To the Editor:
Re “Woman Is Killed by Federal Agent” (front page, Jan. 8):
I am a retired police officer with more than 25 years of experience. I worked in a New England city and spent the first five years of my career as a patrol officer before ascending the ranks to retire as deputy police chief.
I have watched the two videos of the ICE officer firing three rounds into a moving car in Minneapolis several times. There is no doubt that a person can weaponize a motor vehicle. We’ve seen countless examples of that, including lone-wolf attacks in the United States in which innocent people have been horribly injured or killed by a car, which can easily become a 4,000-pound bullet.
So a police officer firing his or her firearm at a vehicle being used to pose an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death is justifiable under the law.
However, this case, in my opinion, did not rise to that level of deadly force. While the officer who fired the rounds was in front of the vehicle’s left front fender, the driver was attempting to flee, not run over him or any other officer.
The car was accelerating, but as it passed him it was still at a relatively low speed giving him time to dodge the car, which is in fact what he did.
There is a maxim in police circles: Officers are not supposed to be judge, jury and executioner. The vehicle plate could have been captured, the driver identified and a warrant for her arrest for reckless motor vehicle operation could have been issued. There was no need to take her life.
Of course, the Trump administration has circled the wagons around this ICE officer and will continue to spin this tragedy, politicizing it to suit its own narrative. But to this police veteran, this was a blatant and tragic use of deadly force.
Len DiSesa Dresher, Pa.
To the Editor:
Renee Nicole Good should still be alive.
The question of whether the ICE officer who killed her was shooting in self-defense is the wrong one. It is relevant only if one wants to discuss the legality rather the fact of her death.
From early reporting, it appears that Ms. Good was in the line of ICE fire because she loved her neighbors and likely had the same questions we should all have: Why are mass and indiscriminate immigration raids grounded in racial profiling being conducted by masked agents who seem to be accountable to no one happening on the streets of America?
Why are they rappelling from helicopters, breaking down the doors of the homes of American citizens and immigrants alike, dragging children and adults out of bed and unlawfully detaining innocent U.S. citizens in the process?
I suppose Ms. Good must have also asked, “So what am I going to do about it?”
People like Renee Nicole Good were and are trying to stand up to this administration’s assault on our way of life and the rule of law.
If ICE had not had a history of illegal and unaccountable brutality, she would not have been where she was, doing what she was doing. She would, in fact, still be alive.
As she should be.
Amy Brown Vienna, Va.
To the Editor:
Why exactly do ICE agents have guns in the first place? Police officers carry guns because they are required to face violent criminals and may have to use those guns to save lives. But ICE agents’ only job is to enforce immigration laws.
Individuals subject to arrest by ICE may be here illegally, but illegal entry is not a violent crime, nor is there any reason to believe that such individuals would be violent.
ICE agents should not be empowered to carry guns at all.
Joshua Pepper New York
To the Editor:
I watched the video showing the horrific shooting of a defenseless woman trying to drive away from ICE agents in Minneapolis, and then read with disgust the comments from Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokesperson, trying to convince us that we can’t believe our own eyes.
The false narrative from the Trump administration will escalate tensions and embolden untrained ICE agents to use deadly force when they could simply move out of the way.
This dangerous rhetoric has to stop. This isn’t North Korea, where the government can just lie to us with impunity. This is still the United States, isn’t it?
Dorothy Supp Cincinnati
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