Trump Totally Changes Excuse for Why Renee Good Deserved to Get Shot
President Donald Trump suggested that being “disrespectful” toward law enforcement justifies the deadly use of force.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Sunday, Trump offered a new excuse for why an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis: She wasn’t being very nice.
“We have to respect our law enforcement. At a very minimum, that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement,” he said. “And you heard the same noises, you saw the same crunch that I saw. You can’t do that with law enforcement, whether it’s police or ICE or Border Patrol or anybody else.”
When asked whether the use of deadly force was necessary, Trump replied: “It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement, the woman and her friend were highly disrespectful. You saw that.” He even suggested that Good and her wife (whom he incorrectly identified as her “friend”) were “professional agitators.”
So, in Trump’s America, being disrespectful toward law enforcement is enough to get you killed.
The “crunch” sound that Trump was referring to was from the 47-second clip filmed from the perspective of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Good. In the video, there is a loud sound as Good tries to pull away from the group of officers. But the crunch wasn’t Ross being hit—more likely, it was him shooting his service weapon through her windshield.
Even if what Trump was saying was true, that Good had been “disrespectful” to law enforcement, that wouldn’t justify her killing. But once again, the video evidence Trump was referencing quickly disproved his own claim.
The video taken by Ross as he stalked around her vehicle showed Good behind the driver’s seat, saying: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” The president’s version of events conveniently ignored other footage that showed Good wasn’t actually blocking traffic and had waved the agents past her car, urging them to “go around!”
Instead of pulling around, the ICE agents swarmed her vehicle, pulling on the doors and demanding she “get out of the fucking car!” One witness even said that another officer ordered her to leave. When she attempted to drive away, Ross, who was in front of the vehicle, shot her at least three times.
Trump had previously claimed that Good “ran [the officer] over,” before reporters had to brutally point out that video evidence did not actually support that claim.