Holy f***: Trump policy kills a woman in Minneapolis

Photo: Mathieu Louis-Rolland, Getty Images.

Protestors in Portland have been making fun of the extreme statements about Portland being out of control by wearing costumes at protests ("Portland’s Theater-of-the-Absurd Protests Reflect the Ridiculousness of Trump’s Lies," The Nation).

There's been a lot written about Trump using the National Guard as a tool to terrorize "Democrat cities" ("Trump’s use of National Guard troops on American streets is bad enough. This could be worse," Rhode Island Current), like Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago.  

Ostensibly, the troops have been sent to cities “overrun” with crime. Yet data shows that has not been the case. Troops have been sent to largely Democratic-run cities in Democratic-led states.

The case for political theater being the real reason behind the deployment certainly was strengthened when largely Republican Mississippi sent troops to Washington D.C., even though crime in Mississippi cities like Jackson is higher than in D.C. Additionally, there is an even more dangerous purpose to the troop presence — that of normalizing the idea of troops on the streets, a key facet of authoritarian rule.

There are fundamental differences in training and mission between military troops and civilian law enforcement, with troop presence raising the potential for escalation and excessive force, and the erosion of both civil liberties and military readiness.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the justification used by the Administration was flawed, and ordered them to stop ("Supreme Court rejects Trump’s effort to deploy National Guard in Illinois," SCOTus blog, "The Supreme Court has taken the National Guard away from Donald Trump," Economist).  Separately, as DC is subordinate to the federal government, NG troops are still in the city.

Of the many objections to the entry of federal law enforcement personnel into cities is their lack of training on urban policing, nor in de-escalation.  Armed troops are by definition escalatory.  It doesn't help that the Administration lies about what happens in their various engagements with protestors.

Another objection is that putting such forces in cities provides reputational risk to the military, because it's not what they are supposed to do.  In a way, although a bit different, it's not unlike how the British, during the Revolutionary War, forced residents to billet soldiers, at their own expense.  Here, it's a city being forced to take the brunt of the action by the military.

We know about the Administration's multi-faceted anti-immigrant program ("Protecting The American People Against Invasion" White House) with overtones of White Christian Nationalism ("The wrath of Stephen Miller," Atlantic), which has resulted in the imprisonment and/or deportation of many thousands of people.  It's not uncommon for US citizens to be swept up in the actions, and imprisoned ("We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days," ProPublica).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel are able to operate in cities independent of the court judgements about the National Guard.

Chicago: A federal immigration enforcement agent points a crowd control weapon at a protester at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in the East Side on Oct. 14. Protesters gathered as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers awaited the removal of their vehicle after it crashed during a pursuit.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

And they are armed and aggressive.  Armed, not well trained Guardsman killed protestors at Kent State University in 1970 ("Kent State University marks 55th anniversary of May 4 shootings," Ideastream/NPR) but before that at the Historically Black College, Orangeburg State College in South Carolina, in 1968 where three students were killed ("Feb. 8, 1968: Orangeburg Massacre," Zinn Education Project).

One particularly egregious aggression was the raiding of an apartment building in Chicago ("“I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime," ProPublica, "Stories from the federal siege of Chicago," Chicago Sun-Times).

Community members pray at the scene where a federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, 37, of the Twin Cities earlier on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

That's escalated.  Today, we have the killing of an American citizen in Minneapolis ("Eyewitness describes ICE shooting that killed woman in Minneapolis," NBC).

With the director of ICE as part of the operation!

The Boston Globe has a video link of the engagement, and there is no question the ICE agent murdered the driver, a 37 year old woman.  ICE agents too, aren't well trained, for urban incursions.  This is the result.

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino joins federal agents at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

Ironically it's 5 years plus one day since the Trump-inspired violent protests at the US Capitol ("Jan. 6 insurrection," Washington Post).  The Administration just put up a webpage lying about what happened ("White House unveils Jan. 6 webpage saying Democrats ‘staged the real insurrection,’ criticizing Capitol Police," The Hill). 

One protestor, Ashlii Babbitt, was shot and killed by a member of the Capitol Police.  She's been made a martyr of the hard right, and under Trump, her family got a payout ("Trump administration to pay nearly $5M in wrongful death lawsuit of Jan. 6 rioter shot by police," Politico).  She was rioting.  Rioting isn't protected speech.  She was a criminal.  Trump also pardoned most of the people found guilty of rioting that day.

A bullet hole is seen in the windshield as law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. Tom Baker/AP

Not the lady in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good, she's just dead.  Say her name... ("‘She was an amazing human being’: Mother identifies woman shot, killed by ICE agent," Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

The Administration is justifying the murder ("Live updates: Hundreds protest in Minneapolis after ICE officer kills woman," AP).  Calling the person driving away a "domestic terrorist" ("DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments in wake of woman’s fatal shooting by ICE agent," MST).

“He’s been in situations like this before, and he certainly has been out there and followed his training today,” said Noem at the evening news conference in Minneapolis.

A federal agent sprays a protester with a chemical agent at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

Noem appeared to reference the same officer when she said that, back in June, he’d been rammed and dragged by an “anti-ICE” motorist.

Emergency medical technicians carry a person on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

The Republicans in Congress are supine in the face of the Administration's aggressions not just against the Constitution, but of the American People.

You would think this killing would be a moment comparable to when Senator Joe McCarthy's lies were challenged by Joseph Welch, the U.S. Army's chief counsel at one of McCarthy's many hearings about communists in government.  

He said: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That was the moment of McCarthy's downfall.  Were this to be a similar moment.

Sanctioned state violence.  The Trump Administration is one of the most violent in terms of how it deals with citizens and immigrants.  But this is not unique to the nation's history, with raids against "communists" in the 1870s and 1920s, anarchists (1910s), labor unions (1890s-1930), and the treatment of certain immigrant groups throughout history (Chinese, Mexicans, Jews).

But today it seems the US is taking its cues from Hungary and Russia, where the media is controlled and universities are subjugated, and countries like Chile under Pinochet, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel, China--Israel ("Watched, Tracked, and Targeted Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime," New York Magazine) and China are probably the most developed surveillance states in the world, more intricate than the Apartheid period of South Africa.  

Trump constantly threatens to stop elections and interfere with elections ("Trump’s Jokes About Canceling Midterm Elections Aren’t So Funny Anymore," Esquire), which is front and center in Erdogan's regime in Turkey.

Plus there is the prosecution of Trump "opponents" such as James Comey (former director of the FBI) and Letitia Wilson (State Attorney General of New York).

Poland is an example that had degraded in terms of freedoms of citizens but is on a turnaround, with the election as president of Donald Tusk.  So it can be reversed.

It's incredible though that the US has reached this nadir.  I never thought that when I studied Latin America in political science courses in college, that the readings foreshadowed today's United States of America.