader – but there will always be those who seek to spread disinformation and terror for the same goals.
I wasted too much time making point-by-point rebuttals of some of this kind of GestapICE apologism on X yesterday. Each time the MAGA-supporters came back with more of the same.
I'm done with that. We all saw the videos of the shooting of Renee Good and the executing of Alex Pretti. And many of us have seen other videos and testimonies of the out-of-control tactics of Trump's poorly trained ICE thugs. They are not carrying out normal-style policing, and some of their unpredictability is impossible to prepare for.
The DHS manual says ICE agents should aim to de-escalate situations that could become volatile. Instead now they escalate.
With Pretti's killing, the downward spiral began when a group of big armed ICE agents pepper sprayed a woman, who started to fall over. Pretti came to help her up & got pepper sprayed for his efforts. He was then tackled to the ground by the ICE thugs, who started to beat him. He wasn't resisting, just dealing with the spray and ICE attack.
According to an analysis of the vids, I think by CNN, which was copied to RNZ, one of the agents called out that "he has a gun", and took it off him. The fool should have been clear that the gun was holstered & he was taking it.
A few seconds later another agent, who clearly didn't see where the gun was, started shooting, and while Pretti was lying there, obviously not holding a gun, other agents continued with the shooting. At some point after the shooting started another agent asked where the gun was.
This is keystone, incompetent, shoot first, thuggish policing.
The Guardian has a report of a tabletop exercise, civil war scenario run by a high level US organisation in 2024, that pretty much is the same as what is unfolding in Minnesota, but was focused on Philadelphia. They predicted that is how a civil war would start.
Quite literally "Shoot first and ask questions later."
Indeed.
Part of the problem is ICE have been told by the Trump regime they have total immunity for all their actions.
They are not properly trained or coordinated, but maybe that's what Trump, Miller et al want?
I've been in protests in London, (mostly in Thatcher's time as PM) that have got violent, sometimes when some protests (eg by the Class War group) were throwing things at police, baiting them, etc). The Police had the same response in many demos. They held their line and didn't respond – fortunately they only had batons, not guns).
At some point the police would all move in concert to break up the protest. They'd arrest and/or hit out at anyone in their way. Originally they'd move in such a way to disperse the crowd, until the polis started to adopt the Thatcherist Kettling procedure to provoke protesters.
But the ICE in Minneapolis don't have any predictable procedure for dealing with loud protesters who sometimes maybe blocking their way.
My evidence-free opinion, but I don't think these men would behave like this knowing there are multiple videorecordings happening if they didn't have high confidence they can act with impunity. And the actions of administration officials suggests the confidence is justified.
I agree with you, Karolyn_IS
This is the modern Gestapo playbook – they take an obvious situation and befuddle and lie about it – whatever it takes to confuse and keep their own on side.
Joys of online debate in some arenas I guess… Not sure how much you like trolling those sorts, but one angle could be to suggest that you are looking forward to similar actions in Texas and Florida and let them rage at that.
Thanks. Good point about Texas and Florida.
But I don't enjoy that sort of unproductive argy bargy.
The recent tactics may be reprehensible. But ultimately ICE should be tossing the illegals out of the USA, it is their job. Clearly ICE officers need more training, but leaders like Waltz and Trump have both just whipped this up into a firestorm. There is little to zero chance of a civil war in the USA, I appreciate that is probably a wet dream for some though.
no-one should be tossing anyone out, what should be happening is due process. ICE are not fit for purpose and that goes far beyond more training. These are serious human rights violations, driven and endorsed by the presidential administrations.
Trump is busting to invoke the Insurrection Act and take over the running of the Mid Term Elections from as many States as possible. Especially for States that do not vote for him. The more Civic unrest in Blue States the happier he is.
And Minnesota Federal judges aren't happy.
egs of some of the cases are given in the linked article.
Tossing the illegals out is pretext – they are terrorising citizens and residents, and frequently kidnapping legal residents out illegally and against all laws/including court orders.
The latter includes children who are in the US on legal asylum.
And if ICE was really about illegals they'd be going hammer and tongs in Texas and Florida where the biggest numbers are. Instead they're making hard work of it in a state with many times fewer illegals. Fortunately it's blown up in Trump's face with limited loss of life* and hopefully US society steps back and thinks about where they are going.
*America is a violent place and life is cheap, especially if you challenge perceived authority. Kent State was 4 student demonstrators dead and 9 wounded, trade union action has a long list of people killed attempting to negotiate better employment conditions.
Indeed it has.
Admittedly anecdotal – but the falling support for the GOP across the board suggests that this is become a far more common sentiment.
We often talk about the risk of civil war in the U.S., but a repeat of 1860–65 seems unlikely. What feels more probable in 2026 is a form of internal frozen conflict. A country that is technically functioning, yet paralyzed, fragmented, and simmering with tension.
Polarization has created two parallel realities: one side interprets events entirely through fear, existential threats, or conspiratorial narratives, while the other relies on institutional norms and facts. This disconnect produces self-reinforcing feedback loops: provocative incidents, amplified by social and partisan media, escalate outrage faster than any political faction can steer. Even those who believe they are controlling events risk losing control entirely, and revolutions have a historical habit of consuming their own children.
On the left, the temptation is quick, dramatic fixes to a system perceived as broken. Impatience and moral urgency may lead to actions that undermine institutions, produce unintended consequences, and alienate allies. On the right, the danger is hubris: the belief that escalation can be fully controlled. Movements can spiral beyond the intentions of their instigators, producing internal purges, misaligned actions, or unintended violence.
Yet 2026 is not 1860. America is far more demographically and geographically mixed. Democrats live in red states, Republicans in blue, which makes organized secession or full-scale regional insurgency far harder. The economy, infrastructure, and federal institutions are deeply interdependent. The professionalized military and law enforcement remain largely cohesive. These factors act as stabilizers, reducing the likelihood of outright war.
The more realistic scenario is systemic paralysis and localized crises. Governance gridlock, strained institutions, sporadic flashpoints, economic ripple effects, and erosion of civic trust all contribute to a country that is functionally frozen. Violence may flare locally, and media amplification can make it feel omnipresent, but the conflict is fragmented, slow-burning, and psychologically destabilizing rather than conventional warfare.
This is why values, norms, and institutional trust matter more than moral outrage or symbolic victories. Escalation may feel urgent, but acting without restraint risks long-term damage: to society, to governance, and to the people you intend to protect. The challenge for both sides is clear: avoid the temptation for quick fixes, recognize the limits of control, and reinforce civic trust wherever possible.
I don’t even know if any of that is possible. But I think it’s important that we at least believe it can be. To do otherwise would be to simply fall victim to the cynicism and moral apathy the left spent the better part of 200 years fighting.
The problem is that both sides regard themselves as the one relying on institutional norms and facts.
And, with AI generation and manipulation of data becoming ever more of a daily reality – the whole question of whose 'facts' you rely on to be true, is increasingly relevant.
I think the problem is that democracy is somewhat predicated on the ongoing existence of a shared epistomology. I don't know how well it can mediate between two parallel realities, each with their own set of "facts"
At least the Democrat/Progressive reality is more or less the one the rest of the world is living in.
I think that, in reality, it's been going on for a long time.
The fundamental differences in accepted 'reality' for many groups has been a fact of life right throughout the 20th century (and probably earlier).
People have truly believed in: a flat earth, creationism, reincarnation, monotheism, polytheism, UFOs, veganism, anti-vaccination, lizard people, climate change fraud, who shot JFK, Area 51, [just add your own top 10 to the list].
When any of the above amounts to a religion (faith-based belief) – then there is zero point in arguing. All 'facts' will be viewed through the filter of the faith.
And, we've managed a fairly stable form of democracy – with plenty of participation from people whose fundamental view of 'reality' is poles apart.
The issue is when people start insisting that their beliefs be followed by others. That's how we get religious wars, as well as all of the other kinds.
You can't 'win' by producing and arguing from documentary evidence. Most people have a strong tendency to find and believe the sources which confirm their existing biases. And reject (or at least be highly suspicious of) ones which challenge their beliefs.
The new prevalence of AI – provides another tool in the suspicion basket: have the videoclips been altered by AI – how can you tell?.
The debate about ‘hit’/’not hit’ right here on TS, under this thread is a live example. Is anyone being convinced – in either direction. It sure doesn’t look like it.
Personally speaking, interfering with law enforcement (they whether you think they are or not) carrying out thier legal (again it is) duties is just asking for trouble
You know they're armed, you know how its a heightened emotional situation and you know its dangerous, literally life threatening
Dont engage, document what is happening and go through the appropriate channels
Unfortunately Good chose to insert herself into a situation she shouldn't have, she chose to disrupt a legal, law enforcement operation, she chose to ignore instructions to move, her wife chose to escalate the situation by antagonising the agents, she chose to ignore instructions to get out of the car, she chose to drive off, whether she chose to hit the ice agent im not sure of but it doesn't matter her intent.
Document, record, protest legally.
Let's talk about Alex Pretti, the ICE nurse here.
His hands were up, only a phone clearly visible in one hand as he knelt to help a woman that was being violently assaulted to get up.
He is then taken, set upon by 6 men, pummelled, sprayed with pepper spray, then point blank executed with multiple shots from the back
His actions were all legal and as per your “instruction above”
All this distraction about abiding with the law when the victim abided by the law and notwithstanding EVEN IF there is illegality – officers are never allowed to use excessive and unequal force.
In the case of Renee Good she was quickly leaving the scene, wheels turned away after sharing some friendly comments with ICE. So her wife agitated someone and that justifies murder?
People ask how Hitler Nazi could happen – well look around
No police force in the world shoots someone in the head for driving off, when there was no crime committed (ICE has no right to police American citizens).
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp80ljjd5rwo
Agents can detain US citizens in limited circumstances, such as if a 'person interferes with an arrest, assaults an officer, or ICE suspect the person of being in the US illegally.'
None of the above applied in either case.
They had no right to stop Good from driving off.
She stopped her car to block ICE vehicles
She refused to move her vehicle when ordered
She refused to get out of her vehicle when ordered
She hit an ICE agent with her car (accidentally or not doesn't matter)
Please tell me how 'person interferes with an arrest' or 'assaults an officer' doesn't apply in this case, I'm really curious to know
Did X not say
1.there was room to drive around her vehicle.
2.ICE are not traffic police, as per where her car on the road was.
3.she was not in the way of them making an arrest of an undocumented migrant.
4.they had no right to try and force their way into her vehicle to arrest her.
5.why stop her driving off?
6.shooting her in the head through the open car door window was an execution.
The real issue is this
Other forces, Border Patrol among them, are trained to not stand in front of vehicles.
In this case the practice was
1.one goes around the car with his cell phone to identify the person and car
(HS has instructed them to identify observers and protesters for their data base – they call it a domestic terrorism data base).
2.then once standing in front of the car, another tries to get through the car door to provoke either compliance, or a drive off.
3.if there is a shoot to kill practice at that point the person who organised this method of action should be before a Congressional Committee.
4.in other cases, people taken out of cars have been pepper sprayed or had someone kneel on the neck after they are thrown to the ground (some are concussed) – just any random person watching them they single out for assault.
This may feel very satisfying as rhetoric, but it's worthless otherwise. If you genuinely believe those things, conduct an experiment: stop your car sideways across the road in front of a police operation, honk your horn continuously, and see if the police tell themselves "Well, there's room to drive around the vehicle so no problem there."
We can argue the officer involved should face charges without needing to pretend rhetoric trumps reality.
Facts are facts, calling then rhetoric is part of the decline into the post truth world of narrative framing.
Why do you call ICE police, they do not have the rights of police?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp80ljjd5rwo
'Agents can detain US citizens in limited circumstances, such as if a person interferes with an arrest, assaults an officer, or ICE suspect the person of being in the US illegally.'
They are not police and the limited rights they do have were not in play.
She stopped her car in the middle of ICE operations and hit the agent with her car.
So yeah that's interfering with an arrest and assault with a deadly weapon.
So yes ICE in this instance can detain which is what they were trying to do.
If you want to be extra specific they are federal law enforcement
The car was on the road, cars had driven passed it before ICE turned up.
Whose arrest and what for?
The car did not hit him, it brushed past him, leaving him in position for the shot through the drivers side window.
Detain on what grounds, dislike of the public?
The federal laws they enforce are not ones involving American citizens.
"Why do you call ICE police…?"
Because we don't have federal law enforcement agents in this country, so suggesting you experiment by stopping your car sideways in the street in front of a "federal law enforcement operation" isn't an option. And the agents in question have authority to detain someone for interfering with their investigation (by, for example, stopping your car sideways across the street and using your horn to drown out the agents' voices), so the distinction is irrelevant in this case.
This is sort of customary knowledge in the USA.
ICE and the First Amendment
ICE were not in action at the time, they had surrounded a market area used by immigrants and were dispersing.
https://archive.li/BvXU0
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/12/ice-watchers-minneapolis-charlotte-renee-good/
There's a lot to parse here but sufficient to say she did not hit the officer – the forensic video analysis shows it.
Yes she did:
about 4.55 but especially 6.47 onwards in but you should really watch the whole video
It's very clear in that video from 6:47 that the vehicle hit him, so I don't know why people keep claiming it didn't. I guess people are getting "forensic video analysis" from analysts with an agenda.
I'm all for an investigation to find out what went wrong, what I'm not for is trial by social media.
This has shades of George Floyd where the officer did not get a fair trial (not saying he wasn't guilty) but that he was sacrificed to stop the city burning.
This new one with Pretti is one I'm not sure about because I haven't seen anything about it
Unfortunately, the administration seems to be doing its thing of preventing an investigation and letting DHS mark its own homework while lying about the victim, so I doubt he'll face any charges. He's been thoroughly convicted by armchair prosecutors in The Standard's comments threads though, so there's that…
Pucky an apologist for the Trump regime!
Colour me surprised!
Look at 6.34, he is in no position to be hit by forward movement of the car – the car brushes by him. If it hit him front on, he would not have time to make the shot through the open side window.
https://bsky.app/profile/counterpoint4.bsky.social/post/3mbwtqfju4k2o
Again, no amount of rhetoric alters reality. The video clearly shows the vehicle hitting him.
You again misuse the word rhetoric.
Fact and description are not rhetoric.
If the car hit him, all angles would show that.
That is why the NYT used multiple angles.
They call analysis "rhetoric"
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010648638/ice-shooting-renee-good-minneapolis-videos-analysis.html
I call it rhetoric because there's a video showing the vehicle hitting him, yet you post about how this, that or the other suggests the thing I can clearly see happening in a video couldn't have happened. If it isn't rhetoric, I don't know what is.
Rhetoric is a style of communication, written or oral – it has nothing to do with description of events.
And discussion of the facts or veracity of evidence.
You obviously mean yourself in that statement as if journalists providing a frame by frame view are uncredible.
At best you can say it is unclear. But what is consistently clear is she was driving away and the ICE officer kept advancing towards here
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010648638/ice-shooting-renee-good-minneapolis-videos-analysis.html
did you watch the NYT video that has multiple angles?
I did, and again, the analysis is aimed at refuting Trump's claim that the agent "got run over." Trump is a habitual and shameless liar, so I don't need anyone fact-checking anything to accept that his claim the agent "got run over" was a lie.
Most of the videos are taken from angles that are no help in establishing whether the vehicle hit him or not. There's really only one that helps, and that one clearly shows the vehicle shoving him aside.
People are free to peddle stuff like "Oh he could have easily got out of the way on that sheet of ice" or "Being shoved aside by a vehicle's no big deal" or whatever else they come up with from the comfort of their couches, but all of that bullshit just makes me wonder why it's so important to them that this guy must be shown not to have been hit by the vehicle. It's not like admitting he was struck means we have to say "Oh, the vehicle struck him therefore he was justified in shooting her dead" or something.
A random Youtube account.
NYT provides the breakdown frame by frame –
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010648638/ice-shooting-renee-good-minneapolis-videos-analysis.html
His phone, which is gripped in his left hand, flips over when the agent’s hand lands on the front of the vehicle. There’s an audible thud when it hits. “Whoa!” [thud] The camera rotates up towards the sky. Again, while it appears the agent’s getting knocked over, we can see that’s not the case from the other angle, which shows he’s standing with his hand near the headlight, his torso and legs away from the vehicle. In the cellphone footage, the agent’s face flashes on screen, then it goes black. The other angle shows us why.
I cant really talk about Pretti too much because I've been busy so I haven't seen enough video angles but as to Good:
'In the case of Renee Good she was quickly leaving the scene, wheels turned away after sharing some friendly comments with ICE.,
– She cant just do that, her actions meant she was at the very least going to be held for questioning.
She interfered in a lawful, legal operation.
She ignored instructions to move.
She ignored instructions to get out of the vehicle.
Once thats done its over, you're getting arrested. You think if you did all that in NZ the police will just go 'oh well its over let's move on'
Driving away after ignoring instructions to stop that's a biggie.
Doesn't matter what her wheels were doing, which way they were pointing. She was instructed to stop and instead she hit the agent and from that point on its do the agents think there's a threat to thier safety, if yes they can legally open fire.
Again she went to the area, she interfered in the operation, she ignored instructions to move, she ignored instructions to get out of the car, she hit the agent (accidentally or not doesn’t matter) and she got shot and killed.
At any point in the interaction up to the point she drove away she could have ended it, she chose not to.
It wasn't friendly comments by the way, it was the type of interaction you do to annoy someone. Like someone toots their horn at you because you changed lanes without indicating and respond with a mocking smile because you know it'll piss them off more.
'So her wife agitated someone and that justifies murder?
Dont be childish, she was deliberately escalating the situation and one could argue using threatening language and I suspect it was her voice we hear saying 'drive baby drive'
She was shot in the head through the open car window at near point blank range by an angry man unfit to carry a gun.
'She was shot in the head through the open car window at near point blank range by an angry man unfit to carry a gun.'
She was shot in the head and elsewhere. Not sure the relevance of the open window is, would a closed window be ok? Angry man, yeah quite possibly as he just got hit by a car by a woman that repeatedly refused his lawful commands.
Heres what I pulled off Jonathon Ross from chatgpt about whether hes unfit to carry a gun:
Here’s a clear, factual summary of the legal and military background of Jonathan Ross, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent identified in connection with the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota in January 2026:
🇺🇸 Who Jonathan Ross Is
Jonathan E. Ross is a long-time U.S. federal law enforcement officer and military veteran. He was publicly identified through court records and reporting as the ICE officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting.
🪖 Military Background
Iraq War Veteran: During that service, he was deployed to Iraq in 2004–2005. There he served as a machine gunner on a gun truck in combat patrols.
👮 Law Enforcement Career
Ross has spent about two decades in federal law enforcement, spanning the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE:
🛂 U.S. Border Patrol
Served until 2015 in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector. His work included field intelligence duties, gathering and analyzing information on cartels, drug smuggling, and human smuggling.
Completed training at the Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico, where he also learned Spanish.
🛃 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Assigned to fugitive operations, focusing on locating and arresting individuals with federal warrants, including “higher value targets.”
Has been involved in joint operations with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, including a leadership role in planning arrests.
📚 Training and Roles Within Law Enforcement
In federal testimony, Ross described having additional roles and training within law enforcement, including being:
1.What and when were the instructions from Ross?
He never approached her about getting out of the car, the follow up team did that.
2.He was not hit, and he never went to hospital (another lie). He stepped around the car as it moved*.
3.It has been determined that the fatal wound was a bullet that went through through her head from left to right – that shot was fired while he was at the side window.
Police Officers who make a kill like that – end up court. They do not get a second change to kill the public.
PS His background incident was using a gloved fist to smash in a drivers car window and when the car moved off the broken glass cut his arm as he was dragged.
Not the lie of Noem that he had been hit by a car before.
Guess why the follow team went for the door and he stood in front?
about 4.55 but especially 6.47 onwards in but you should really watch the whole video
Thats simply untrue. Even if you argue he could have faked being struck in his own video, there's one from a building across the street that clearly shows the vehicle hitting him (see from 12th second to 15): https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=867993506115503.
Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments – The New York Times
It's very plausible he was not hit at all. His loss of balance was (at worst) the same as the officer (beside him) who loses balance due to taking hands off the vehicle as it drives off.
Why was he reported to have gone to hospital then
I've no idea if that's standard procedure, a lie from top to bottom, or a hospital visit was arranged as part of a coverup. I've got another official lie to add to that, Donald Trump doesn't have Altheimer's (and neither did Joe Biden) and that is certified by a doctor.
Of course how silly of me.
Well we'll see result of the investigation goes but I'm assuming you won't believe that either
"Well we'll see result of the investigation"
Are you sure about that, can you provide a link? Who said there would be an investigation? Last I heard Ross was not going to be investigated and the Federal government wasn't going to allow state prosecutors access to the evidence they had collected. (and federal prosecutors resigned in protest at being asked to investigate Good's wife).
That was another Noem lie.
May well be, show me your link
There is no evidence of him being at any hospital.
It appears that he was medically assessed at a federal building, but did not go to hospital.
Given he was walking around fine and moving stuff out of his home OK not long after etc.
This shows his location
https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1q7me7k/he_had_to_lean_into_her_path_to_get_a_clear_shot/
The NY Times can say what it likes, fact remains there's at least one video showing him hit by the vehicle.
I bet the NYT could show you that angle synced up with another angle showing the vehicle missed him and you still wouldn't believe it missed.
Given that there's a video clearly showing him hit by the vehicle, which matches perfectly with the video from his own phone, indeed I wouldn't believe anything the NYT spliced together claiming to show it didn't happen.
Cows: Small Or Far Away? | Father Ted
You're on top of this stuff, aren't you?
It appears very convenient that you haven't seen the few second video execution of Alex Pretti, the Veteran Affairs ICU RN but want to focus on the mother instead.
NY Times, which has plenty of pro- Trump analysis pieces, provides the evidence – not some random Youtube account:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010648638/ice-shooting-renee-good-minneapolis-videos-analysis.html
You are of course aware the two instructions you insist she should have followed (both of) are contradictory?
Maybe we could bring back capital punishment just as long as the victim can't stand straight and touch their toes at once?
Really?
Thats your best argument?
This work better for you?
Situation
ICE: Move your vehicle (warning to get out of the way)
Good: Refuses
Situation now escalated: ICE Get out of your vehicle (not a warning, a legal order)
Good: Still refuses
If one officer had said move and another said get out of the vehicle then yes that is contradictory but that is not what happened here.
The initial order was for Good to move her vehicle, to leave the scene.
She refused.
The next order, because they are separate orders, was to get out of the vehicle.
Separate orders based on the escalating situation.
That's not at all my best "argument", what has clearly happened is ICE officers were instructed to treat protesters in a particularly gung ho manner, not worry about (or violate) police procedures and amp things up (in Democratic voting states) and the result was an officer killed a protester.
All I highlighted is what instructions you laid out could not be followed.
"If one officer had said move and another said get out of the vehicle then yes that is contradictory but that is not what happened here."
Ross must have been the officer who (you are claiming, I don't think this interaction was recorded) instructed her to move the vehicle (as other officers were not around at that time). Ross then decided to circle her apparently idling vehicle while filming (presumably to record her identity) ending up in front of her vehicle in the way of her moving. It's important to note, as far as that instruction you claim was given goes, Good may well be still in the process of complying as her partner is outside the idling vehicle. As Good backs up to leave (while avoiding Ross to the front) he leans forward over the hood and fires the first (of three) bullet through the front wind screen. Ross was the officer who executed Renee Good (when she actually started moving the vehicle), the only officer to draw a weapon in fact.
If that's the case its first-degree murder, the agent issued an instruction and then blocked its implementation directly and executed her when she carried it out. This could only have been pre-meditated.
BTW, the NYT disputes that Ross was even brushed by the vehicle while he leans forward to carry out the execution.
Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments – The New York Times
Watch this, you should watch all of it but from 4.55 onwards will suffice
It actually has footage of where the wheels are pointing in relation to the agent and none of that slow motion manipulation either.
That's one of the videos in the NYT composite video. Apparently if you leave out the right (publicly available) camera angle you can fool some of people for all time (isn't that how the saying goes?).
We see the car make contact with the agent and you're trying to argue that maybe if you squint hard enough it didn't
Don't know what else to tell you if you won't trust your own eyes except we'll wait for the findings to come out and see what the verdict is
We see the car make contact with two agents. Ross pushes off from the bonnet, while leaning forward to shoot, and the other agent lets go of or pushes off from the door they were attempting to reach inside.
We don't see the vehicle driving through Ross center of mass however (there is daylight between Ross legs and the vehicle at all times) despite him coming from around and across the front, which is where the vehicle would be heading were he to be in its path. It's certainly possible he was only avoided as he took evasive maneuvers away from it (having taken up a position in front, in breach of DHS safety regulations) including pushing himself away with his arms. Unfortunately, he had already prioritized drawing his firearm and was taking his first shot at the same time. That's the other problematic thing here is he's drawn before she is even heading forward and drawing clearly signals intent to fire (he did fire). Again, even if he's evading the vehicle its looking like he pre-meditated shooting her already before she drove off. That may very well be the kind of scenario readiness which goes through the head of a firearms instructor while stepping in front of an idling vehicle ("If this bitch drives at me, I'm going to be ready to shoot her.").
This is why the video you linked in 11.2.1.1.1 is false (or at least what you claimed about it is). According to your comment "It actually has footage of where the wheels are pointing in relation to the agent". We know where the wheels were pointing in relation to the agent, because the vehicle followed the path where it was pointing, and it didn't hit Ross.
Who knows what anyone (you, me, Pucky) would have done if they were in Ross' situation. Could have been a 'heat of the moment' act, plus some people are more ready, willing and able to use deadly weapons.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/life/wellness/2026/01/27/viewing-violent-ice-videos-takes-a-toll-heres-how-to-protect-your-mental-health/88361847007/
'plus some people are more ready, willing and able to use deadly weapons.'
Yes they are
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/11/18/ice-and-cbp-officers-face-unprecedented-surge-vehicle-ramming-attacks
Since January 20, there have been 99 vehicle attacks against federal law enforcement, more than doubled compared to the 47 attacks faces during the same period last year.
HS recorded the injury to Ross last year as one by vehicle.
He smashed in the drivers window and had his arm cut on the window glass when the car drove off and dragged him for a while.
Has there been a change in practice (as well as reporting)?
So many deadly attacks cited.
Yet 2025 was one of the safest years ever for both BP and ICE.
https://www.cato.org/blog/2025-was-2nd-safest-year-border-patrol-ice-agents
Thanks SPC @6:40 pm:
https://www.cato.org/blog/2025-was-2nd-safest-year-border-patrol-ice-agents
Rhetoric is a dangerous tool. I hope their aren't too many Ross or Bovino fanbois in NZ law enforcement – too gung-ho for my liking.
That's an incomplete version and from a random Youtube account.
The NYT analysis is complete and frame by frame.
Talk about misinformation
Is the operation lawful and legal? Minnesota's top federal judge doesn't think so:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/27/ice-director-judge-minnesota
Also, a Supreme Court justice warns the US is entering dual state territory, operating normative and prerogative legal systems employed in pre-war Nazi Germany.
So yeah, pretty legal, until it's not. That dispute is at the heart of the assassinations of Good and Pretti.
You highlight the conflicting orders given which betrays the weak command, planning, and training of DHS operations and agents. ICE agents training has apparently been reduced to eight weeks from 5 months in order, I assume, to meet increased activity target.
Even NZ corrections officers train for 10 weeks and they are neither armed nor public facing.
POS be POS.
/
The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defending-minnesota-from-ice/685769/?gift=mzSZbpKIJDILy0IX4uykQqGyWT_3f8zrr6sRZvRuNeQ&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
It's sort of over in that state.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c3ve67195gyt?post=asset%3A70ba5fa9-c258-42da-bd1a-41c24ad6fdfe#post
It would be nice if ICE were allowed to do their jobs:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fact-check-walz-makes-misleading-claim-that-minnesota-is-cooperating-with-ice/ar-AA1V6C0q
'Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) recently claimed that Minnesota’s Department of Corrections was cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement prior to the deployment of federal law enforcement to his state. The governor, however, did not address the fact that the largest jail in his state — which is under local control in Minneapolis — is actively refusing to work with immigration officials.'
It would have been great if they had arrived to focus on their ICE job and ignored the wider public.
And why was Bambino's Border Patrol there? While Minnesota is a border state – it does not have a border problem. The twin cities are way to the south of the state anyhow.
Hard for ICE to ignore people literally blocking their path
Cars had driven passed the vehicle.
You posted a video showing this.
ICE chose to get someone in their grasp to vent at the wider protestors.
You see the part in the video where she drives her car into the lane of the ICE vehicles or did you miss that?
She had vertically parked the car across a lane
In most nations if a lane is blocked, for whatever reason, someone simply manages a work around.
Other cars had gone around her car on the other side of the road.
If ICE did not want to drive on the "left" side of the road, as others had done, they had the option
of
hassling her at the drivers side of the car, till she drove off up the road (rather than have anyone get in the way of her doing so).
You're on a hiding to nothing here. In most nations, law enforcement officials who observe someone deliberately stopped across a lane will do something about it. Again, if you doubt this please experiment by stopping your car sideways in the street within sight of law enforcement officials and lean on the car's horn. Your doubts will be rapidly dispelled.
They had a choice – they chose to bully a citizen, rather than go on their way and do their ICE job.
So many people in one place. One wonders if they did any more actual ICE work than normal?
Given they were instructed to identify (the Ross walk around the car) protestors and report them to a data base.
ICE are not traffic police or local law enforcement, they are there for a specific role.
This is sort of customary knowledge in the USA.
ICE and the First Amendment
ICE were not in action at the time, they had surrounded a market area used by immigrants and were dispersing.
https://archive.li/BvXU0
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/12/ice-watchers-minneapolis-charlotte-renee-good/
Well, I'm sure that if the US govt calls on you to advise federal law enforcement agencies on what they should do if a car's stopped sideways across the street, they'll give your thoughts on this matter all due consideration.
It was stupid to waste their time on it.
And it went worse from there.
They they got back up for it and continued with focus on protestors/observers, rather than their jobs.
Why? To place people onto some domestic terrorist data base.
Now its a de-escalation call.
If a Congressional Committee learns how little of their actual job they did while there it will result in problems for HS.
If it is rationalised as baiting locals to identify protestors and a shake down for state records on voting, SNAP and health care, it will get worse for POTUS.
Their big issue and they made a mess of it.
Let me tell you what law enforcement can't do – they can't execute you for blocking a path or even saying "I'm not angry with you, man"
I know. That's why the shooter should be facing some kind of criminal charge. Maybe you're confused about what I'm arguing here.
Id like to see an investigation first so we dont have another Derek Chauvin travesty
They're not officials – they're thugs at this point.
Yesterday one of them exposed himself to the public.
Also as per above –
Texas has 2.1M undocumented immigrants and Florida has 1.2M. Minnesota has 130,000.
ICE has flooded Minnesota because it is a Democrat state – putting a reported 15% of all resources in MN. Trump lost MN three times.
And Pam Bondi has said she will remove the troops/ICE if Minesotta agrees to hand over the voter rolls.
This is political extortion, and likely because they want the data for the mid terms.
Such state sanctioned terrorism on the streets is unbecoming of the USA and its current leader – but there will always be those who seek to spread disinformation and terror for the same goals.
AI was asked about the physics of the Renee Good shooting
A 3D investigation by Index
regarding the January 7, 2025, shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis indicates that the agent was not in the vehicle's path when firing, contradicting official safety claims. The analysis shows the agent was not struck by the vehicle, and fired from a position of no immediate danger.
Key Findings from Physical Reconstruction:
You're talking to people who want to use random Youtube videos over credentialed analysis.
When their motivation is to justify the actions of Trump and ICE, there's no points that you can use to counter it.
I used to wonder how Nazism could arise, now I know.
He's talking to people who know the answer the question "Who are you gunna believe? This hallucination-prone AI chatbot or your lyin' eyes?" And my motivation isn't to justify the actions of DHS' aggressive, violent, poorly trained, masked goons, it's to encourage people opposed to them not to be counter-productive by peddling hyperbole, misinformation or outright lies.
Negative.
It's literally shown here with credentialed analysis: NYT Video Analysis frame by frame
And yet the poster above posts one angle from a random Youtube account 3 times on one thread – a classic disinformation technique.
We can rephrase the question any way you like, but given that there's a video clearly showing the agent being struck by the vehicle, yes I'm going to believe my lyin' eyes, thanks. Yes, it is a shame that someone has to keep posting that video because people who want things to be simple keep claiming something that the video refutes, but that's not a reflection on the person posting it.
I notice the NYT analysis pulls some rhetorical sleight-of-hand by saying the video analysis "shows no indication agent Jonathan Ross got run over." Well, duh – no-one's claiming he got run over. The claim is that the vehicle hit him, which it did.
Did the car knock him backwards?
If not, he was not in front of the car.
If you saw the hit, can you explain what part of the car hit him and where he was at the time?
Or, you could just watch the damn video.
What sort of witness, to their truth, cannot explain what they saw?
You do realize Ross is holding his phone camera out in front of him, don't you?
Physical reproduction of the camera angles (from the phone he was holding) demonstrates about a 1m gap between Ross and the vehicle as it moves to pass him (Ross is about 0.5m back from the camera he is holding). As he then leans in over the bumper to take his first shot he loses focus in the camera he is holding and maybe the vehicle (which he is leaning into) collects his camera (there is an audible bump insufficient to knock it from his grip).
This is the reason the NYT describes this in the most clear way, Jonathan Ross was not run over and was in no danger of being run over by Good's vehicle. That is much more clear rather than the weasel description that there may have been contact between Ross (in particular both his camera arm and shooting arms as he leans over the bonnet) and the vehicle.
"Well, duh – no-one's claiming he got run over. The claim is that the vehicle hit him, which it did."
The image literally above your post showed where he was when he shot through the front window – from the side of the car.
When before that image was he hit, because he had no time to take the impact and move around the side of the car for that shot (yet to be fired at that point).
You could always try watching the damn video.
You're getting fooled by rhetoric while the NYT is addressing the actual point. The Trump administration wants you to believe any contact between the vehicle and the officer amounts to an attempt by Good to run over Ross (which conceivably could be life threatening and justify lethal force). The point that the NYT is making clear is that neither was her trajectory life threatening to Ross, but he actually leans into her vehicle to take the first shot. Either he contacts the vehicle (with his cell phone) or the vehicle contacts his cell phone as he leans in (and takes the first shot). Ross created that contact just as much as the agent who took hold of the vehicle door created that contact.
You simply failed to notice the rhetorical trick that contacting him in this situation is insufficient to justify the use of lethal force. The NYT analysis deals with the actual point being claimed by the administration.
I'm aware the Trump administration egregiously lies about the activities of its goons, thanks. I don't need the NYT to explain it to me.
Well, no, and you seem to have simply failed to notice that I haven't argued the vehicle shoving him aside was sufficient to justify the use of lethal force. That's for a court to decide, not amateur prosecutors in The Standard's comments threads. I'd just like you all to stop pretending he wasn't struck by the vehicle.
Glaciers melt.
A move around as the car moved, too much?
The whole narrative about when a vehicle moves, deadly force is being applied, and requires use of a gun in self defence action is absurd.
ICE has to adopt CBP policy, which is not to stand in front.
BCP has to change its own engagement rules, if disarming a person of a holstered weapon, they say “safe” rather than “gun”.
the NYT video shows that the car and him came into contact. I can't tell if that was her driving into him (by mistake presumably), or if it was because he had put his hand and weight onto the car (possibly because the road was icy).
Just so we are clear on this point, it's very important to you that people look at a video showing "contact" between Ross and Good's vehicle, which still doesn't justify Ross use of lethal force.
BTW, having looked at all the statements about "contact" in this thread, I've been very clear at all times that there was probably "contact" and the 3d analysis uses contact to mean in the sense that "Good struck Ross with her vehicle". What can be seen is that any contact occurred when "Ross struck Goods vehicle" (definitely as NYT mentions with his phone) while leaning in and taking his first shot (which is again to the point of that analysis, Ross wasn't in the vehicles path and put himself more into the vehicles path while taking the first shot).
Briefly, what is your point?
Forensic analyses of videos would be better than reckons if this incident land in court, although I doubt Ross has much to fear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack_defendants
Well, if any of you are ever "contacted" by a moving vehicle such that it shoves you aside, feel free to say you weren't hit by a vehicle but instead merely "made contact" with one. For my part, I'll continue to treat "contact" with a vehicle that shoves me sideways as being struck by a vehicle.
You version is that the vehicle is just starting to move and he is brushed aside to fire 3-4 shots within seconds, and the contact was being struck.
Another view is that he steps around to the side as it moves, it brushes by and he leans on the bonnet from the side when firing his first shot into the screen and then standing, fires shots at the driver via the door window.
"Shoves me sideways"? Are you Ross?
Treat 'contact' as you wish, but your insistence that he was struck has no more evidentiary value than insisting he wasn't. Why the (contrarian) rush to judgement?
Again, what is your point?
You already said this doesn't in your view justify use of lethal force.
There is a further thing highlighted most clearly by the 3d reproduction (but also shown by every camera angle covering this , the cell phone footage itself and again described by the NYT analysis). Ross transfers his phone from his dominant hand somewhere around walking along the passenger side of the vehicle. This is before reaching the front and before Good is rushed at by the other ICE agents. He is preparing to use his fire arm before the vehicle has moved even an inch.
"…evidentiary value…"
For fuck's sake, how many times do I have to point out we aren't jurors in a jury room, here? Armchair prosecutors are superfluous to requirements.
"Again, what is your point?"
Again, my point is that there's no need to peddle hyperbole, misinformation or outright lies about this incident just because you really want the shooter to be an evildoer with murderous intent. Ideally he'd face charges, but probably won't even be investigated and that is more worthy of comment any of this armchair prosecuting and coulda/woulda/shoulda.
Once you're agreeing he should face murder charges you've already conceding he didn't use his firearm in self-defense.
How many times have you pointed that out? I get it; you've expressed your opinion re 'stuck' vs 'not struck' / 'contact' several times here, and are now 'analysing' the motives of those who disagree.
You know best, of course, but what do "you really want"?
Sorry, yes, now you mention it that was in the earlier thread on this subject a couple of weeks ago. Armchair prosecutors were out in force on that one too.
Given the video showing him being struck by the vehicle, I reject the assertion that it's my opinion.
" my motivation isn't to justify the actions of DHS' aggressive, violent, poorly trained, masked goons, it's to encourage people opposed to them not to be counter-productive by peddling hyperbole, misinformation or outright lies."
Again, you seem to be confusing me with someone else.
"Ideally he'd face charges"
Ideally, he wouldn't face charges?
what should be happening is local police should be investigating and laying charges, and the US prosecution system should be making decisions about how to progress that. When people say he should face murder charges, that’s what Milt is talking about re armchair prosecutors.
Myself, I think the car and the man had physical contact, and beyond that is a set of really complex dynamics about social media, the stand off between various agencies in the US, the shitshow that is US politics and presidency, the possibility that the shootings are being sanctioned as a deterrent and what the fuck can be done about that given everything.
It looks like murder to me. But I was wasn’t there, I don’t know enough about US prosecution laws, and I think the much more pertinent issue than did she hit him with her car/was he justified, is how that whole situation is basically a prelude.
I’m also aware that that people want to argue about minutiae, instead of talking about fascism, and strategy/tactics.
(to clarify, I don’t think he was justified, and he shouldn’t be on duty until there is an investigation)
OK, obviously I need to spell it out for you:
1. I don't know what charges he should face. You don't either, despite your certainty. The actual issue is that the administration will thwart any investigation and he'll face no charges.
2. I don't "concede" he didn't fire in self-defence because I've never claimed he fired in self-defence. You shouldn't go making claims about it either.
Ross was the only officer in any sense in harm's way of the vehicle. If he did not fire in self-defense, he was not entitled to use his firearm as the regulations say. That's the only way a headline charge below murder can be justified, so once you have said charges should be brought, the only space left in that corner you've argued yourself into is "he fired in self-defense" (which he didn't).
To use that in court you've still got to explain (to a jury) why he free's up his firing hand, before going in front of the vehicle, which has not moved, in a way which doesn't already show intent to use his firearm.
It's also worth highlighting the reason the Trump administration is trying to impede charges being brought is because they think any normal investigation will lead to successful charges and conviction. The Trump administration doesn't itself believe the bull shit it asks everyone else to believe either.
Maybe the above assertion is a fact, maybe is just a slur – hey ho.
"Maybe the above assertion is a fact, maybe is just a slur"
I don't know others' motivation any more than anyone else does, sure. It's within the bounds of possibility that people have entirely objective, non-partisan motivations for being so determined to find that the video showing Jonathan Ross hit by Renee Good's vehicle doesn't really show him being hit by her vehicle that they just assert he wasn't hit because if we just slow the video down enough it looks like nothing serious taking place. I have my doubts, though.
"If he did not fire in self-defense, he was not entitled to use his firearm…" blah blah blah blah
It's clear the role of armchair prosecutor is very important to you so I'm going to just leave you to it. There's still no jury to address, though.
Would that be a first for you in this thread? Welcome to the club
You can do all the frame by frame analysis you like. However the ICE Agent had a split second to make the decision that he made, from that point in time everything that happened was automatic, and inevitable. From the Agents perspective the vehicle suddenly drove straight towards him, at that moment in time he would have assessed an immediate threat and fired his pistol, it was a burst of three shots in less than a second. At no time did he have any opportunity to fully assess the situation, unfortunately he was wrong, that’s not his fault, it’s the situation he was in.
Only one bullet went through the front window (and it would only have hit the driver, if he was from the side of the car when fired) and the others were through the side (drivers door) window as it went past.
Shooting the driver is not an effective way to prevent a vehicle running you over (your much better off getting out of the way, as described by police procedures dealing with this very situation). If the outcome was automatic from the point you describe it out this becomes pre-meditated (he planned to react this way before it happened) and first-degree murder.
true he had a spit second. But this is the problem with ICE, they've been given the go ahead to operate outside of their normal boundaries and they're not experienced or trained to deal with these situations.
The vehicle clearly wasn't driving "straight towards him", why would you say that?
As Nic said, shooting the driver in this situation is not an effective way to stop a car. So either he was untrained and didn't know what he was doing, or he was trained and the shooting was intentional.
He did in fact have time to get out of the way. Had he stepped back the car would have turned past him.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010648638/ice-shooting-renee-good-minneapolis-videos-analysis.html
"Had he stepped back the car would have turned past him."
Had he not leaned forward (to take his first shot) the car would have missed him as well.
yep. Hard to tell how much the slippery road played a part, but he had plenty of time to position himself out of the way of the car, and even if he slipped, there's still zero rational for shooting her other than his anger at her. And I guess sending a message to protestors and liberals.
You think maybe this: https://www.police1.com/officer-shootings/bwc-woman-strikes-n-d-officer-with-car-throwing-him-into-a-fence-before-fatal-ois
or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lG1NDhBTsQ
thats a female police officer being hit and killed, interesting to see how little time she had
Since January 20, there have been 99 vehicle attacks against federal law enforcement, more than doubled compared to the 47 attacks faces during the same period last year.
Yet 2025 was one of the safest years ever for both BP and ICE (2nd safest, despite more staff than ever before).
https://www.cato.org/blog/2025-was-2nd-safest-year-border-patrol-ice-agents
So what?
Its getting worse for ICE agents, more dangerous for ICE agents and more people driving cars at ICE agents.
Suddenly a cars being driven at him and according to ICE/DHS policy if 'There is an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or another person;' then he can use deadly force.
Maybe next time some other protestor is in a car they'll think twice before driving at an ICE agent and if thats the case then at least some good will come out of it
I doubt it though as the Left both here and in the USA have been brainwashed into thinking they're the moral good guys
The evidence suggests that the deadly attacks are not that deadly.
Conflation of driving away from someone with driving at them alert.
I guess some people expect better from those carrying a gun.
This is how much time you have to make a decision and if you're lucky this happens: https://www.police1.com/officer-shootings/bwc-woman-strikes-n-d-officer-with-car-throwing-him-into-a-fence-before-fatal-ois
if youre unlucky:
This is what people on the left fail to get, personal responsibility.
At any point Renee Good could have stopped what she was doing and driven off or complied with agents demands or not be there at all, any of those actions means she'd be able to go protest another day
She chose not to, she decided she could interfer in a law enforcement operation, she decided she could ignore law enforcements orders, she decided she could drive off, she decided she could drive at an officer
Her actions led to this situation.She put the agent in a situation where he had to make a split-second decision based on training and he did what he was trained to do.
"At any point Renee Good could have stopped what she was doing and driven off "
She did drive off, just before she was murdered.
"Her actions led to this situation. She put the agent in a situation where he had to make a split-second decision based on training and he did what he was trained to do."
For the sake of DHS training officers they better hope he was not trained to do this, because he put her in this situation (by walking round the front of her vehicle filming) and subsequently used a firearm outside the scope of DHS fire arms protocols (which say not to attempt to stop a moving vehicle with a fire arm).
Thats really the problem with the left.
The individual doesn't matter so in this case the left are glad this happened, in fact they wanted this to happen and happen to a woman.
The left are sick for encouraging this.
For the record Stephen Miller strongly objects to being called left wing.
I'm left, and I'm not glad this happened, nor did I want it to happen. The 'sickness' is getting worse – the question is 'Why?' Cui bono?
I hope the US comes to its senses sooner rather than later.
https://dailyastorian.com/2026/01/28/local-voices-add-to-public-furor-calls-for-transparency-over-minnesota-deaths/
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/life/wellness/2026/01/27/viewing-violent-ice-videos-takes-a-toll-heres-how-to-protect-your-mental-health/88361847007/
The left love this. The left pushed this. The left wanted this.
All the talk of trump being worse than Hitler. That ICE are literal Nazis kidnapping US citizens. That people need to fight back.
Where do you think it was going to lead to.
This.
The left wanted it because its another excuse to riot, another excuse to say how evil Trump is. Another distraction from Walz and the billions gone missing.
Women always get a rough deal from the left but hey at least the left have a martyr
Thats the left, always letting women take the brunt of it.
Homeland Security and POTUS 47 administration lying about what happened and lying about the victims.
Calling protestors/observers, domestic terrorists.
So it is no surprise, that those who buy into that rhetoric will cast aspersions about those who criticise the shooting, all as part of their own narrative about the left.
Spray and walk away.
I'm left, and I don't love or want this. It's true that some are more enthusiastic about (righteous) killing than others – whether you believe that's a characteristic particularly associated with the political right cf. left might depend on your politics and/or other factors.
It's difficult to understand why someone with Ross' level of combat experience could have so misjudged the threat to his life. I do wonder whether "if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail" played a role, but everyone makes mistakes – certainly Renée Good and Alex Pretti each misjudged the threat to their life.
I do feel for Jonathan Ross, and for the ICE officer(s) who killed Alex Pretti, but with appropriate councilling and support – they'll live.
Don’t know about Trump being evil, but he is a convicted felon.
Oops – appropriate
councillingcounselling, andCBSCBC News.Not only the left, Pucky – Trump’s getting stuck into women too.
Had she not been there in the first place she wouldn't have been shot.
Had she not blocked ICE agents in their lawful duties she wouldn't have been shot
Had she moved the car she wouldn't have been shot
Once she failed to move the car (for the pedants) if she had gotten out of the car she wouldn't have been shot
Had she not tried to escape the scene she wouldn't have been shot
Had she not driven at an agent she wouldn't have been shot
I hope we never get such attitudes from any New Zealand Government.
Will we get capital punishment for jaywalking?
The number of people in the "land of the free" keen to explain to us that if you don't go out protesting you won't get shot has been a real eye-opener. The Ayatollahs would be proud.
If Ross hadn't been there she wouldn't have been shot either 🤷♀️
Ross was there carrying out his legal, lawgul duties.
Good was there obstructing (thats illegal) ICE
Good refused to move (again illegal)
Good then refused to get out of the vehicle (illegal)
Good then drove off (again illegal)
Good then hit the agent and was then shot
See the difference?
Do you need a link perhaps?
Puckish Rogue
Glad to see your true position come out over this thread.
As soon as you claimed to not have seen the Alex Pretti murder execution, the one all over the internet and which takes a few seconds – while pivoting exclusively on Good, I thought it was obvious where you were going.
'they're not experienced or trained to deal with these situations.'
Wheres your proof or evidence or link for you to say this.
Lets hear it
There have been questions about the current length of training, hiring standards and recruitment as reported in this Aussie ABC article.
Some ICE behavior makes it look like they are poorly trained or don't have the capability to be a law enforcement agent.
Really.
You think this guy is poorly trained and/or incapable:
Who Jonathan Ross Is
Jonathan E. Ross is a long-time U.S. federal law enforcement officer and military veteran. He was publicly identified through court records and reporting as the ICE officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting.
Military Background
Iraq War Veteran: During that service, he was deployed to Iraq in 2004–2005. There he served as a machine gunner on a gun truck in combat patrols.
Law Enforcement Career
Ross has spent about two decades in federal law enforcement, spanning the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE:
U.S. Border Patrol
Served until 2015 in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector. His work included field intelligence duties, gathering and analyzing information on cartels, drug smuggling, and human smuggling.
Completed training at the Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico, where he also learned Spanish.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Assigned to fugitive operations, focusing on locating and arresting individuals with federal warrants, including “higher value targets.”
Has been involved in joint operations with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, including a leadership role in planning arrests.
Training and Roles Within Law Enforcement
In federal testimony, Ross described having additional roles and training within law enforcement, including being:
Jonathon E Ross and being attacked by a vehicle
His form at court, last time around.
The evidence.
https://archive.li/QO1yp
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/ice-agent-jonathan-ross-minneapolis-shooting.html
Thank you.
He knows better than probably anyone on here just how dangerous cars can be and acted in accordance with his training.
Think that's absolutely correct. It should be assumed at this point that this is ICE policy and intentional given the evidence observed about that. In any remotely normal administration this would involve conspiracy murder charges brought against Greg Bovino (observed giving different (and illegal) verbal instructions from written about ICE handling of public safety), Kristi Noem (who before investigation described both victims as domestic terrorists, implying she was covering up her departments behavior which she did not think should change) and Stephen Miller (who Noem says was instructing her what to say). Regardless of how Pretti and Good were killed (and they were both murdered) the implications of the attempted cover up happening, before an investigation completed, makes it abundantly clear this outcome was anticipated by these individuals and they carried on with the policies leading to them anyway.
Please provide proof they were murdered
Then it comes down to Ross's mental state and his decision-making, and institutional responsibility.
After a shooting incident like Jonathan Ross's earlier one, he should have been stood down and received mental health support.
The Kill shot came from the side window and was not the first shot. He had already wounded Good, and there was no need for the kill shot.
My point about them being murdered is that it doesn't matter how they died, it's the acceptance and implementation of policies leading to their deaths which creates the murder conspiracy. Similar charges have been proposed against the Sackler family, though in this case only Purdue Pharma (a company) was tried (it pleaded guilty).
You know this is real and not a movie?
'No need for the kill shot'
Why not ask why he didnt shoot the tyres out as well.
Now getting away from stupid arguments heres the salient point:
'The assessment of whether deadly force was justified is based on the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, not with hindsight.'
Not with hindsight.
Overview of ICE's Deadly Force Policy
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency operates under specific guidelines regarding the use of deadly force. These policies are designed to ensure that officers act within the law while prioritizing safety.
Conditions for Using Deadly Force
Justification for Use
Reasonableness Standard
Training and Guidelines
Officer Training
De-escalation Tactics
Legal Framework
ICE's use of force policies are influenced by U.S. law, including constitutional standards that govern law enforcement actions. The policies are designed to align with broader Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guidelines, which also stress the importance of preserving human life.
To Nic
You said they were murdered.
I asked for proof.
Provide it please.
That is my point about the training standards and one would have to hope the ICE officers are trained to follow them avoiding future problems.
Though I have no reason to expect this I would also like to think your better at applying the equivalent applying to your work than understanding those you have referenced for DHS.
"Why not ask why he didn't shoot the tyres out as well."
As far as the specifics about shooting at vehicles will say they say not to attempt to shoot out the tyres of a moving vehicle. This is because it's not going to stop the vehicle.
They also say not to shoot at the driver trying to stop the vehicle moving, because it's not going to stop the vehicle (and it didn't stop the vehicle this case).
It also says not to walk in front of a vehicle which might suddenly start moving, because it puts the driver in a situation where their leaving creates a threat to the officer. Even to the extent you claim that Good was driving towards Ross, this situation was created by Ross not following DHS training.
"Imminent Threat: Deadly force may only be used when an officer has a reasonable belief that the subject poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to themselves or others."
One of the things you don't seem to be getting about this is that Ross was not acting on reasonable belief that Good was trying to run him over. A "reasonable officer" was not previously dragged by another vehicle several months prior, a reasonable officer would have realized they have put themselves in the vehicles path while filming, a reasonable officer would have noticed the Good intentionally backed up and turned the wheels before driving and a reasonable officer would have prioritized getting out the way even if they thought the vehicle was going to hit them (Ross instead leaned into the vehicles path), a reasonable officer is not a fire arms instructor itching to use their weapon, and so a reasonable officer doesn't pre-emptively think through "If this bitch drives at me I'm going to shoot them", and a reasonable officer doesn't either refer to their victim as "fucking bitch" or deny them medical attention from a nearby bystander physician.
"Not for Escape Prevention: Officers cannot use deadly force solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject unless there is a significant threat to life."
And yes, obviously Ross violated this case which the guidance calls out specifically.
The scenario where Ross is entitled to use deadly force here is one where Good has left in the vehicle, then turns around and starts accelerating at Ross or another officer. Even from a purely officer safety point of view the training says just get yourself out of the way at the point Ross fires.
minneapolis murders – Search
there's been a lot of coverage of this PR. Various things, including taking on recruits without proper vetting, and not having training in the areas outside of their remit.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/new-ice-recruits-showed-training-full-vetting-rcna238739
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/1/23/are-ice-agents-trained-to-shoot-and-evade-lawsuits
Can't answer or wont't answer?
This is Ross, is he or is he not (in your words not mine) experienced enough or trained enough to deal with the situation:
Jonathan E. Ross is a long-time U.S. federal law enforcement officer and military veteran. He was publicly identified through court records and reporting as the ICE officer involved in the Minneapolis shooting.
Military Background
Iraq War Veteran: During that service, he was deployed to Iraq in 2004–2005. There he served as a machine gunner on a gun truck in combat patrols.
Law Enforcement Career
Ross has spent about two decades in federal law enforcement, spanning the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE:
U.S. Border Patrol
Served until 2015 in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector. His work included field intelligence duties, gathering and analyzing information on cartels, drug smuggling, and human smuggling.
Completed training at the Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico, where he also learned Spanish.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Assigned to fugitive operations, focusing on locating and arresting individuals with federal warrants, including “higher value targets.”
Has been involved in joint operations with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, including a leadership role in planning arrests.
Training and Roles Within Law Enforcement
In federal testimony, Ross described having additional roles and training within law enforcement, including being:
I mean I think he sounds pretty well trained and experienced enough but clearly you see or know something I don't.
Lets hear it.
read my comments below about using AI on TS. Thread is here,
https://thestandard.nz/civil-war-wasnt-inevitable-but-it-may-be/#comment-2055014
also if you're copying and pasting your comment multiple times, don't. Link to the first comment.
here's what I actually said,
You asked me to back that up, I did. If you want to run the line that Ross' previous experience makes him experienced and trained for this particular job, then make the argument. Without just cluttering up the space with AI whatever. Because what I said stands irrespective of his work history, and you apparently can't see that.
As for Ross, despite his experience his managed to stand in front of a moving vehicle and decide to shoot the driver instead of getting out of the way. His experience makes it more likely that this was an unjustified killing.
Ok its clear you don't know what you're talking about
Here you go: https://www.reddit.com/r/nzpolitics/comments/1qqg399/ice_chief_bovino_its_our_fucking_city_now/
There's a lot more where that came from too.
Wow reddit ok, I'm going to need more than that.
So herers some numbers I found: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/03/ice-announces-historic-120-manpower-increase-thanks-recruitment-campaign-brought
'In fact, we have more than doubled our officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000.'
22000 so I'm going to need more than one or two examples of poor ICE before I accept all, or even most, of ICE is poorly trained
Frankly, if they doubled the number of agents in a short time it's pretty much guaranteed that entry criteria, vetting and training all suffered.
So you immediately try to discredit the source even though it's a video of ICE officials, and you posted a random Youtube snippet at least 3 times on this thread – when it showed just one frame from the shooting?
You are what Reddit would classify as an internet troll and bad faith account.
PS Here's more on your favourite source – Youtube showing ICE officers threatening to kill citizens and exposing their private parts to the public
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DiCNThIOUwk
As others point out, doubling the number in short order also proves why these are in effective untrained thugs – and the video here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gtCCdjww1_k of the ICE Chief shows that their direction to act as such in effect "comes from the top"
The rights and wrongs of ICE, & the current US Administration have no place in determining if the shooting was justified or lawful.
This case will judged from the perspective of the ICE Agent who fired the shots, and from what he could see at the time, and this will be at the time he automatically determined that there was a threat. This will be several seconds before the first shot went through the front window.
with cases of law enforcement officers using firearms, they are often in situations where they have no time to undertake any form of risk assessment and need to react immediately, this type of response is automatic, along with the firing of a 3 shot burst in less than a second. He did what he was trained to do, the fact that the first shot was through the front window and the other two were through the driver’s side window is an indication as to the speed of the car. It’s also an indication as to the skill of the ICE Agent. All in all it’s a good shooting, but unfortunate. In these cases the lives of law enforcement officers, and innocent members of the public are paramount. Idiots who deliberately placed themselves in the way during a situation like this are placing themselves in danger along with everyone else.
Ross transfers his phone (camera) from his dominant hand to free up his shooting hand before walking in front of the vehicle and before Goods vehicle moves at all. He wasn't making a split second decision.
He should have had his right hand free or placed on his firearm right from the beginning of the incident.
Here in NZ one of the concerns about our police routinely carrying sidearms is it puts a barrier between police officers and the public. The threat of someone grabbing their sidearm means they should place their hand on their sidearm while interacting with the public, and to keep their distance.
In this case, the ICE Agent was relaxed and unconcerned enough to hold his phone and not place his hand on his sidearm. This is probably what led to the death of the woman concerned.
The ICE Agent placing his hand on his sidearm is just standard practice, and happened as the other ICE Agents approached the car.
"In this case, the ICE Agent was relaxed and unconcerned enough to hold his phone and not place his hand on his sidearm. This is probably what led to the death of the woman concerned."
You mean if she had better perceived the officers willingness to shoot her she may have avoided confrontation? That's probably true.
"The ICE Agent placing his hand on his sidearm is just standard practice, and happened as the other ICE Agents approached the car."
Sure sounds like he was preparing to shoot her as she fled the other agents to me.
AI referred to a 3D investigation by Index (so you attack AI credibility).
You disparage other posters of another perspective different to your own as peddling hyperbole, misinformation or outright lies.
And infer you are saving them (and the cause) from themselves.
Par for the course for those who critique others on the left to save the left (you should check out the COINTELPRO Psy Ops methods – infiltration, attempt to entrap and if that did not work, disrupt)
Index is a French based Investigation group – they use 3D analysis as a methodology – in cases of public interest.
AI referenced to it.
Your assumption was baseless.
https://www.index.ngo/en/
SPC, you're going to have to tidy up commenting formatting from now on. I can't tell which of the words in your comment are yours, index.ngo's or AI. I also don't know what AI you are referring to, who asked AI, and which references AI was using.
None if that is acceptable on TS, because it's impossible to fact check without a lot of work. As a mod, I simply don't have the time atm.
AI frequently makes mistakes. You may feel confident about what you wrote, the rest of us can't, and this sets up for skewed debate. We have really good reasons for this in the Policy (a policy written before public AI),
Do you understand that copying something from somewhere without due diligence is not a high enough standard for robust debate here?
btw, I am so over this, and the unwillingness of some commenters to work within the kaupapa of TS's robust debate, that it's likely I will just delete comments going forward. At some point I will write a post on this, but most people using AI on TS do in fact know about the evidence rules, so it's beyond me why they can't be adhered to.
Maybe the reply button needs to work consistently before you start punishing people for not using it?
take it up with Lynn, I have zero control over TS interface. But in the meantime, if you can't use the Reply button, just copy and paste a quote or reference by the timestamp or comment number. Like people have been doing on TS for a long time.
Really?
Then I will clarify
Given it was Google Search, it was AI overview
I asked about the physics
They provided a link to
A 3D investigation by Index
(See 9.35am post 14.1.1.3)
and then summarised its work.
I should have in bedded it all, from regarding, via quote.
Do your own research using google AI. Once you have the result you want, copy and paste a short amount here, if it summarises what you want to say, AND PUT IT IN QUOTATION MARKS (or blockquote). You are literally copying and pasting from somewhere on the internet, and you know that on TS we require attribution, so just make it clear what are you words and what the are AI.
Then, copy and paste the references that AI provided you, presuming you have actually done due diligence on them. I often just AI to give me the direct link rather than the five or whatever. Again, this is standard practice on TS. No-one can make a claim without a link. You should do it in real time because it's too hard to get it back later if you are asked for it, and because it's better for the debate given AI unreliability.
I still don't know which of the words in your comment are yours, Index's and AIs.
further, if you're not fact checking AI, then don't use it on TS. It makes too many mistakes to be taken at face value.
AI was asked about the physics of the Renee Good shooting
AI Oversight
The link to Index identifies what AI Oversight made its summary from.
Fact checked by the link to Index.
Index.
Notice how my article was about the execution of Veteran Affairs ICU Nurse, Alex Pretti, but posters here like Puckish Rogue only wanted to focus on the murder of Renee Good because it was easier for them to do so.
How did Hitler and Nazism ever take place in Germany? Hitler reportedly used widespread propaganda and propagandists. It's the necessary formula to befuddle and distract and to forget the rule of law, so that the authoritarians can do as they wish.
It can happen in NZ too – America wasn’t turned in a day.
My take.
Fair enough.
Heres my (shortened) take, both incidents need to be investigated (obviously)
IMHO there is no case to answer in the Good incident (clearly)
IMHO there is a case to answer to in the Pretti case (definitely)
What would happen in NZ if a police officer shot an unarmed, otherwise not known to be dangerous woman in a car that was trying to get away? Do you think that the event would be investigated, or do you think the police would just go 'no case to answer' and do nothing?
I don't care. We're talking about ICE, in the USA.
Your "clearly" is Trump level propaganda.
And posting random Youtube accounts over frame by frame credentialed analysis cements that perspective.
I agree. Sometimes it's hard to not reference other situations, and that can be useful eg as a comparison. But sometimes it gets used as a derail. You can reply to one of the mods and ask them to take a look and/or drop a note in the back end. Doing that early on is useful. Lynn is good at knocking that stuff on the head and it's completely fine to narrow down the scope of commenting to be about what you wrote. We will just move other comments to OM and/or give a warning.
Maybe you and the others should educate yourselves first before talking about subjects you know nothing about.
Its not cute and its not funny.
right back at ya.
Sure.
I post Ross's qualifications (to show how qualified and experienced he is)
I post the rules ICE work under (highlighting the points which show he was justified in his actions)
I post videos of law enforcement being hit by vehicles (to show how little reaction time they have because most of you think its like the movies)
I post stats of how often ICE agents are attacked by people in cars (to highlight why its serious)
You?
You post I reckons based on whatever movie or tv show you last watched
My advice (which you won't take) is to get out of this bubble for awhile
but what you don't do is engage in the debate in good faith. Appeals to authority don't work here.
I haven't said much on this topic, and I have my own thoughts about both shootings that might surprise you. But if you can't put this in the context of rising fascism you probably can't follow the arguments and thus your arguments fall flat even the parts of them that make sense. That's your bubble.
"…put this in the context of rising fascism…"
Right-wingers reject the idea that any of this is fascist, and I agree the US is still a long way from fascism, but yes – we have an administration that operates almost entirely on Führerprinzip, we have that administration actively preventing rule of law from operating, and especially since the Pretti shooting we've had so many of these hand-on-heart 'liberty' types outing themselves as straightforward right-wing authoritarians.
Must say, cognitive dissonance is one hell of a drug.
Do you have any consistent explanation for why the Trump administration lied about Renee Good and labeled her a domestic terrorist? and immediately prevented state prosecutors participating in a joint investigation (which is the norm)?
The only explanation I can see for saying this is they saw the same footage we have all seen and thought, that looks like Ross committed a murder and we can't let an ICE murder be prosecuted in court. That implies your belief that Ross is (clearly) innocent is not the Trump administrations belief at all, they believe he is guilty from the same footage and according to the same rules and regulations.
We should also note they made essentially the same allegations regarding the murder of Pretti initially which is (definitely) a murder case. Which is fully consistent with the Trump administration again seeing the same footage we have all seen and again concluding that looks like an ICE murder we don't want prosecuted in court. Again, they have not shared the names of the agent(s) who shot Pretti to state prosecutors, though they have been apparently put on leave, which impedes the state prosecutors.
Thanks weka, good to know.
In my personal opinion, there've been some classic disinformation tactics engaged on this thread
– Posting random snippets from random, uncredentialed accounts (Youtube)
– Ignoring jouranlistic credentialed analysis (which the former took one frame from)
– Pivoting to the "preferred" method of focusing on Renee Good and pretending to not have seen the few second video of Alex Pretti's execution
– Using AI to claim ICE are well trained despite the volume of video evidence and in person testimony across the States (This video is just one of many)
– Posting misinformation/disinformation multiple times throughout the thread despite the lack of integrity of the source
– Derailing from the original topic and Pretti – by using the pretence of "I haven't seen the few second Pretti video"
– Cutting short conversations not conducive to their propaganda e.g. "Would you agree if this happened in NZ?" Answer "I don't care"
A user above posits that ICE are an accomplished and skilled force.
Here they are in practice:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gtCCdjww1_k
And here they expose themselves to the public and threaten citizens
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DiCNThIOUwk
Both are true. ICE has an accomplished and skilled force. It's also recently more than doubled the number of agents, which inevitably means selection criteria, vetting and training all suffered and there's a significant proportion of people who never should have been hired.
Both are not true when the ICE Chief is on camera telling them "It's our fucking city now", telling officers to arrest anyone who touches or offends them, says our instructions are from the top, and hints that they can do what they want while telling them to be mindful that they are being taped.
ICE never had this remit or type of authority either – this is an expansion of powers and the type of people who are drawn to it are inevitably going to be of a certain mould – hence ICE officers exposing their genitals and private parts to the public and threatening to kill anyone who raises their voice.
MT. In your Post there are some Authoritarian types who seemingly wish to minimise these completely heinous crimes : the completely avoidable murder of 2 US citizens by fascist thugs. There is no irony (but IMO definitely connectivity) in the fact that one of the thread commenters has previously touted the death penalty for certain NZ prisoners. And another fully supports fascist Israel in ALL its genocidal terrorist aktions.
Anyway, here are some links if you maybe havent seen? And keep up your work. Its very important.
Paul Buchanan. Someone who's experience and thoughts I would value..
Also as an aside…have you heard of Jen Sorensen? She is an absolutely amazing cartoonist. With very pertinent comment on all…IMO well worth a look. Esp re ICE, Trump,the targetting of US Press…et al
Take care.
meanwhile liberals talk about people in the room in the third person but don't name them and instead marginalise them as 'authoritarian types', as if such positions don't exist on the left. The big problem I have with this isn't calling out the problems you perceive (the way Milt supports Israel, PR's support for the death penalty), it's the way it is done that tries to paint some people as good and others evil, and the left as virtuous. This is why so many people increasingly hate the left/liberals.
Both Milt and PR have long histories of contributing to debate on the Standard. Both stop TS from being a cul de sac of people who all think the same and can no longer think critically. They challenge base assumptions about how the world works, and they make other people have to both think about their own views and express them as coherent arguments. That's the point of robust debate.
The tendency of liberals to marginalise those we disagree with, instead of welcoming them for the value they bring, is the left's contribution to the yawn political divide, including in New Zealand.
"…the way it is done that tries to paint some people as good and others evil, and the left as virtuous."
As I get older, I find my patience with people mistaking their political opinions for moral virtues gets thinner.
But you and weka make no response to PR’s blanket and pejorative claims about left wingers, each for reasons that you have covered in part here.
Both of you do this within the orbit that "the left has to change" to succeed against the right wing.
would you mind linking to two of PR's comments where I responded to him but didn't address his blanket and pejorative claims? I don't really understand your point here, but the conversation is important (and an ongoing point of tension), so would like to get a better grasp of what you mean.
for instance are you saying I pull the left up but not the right when they do it? If so, examples would be useful.
When SPC says "PR’s blanket and pejorative claims about left wingers" that Psycho Milt and weka didn’t respond to, I think they might be refering to these comments (among others):
Nic the NZer and SPC each responded to one of these comments, and, as a 'lefty', I responded to both to show that not everyone on the political left agrees with PR’s claims / beliefs / characterisations, and indeed that those particular characterisations might apply to certain right-wing ‘role models’, e.g. Trump.
thanks D, appreciate the effort there in clarifying.
I saw the first comment yesterday, and thought woah, that's pretty full on from PR, is he ok? I could have reacted and been sucked into a subthread just on what he said. But I didn't want to react to what was obviously a very inflammatory comment.
As a moderator, I needed to go read what was happening across the whole comments section under the post, and part of that was responding to the issues with AI usage in the thread (which was complicated because those comments already had multiple replies so I couldn't just move them to OM). I haven't even had time to go back and thank SPC for their efforts in fixing their comments (but it's bookmarked as part of a wider task to write a post on AI usage on TS).
In other words:
Speaking only for myself, yes I do respond to this from leftists a lot more than from rightists. If someone on the right's making right-wingers look bad via exaggeration, misinterpretation, asserting things that are obviously untrue or denouncing the entire left as maliciously motivated, I might dispute the claims but I also tend to think "Don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake."
Especially as we (the left) don't have many viable solutions to the shitshow atm.
Well weka…IMHO, having seen, and had experience of your particular style of moderation…i did not want to give you any excuse. However, it does seem my brief descriptions were enough. And be under no false illusion that I wouldnt address them ..
And as for your…
The value of the death penalty for certain prisoners? The value of proven Israeli fascist terrorist genocide? You are shitting me.
And I would actually like to see your thoughts, re your reply to puckish at
Surprise us all…..
Let's just test this then. But to be clear, my reply was as a commenter with a lot of moderation experience (on TS and elsewhere). If I had wanted to moderate *you* I would have bolded, or given direction ('please don't…' etc).
You said,
If we add the names,
it doesn't change much, except now everyone reading knows what you mean instead of having to guess.
You make a number of claims,
None of those assertions were in any way backed up. They're opinions of course, not facts, and that's fine. But when you personalise it in the way you did, you're going to get push back. In this case I wonder what the intention was, and said it looked like an attempt to marginalise (as opposed to rebutting or calling out). This is the liberal dynamic I was naming as a problem.
I think it's a shitty way to debate, because we succeed in marginalising the people whose opinions we hate, we end up in a bubble. That bubble is what has made liberals largely unequipped to deal with critical issues like rising fascism and/or populism effectively.
For instance, watching PR's shift to wholehearted support for Trumpism matters because we need to understand how and why that is happening with so many people. If we just put them in the proto-fascist box, we never learn. What's the strategy here? Are we relying on our belief in our own virtue? That somehow all the people moving rightwards are going to stop and go 'oh, yeah, you're the good ones, we want to be over there with you?'. I just don't see the evidence for that working (nor a credible theory)
I'm so glad you said that, because it tells me you don't actually understand what I meant. I'm seeing this kind of miscommunication, including in this thread, a lot.
You know me well enough to know I don't value the death penalty, and that I support Palestinian liberation. So I'm wondering if you were being sarcastic as a way of avoiding my actual point (which was quite clearly stated).
Sure, thanks for asking.
I think both shootings are a consequence of the empowering of ICE to be arseholes as they go about their job as well as enabling them to step outside their legal framework for action. I also believe that this is an intentional strategy as part of proto-fascism in the US.
I think Good was naive, possibly because she is white (very hard to imagine a politicised black person acting like that in the US). This doesn't make her responsible for being shot.
If the intention of enabling ICE to shoot people is to instil fear and make people less likely to protest, then what I want to know is if this is working or if it's going to lead to more and better resistance. To my mind this is a much more important question to be exploring than the endless rehashing of the minutiae of car vs body vs car. What happened matters, but there's a limit to what we can know at this time. What we can do is learn from that situation (and yes, I think in NZ we are not immune to this and should be learning, fast).
Even though PR doesn't realise it, I actually agree that there are ICE agents who are well trained and skilled at their jobs. There are some who aren't. We need to be able to talk about both. The former because knowing the enemy is critical in resistance, but also in retaining justice as a principle. Not all people working for ICE are arseholes. They can still be critiqued for working for them, that's a different matter.
Mostly I feel how much time is slipping away on us while we argue over this instead of talking about strategy and action.
as an example. If NZ ends up in our version of what the US is going through, and people we know (and sometimes care about) end up working for the NZ equivalent of ICE, what's the strategy?
If you want to pillory them as people, how will that effect the change you want to see? Give me the details of how that works.
Our biggest job atm (other than climate action) is to stay connected with the people who aren't yet on the side of the fascists, and give them a viable alternative to populism so they don't move permanently into a position of hating and thus acting against progressive values and society.
weka: "If the intention of enabling ICE to shoot people is to instil fear and make people less likely to protest, then what I want to know is if this is working or if it's going to lead to more and better resistance. "
Well, if the rports I've been seeing today on X are anything to go by, resistance to ICE is growing. this vid from the Minneapolis part of the Jan 30th Day of Action in the US – massive demo:
https://x.com/allenanalysis/status/2017362716826939620
And in NYC:
https://x.com/allenanalysis/status/2017398017775542637
wow, that's so good to see.
I have disagreed with PM before but learned that we are often talking about nuances, and the conversation even when there are different perspectives, appears to be constructive.
I haven't seen PR before and don't peruse the comment section on TS often, but would note the above traits as what we'd call a bad faith account on other mediums.
That all said, it's good to tease out nuances.
👍
There are definitely problems in this debate, but I generally find accusations of bad faith to be unhelpful. I've had that directed at me (mostly on twitter) when I know I haven't been acting in bad faith, but the person was either not understanding my points (tbf, I can be a bit meta at times, other times I'm deep green and people are expecting me to take sides when I see 3rd, 4th etc ways out, other times I'm just wrong and stubborn lol). Or they can't or won't argue the points.
PR knows that when he oversteps the line, he will get modded. But if you look at his first comment in this thread,
https://thestandard.nz/civil-war-wasnt-inevitable-but-it-may-be/#comment-2054854
It's a coherent political argument (I even agree with some of it). That's what I mean when I say that people like PR stop us being an echo chamber. It's not a left wing position, nor liberal, but it's actually meaningful and human from someone who has experience with dealing with violence that I would guess most here don't.
What does all this mean for commenters here trying to navigate a way to express themselves as online progressive activists while avoiding oppressive moderation for doing just that?
You don't have moderation privileges on Twitter (at least I assume you don’t), but you certainly do on The Standard.
moderation is rarely about politics and content. Things people get moderated for,
the part of my comment you quoted was in the context of me sharing my ideas about accusations of bad faith. It wasn't anything to do with moderation, so I'm curious why you brought it up and asked about moderation.
I know moderation and commenting are difficult to do at the same time. It's like being police and public at the same time. When do you accept being meta (whatever that means), when do you look for ways out, when are you just stubborn…and when are you not.
I'm interested in how a very active and selectively punitive moderator can admit flaws in online posting as a commenter but find difficultly doing the same as a moderator.
The question was asked up thread why you deal with RW commenters differently than progressive commenters and your answer was that for you they hold more value.
That really rankles with time poor lefties who spend a lot of energy here researching and presenting their thoughts.
It’s harder for commenters. Personally, I have good shifting hat capabilities in my life generally, so it’s easy enough to put on a mod hat and take it off. This isn’t the only place I’ve moderated, and I’ve been in various mod cultures for a long time. What’s difficult for commenters is when that change of hats happens too fast, or without clarity. This is a problems on TS at times. One thing that helps is to only moderate in bold, but I don’t like filling up space with a lot of bold, so often I will give direction before shifting into mod mode eg I will say something like ‘I suggest you stop doing x, y, z’, or ‘please don’t…’ It’s not ideal, and is a limit of the interface. I’m open to feedback about that.
Meta there meant I might be talking about the dynamics around a topic rather than addressing it directly. Some people react to that badly.
But I was referring to mostly on twitter, and as a commenter. Moderation is different, I put a lot of time/effort into not just reacting, giving people chances, thinking through what is best, talking with other mods. Most of what we do is not visible on the front end. Some mods mod quickly (Lprent is an example). Some bend over backwards even if you can’t see it. I can name people I’ve eventually banned where it took weeks or even months to get to a ban point. Sometimes we just get sick of it and mod sooner. That’s what is happening atm because of election year and because we want a clean debate space for that. Of note is that the only people in the ban list are those banned until after the election. That’s a good sign.
We have conversations in the back end you don’t see. Before I was an author (so before I had the power to moderate) I commented here for many years, including on and about moderation generally and in real time. I never got moderated, because I paid attention to what the moderators were saying and thought about why they were saying it and why it mattered for the good of the site, authors and commentariat. It’s part of why moderating here was a relatively easy transition, I already knew how it worked. Probably the biggest reason why people get banned here is not paying attention to what mods are saying.
Some moderators don’t like it, but I’m open to discussing moderation on TS. I’ve written posts where people could talk about moderation. What you can’t do is attack mods, undermine active moderation, or lie about why someone got modded (that’s remarkably common by the small number of commenters who get banned). Already your framing is pejorative, which isn’t a good start if you want to have a useful conversation about it.
That’s not what I said though. I said that there is value in having RW commenters on TS otherwise we become a bubble and lose the capacity to self reflect and have our politics and arguments tested (which is necessary for them to be robust). Think that means I value them more than the left is a sign of polarised thinking I think.
Besides, I was talking about liberals, not the left.
Muttonbird and weka
I don't peruse moderation decisions here in detail, but on a cursory glance, I'd say that I have felt for a while that some TS moderation is at times far stricter and confrontational with left wing commentators than right.
I support bipartisan and diverse perspectives, but I am referring to actions taken. That said, as I don't review the decisions or background in detail, I also feel that I can't comment confidently on this but since the concept of mod impressions is raised, I'll just add it's been a very high level impression on my side too (granted, I could be wrong here)
let’s play this out then. If the impression is correct (moderation is harder on left wing commenters than right wing), what might be the reasons?
Other than that (and there are probably other reasons), the problem I have here is the idea of the impressions without giving concrete examples, so we can’t actually look at the patterns of mod behaviour and test what might be happening and if the impression is valid. That right there is how 90% of these conversations go. Someone makes a claim about moderation, but doesn’t follow through on exploring that, so we never learn anything. If there is a problem with moderation, it never gets resolved.
Interesting discussion, so far, but I’ll keep out of it to let it run its course – perceptions and criticism of moderations/Mods are, presumably, not confined to one Mod.
indeed.
Yes, all good points.
In addition, I think that some Lefties feel that the Mods should be tribal/partisan and support them, no matter what, in a binary us-vs-them contest (and possibly even ‘cancel’ RW commenters). Also, I think that, on average, the Right-leaning commenters who venture here on TS do a pretty good job of commenting and arguing, and better than the average (larger numbers) Left-leaning commenters. The range of debating skills here is huge.
How does that mean both aren't true? Bovino is just the kind of man the Trump administration favours – an outright fascist. That doesn't alter the fact that DHS has a lot of skilled, professional agents, some skilled, professional agents who've never operated in a freezing, hostile urban environment before and may be out of their depth, and a bunch of very dubious recent hires who aren't fit to be given any level of authority over anyone. Puckish Rogue highlights the professionalism of the competent staff, you understandably (because we agree it's a serious problem) highlight the unfit-for-purpose ones. But PR isn't wrong to claim there's a lot of skilled professionals among these agents. There are, it's just that that isn't where the problem lies.
Bet the SS had some good people as well.
As the video of Bovino shows he is instructing the agency to act illegally, unethically and immorally unless they might be exposed on video.
conflating skilled with good is the problem here. This matters because understanding the enemy's skill makes for better responses.
Well, yes, and I expect that's because he's an outright fascist, as I said. I'm not disagreeing that there's a problem with this agency.
The issue is the intentional framing from the key issue:
One doesn't try to frame them as "skilled and experienced" people unless it's a diversion from the greater issue here – lawlessness, fascism, intent, modus operandi, evidence.
We can play on technicalities all day long but the overriding thesis is the orders "straight from the top" as the ICE chief notes, allows them to operate outside the confines of what Western countries have traditionally valued – due process, human rights, dignity.
After following the murder of Renee and Alex,
the only things I can say are:
"The fish rots from the head" – It's not just "a few bad apples"
"if 9 people sit down with 1 nazi at a table, you have 10 nazis at the table"
The inherently inequitable system needs to be burnt to the ground – (the system is working as intended, move wealth to the hands of a few at the expense of the many) – from an indigenous (Ngāti Porou) social work lecturer i had classes with a couple of years ago.
Then there's the issue with ICE:
From 2020.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/12/how-the-us-and-israel-exchange-tactics-in-violence-and-control
This is an excellent outline of ICE training and recruitment in a compact and more palatable format
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5rMWPmrimXY