By now, everyone has had a chance to review the footage of Renee Good, who was killed by an ICE officer in her car in Minneapolis last week. We see footage from different angles and at different speeds. We see it from different angles. Finally, we are able to see and hear what happened before and after the shooting.
New footage emerged on Friday afternoon and we haven’t had a chance to discuss it on Rise yet. So let’s wait and see.
This new footage does dispel some popular misconceptions. Goode, for example, does not appear to have received conflicting instructions from officials. It looked and sounded like she was following her partner’s instructions to flee the scene. Her wife’s words about “driving with a baby” are telling.
However, the new footage doesn’t necessarily answer the only relevant question, which is whether Jonathan Ross, the officer who shot Goode, had a reasonable fear for his life. Much of the media misunderstood this and stated that he should not have shot Goode for trying to flee the scene. This is true; fleeing the scene alone is not a satisfactory reason for him to shoot her. However, if her car was coming toward him and he thought she was going to run him down, he had the right to shoot her—even if she didn’t intend to do so, and even if, in hindsight, getting out of the way would have been a better option.
Many critics became emotional about it. She said she wasn’t angry with him and that he was abusive to her after shooting her, but that it didn’t matter. Regardless of whether she was blocking traffic or whether the police were correct in detaining her in the first place. It didn’t matter whether Ross had been dragged by a car before, in fact, his own political views and hers didn’t matter at all.
All that matters is whether Ross reasonably feared for his life when he fired at the oncoming vehicle.
Cool heads, and I mean experts in the legal system and law enforcement, will make the decision by reviewing all the footage. Only a trained use-of-force expert could determine whether he was justified in shooting her based on what we saw and based on the presumption of innocence that Rose enjoyed.
I know that everyone on social media and every talking head on cable news, left and right, thinks they are qualified to make this decision. You don’t. So calm down.
Now, some people hate that certain issues require nuanced investigation. I know a lot of people on the right want to completely acquit Ross, no questions asked. I know many on the left want to accuse him now without examining the details. For example, Fortress’s Tim Miller casually asserted that Ross murdered Goode:
All of this is beside the point. Someone can talk to you calmly and friendly and still try to run you over in their car. This may be the case. It’s also possible that Rose’s reaction was completely unnecessary, but justified in the moment because he had to make a split-second decision. It’s also possible that the car wasn’t headed toward him and a closer examination of the video footage would reveal that the shooting was unjustified – and if so, he should be prosecuted.
Hyping on social media that the case is closed is unhelpful and will anger the public.
I understand the anger. Like my fellow liberals, I cringe at the sight of masked law enforcement officers everywhere engaging in “papers, please” policing of Americans. I think the Trump administration should consider that these extreme shows of force are undermining his entire agenda. An American citizen should not have to die or face the routine denial of her rights – to suggest that she deserved it, or that she was a domestic terrorist, as some have suggested, is cruel. Since she was a victim of a shooting, this attempt to smear her is shameful and wrong.
But I can’t co-sign mob justice. I can’t say “I’ve seen enough, prosecute this guy” without considering that he was probably justified under current use of force standards. If you have formed a strong opinion based on a short video clip on social media, even though we have all been fooled by these many times, I implore you to calm down.
Robby Soave is the co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor at Reason magazine. This column is an editorial transcription of his daily commentary.
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