Why Renee GoOd Was Shot And Killed By Ice

First consider Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote in his book, Blink, that seeing a perspective on something where you are making a quick decision is perfected by the art of “thin slicing.” It  is a way to filter out the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Gladwell’s book begins with an example that is too common in the news. It is the killing of Amadou Diallo by four New York City Police officers. The officers saw the victim standing in the vestibule of his apartment building. The police called to him. Diablo may have feared that they were criminals. He ran inside his building and took out his wallet which the police mistook for a gun. The officer shot him. The other officers thought that their colleague was shot. In less than 10 seconds four officers fired 41 shots, 9 of which hit and killed the unarmed Diallo. After questioning the officers, there were several factors that went into the tragedy: Stress, implicit biases of many varieties where they had what Gladwell calls “Mind Blindness.”

Second is the Standford Experiment. It revealed that when ordinary college students adopted assigned roles as prison “guards,” they became sadistic. The students designated as prisoners became distressed leading to extreme psychological trauma. The experiment was shutdown after six days instead of two weeks.

I feel the above examples as well as some other factors caused the death of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis a few days ago. Many have seen the video of her death which is reminiscent of the Diallo killing. The Stanford Experiment demonstrates how power over others can cause bad behavior in perpetrators. It is at the heart of social ethics and bullying.

But there is more that is specific to possibly explain why Renee Good died. I examined the criteria that are part of the qualifications to become an Ice agent. There are impressive criteria such a college education, no offenses to the law and high moral standards. There were 200,000 applicants for positions with only 20,000 accepted. There was also the lure of a possible $50,000 bonus. Following acceptance, the agents were required to have four months of training in such things as defusing a tense situation. They seemed to have admitted the brightest and the best to the agency. What could go wrong?

But then I saw the possibility of why Ms. Good was killed. It was how Ice was marketed to the public in a specific manner that provoked certain groups of people. They targeted people who thought ice agents were  “combat hungry,” that they targeted people who were near military bases, college compasses, those who attended NASCAR races, and those who attended trade shows catering to gun loving people. There were some who sought a wartime existence. I had a college roommate who played football and was a great guy. He was drafted into the military service, and he did several tours as a Green Beret in Vietnam. When he left the military, he couldn’t adapt to being a teacher and a normal life. He signed up again and trained Green Berets in Fort Benning as he needed that kind of structure and accountability found in the military.

In essence, regarding Ice, they were self-selecting groups that would be aggressive without advertising that data in a national recruitment program.

So, what is the different between ICE and the marines? The marines could fall into certain aspects of that self-selected group. Why would a marine be less likely to have killed Renee Good? The answer is an Ice Agent doesn’t feel accountability. When Trump, Vance, and Noem heard of the event with Ms. Good, they immediately painted Renee Good as a left- wing terrorist and not the 37-year-old mother of three, an award-winning poet, and a community representative observer of Ice activities.

Those three in the Trump administration and Trump himself couldn’t have chosen a worst person to defame. Their approach to so many decisions is ready, shoot, aim. They also are treating the case as something that will just be investigated by the federal government agencies and not  working with local authorities. Just as with the Epstein Files, the lack of transparency has moved the population against them. Can you imagine a colonel in the Marine Corp acting in the same way as those three? I can’t!

There is key evidence to this fact by the trial of Lt. William Calley, a United States Army officer who was court marshalled for murder of 22 South Vietnamese citizens in the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968. His case became a precedent setting case in the military judicial system. You couldn’t do what the ice agents are doing if you were in the military.

If you are wondering why Trump and Hegseth are attacking Senator Mark Kelly for advertising that soldiers should only follow legal orders, it is a statement that speaks to the need for accountability, something that is lacking throughout Trump’s presidency and something that both he and Hegseth fear the most. Trump said recently that the only things that can hold him back from action are “his morality and his mind.” I think that comment should be followed up with, “What exactly is your morality?”

Any one of my former students could answer that question.

Since writing this blog a conversation between the ice agents and victim have come to light which adds another dimension to the context of this killing. In ethics you always want the most evidence to comment on a situation. Good was a designated observer of ice agents’ behavior. She was not hampering traffic to go around her. She said, “That’s fine dude, I’m not mad at you.” Another agent called out “Get out of the fu..in car.”

Law enforcement agencies across the country said, “You don’t stand in front of a car when addressing the driver. You don’t fire your gun at a moving vehicle.”

Students in my ethics class saw that they always seek additional evidence to make an ethical decision easier. Is there something else that you need to know to decide about the death of Renee Nichol Good?” What is your view and why? Welcome to full contact ethics as my students referred to the course.