On Wednesday morning, during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good accelerated towards an ICE agent with her car, and he responded with lethal force. Good was shot and killed.
Democrats and media figures rushed to condemn the shooting as an unjustified murder.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey claimed to have watched the video and dismissed the federal government’s claims of self-defense as “bullshit.”
SHAMELESS!
Jacob Frey absolves the victim who tried to run over ICE agents of any responsibility and blames ICE for “killing people.” pic.twitter.com/p6alPKJkJf
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 7, 2026
Gov. Tim Walz claimed to have watched the video and disputed the Department of Homeland Security’s assessment that the ICE officer acted in self-defense.
I’ve seen the video.
Don’t believe this propaganda machine.
The state will ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice. https://t.co/3faWW4bQvV
— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) January 7, 2026
Others were even less subtle.
”The officer not only needs to be fired and suspended, but based on the video, he needs to be charged with murder,” Rep.Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) claimed.
Dan Goldman dumps gas on the fire: “It was an outright m*rder.”
“This officer…needs to be charged with m*rder.”
Democrats doing their level best to ensure Minneapolis is in flames tonight.pic.twitter.com/io75RP6MrL
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 7, 2026
All claimed to have watched the video of the incident, and many people in the legacy media and on social media rushed to condemn the ICE agent. However, NBC News chose to take an objective look at the video evidence and the facts and vindicated the ICE agent.
NBC correspondents Tom Winter and Tom Llamas reviewed the footage on air, highlighting critical details that undercut the narrative being pushed by members of the Democratic Party.
Based on the footage, Winter concluded that Renee Nicole Good had to have been aware that it was law enforcement officers who were confronting her. “We don’t know what happened before this, but they’re definitely gonna look at the fact this is an unmarked vehicle, but the lights are on, these are clearly members of law enforcement, so that’s at least known to this driver,” he explained.
“Those officers approach the vehicle, they try to open the door,” Llamas added.
“Whatever is said here, what these officers say, if the driver said anything or not, could really help them understand whether or not they thought there was some sort of an imminent threat. Was this person trying to listen to them? Were they scared?” Winter said.
Llamas then described the sequence that led to the shooting. “And then, of course, what the driver does next … trying to leave there. One of the officers felt like they were forced to fire, and they do,” he said.
The footage they reviewed showed the vehicle accelerating with an officer positioned directly in front of it. But the more telling footage came from a different angle, making the danger posed to the ICE agents even clearer.
“Well, this appears to show an officer right in front of the vehicle. That, and between the way that the vehicle was moving and the timeline of that, how was the officer responding in that split second gonna be critical for investigators,” Winter explained.
NBC Nightly News was the only legacy evening newscast to report that the woman shot by the ICE officer in Minneapolis was in fact obstructing ICE by blocking traffic pic.twitter.com/qQCjO5cShE
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) January 8, 2026
NBC’s video analysis laid out the key facts in a surprisingly objective way. They saw was anyone could see just by watching: Agents confronted a vehicle blocking them. The driver knew law enforcement was present based on the emergency lights. An officer stood directly in front of the car before it accelerated. The agent made a split-second decision to fire as the vehicle moved forward.
While there will obviously be an investigation, what we can say for sure at this point is that in all the videos circulating on social media showing the shooting from different angles, they all show the driver accelerating into the ICE agent before he fired his weapon.
In a separate segment, Winter also revealed what law enforcement sources told him about the optics versus the legality.
“I think from a law enforcement perspective, what you’ve heard law enforcement say is that they don’t – they don’t like the way that this shooting looks,” he explained. “And in speaking with people from law enforcement, from that part of the country, they use a phrase that is sometimes heard in law enforcement circles: lawful but awful. They don’t like the look of it, but from a legal perspective, it might be okay,“
NBC’s Tom Winters with an accurate reaction from the 4pm hour to the deadly ICE-involved shooting:
“I think from a law enforcement perspective, what you’ve heard law enforcement say is that they don’t — they don’t like the way that this shooting looks. And in speaking with… pic.twitter.com/kVvY5oR9Vo
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 8, 2026
Additionally, Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at conservative nonprofit Advancing American Freedom, told the Daily Mail that under the law, the use of deadly force is justified when an officer can reasonably perceive a threat of serious bodily harm or death.
There has been much speculation online over the direction of the wheels as Good appears to be turning down the road away from the officers.
Others have questioned why Ross was standing in front of the car.
Swearer explained that both points are irrelevant to the law.
“He explicitly does not have a duty to retreat in the way that a civilian would under these circumstances,” she told the Mail.
“It doesn’t matter whether that driver subjectively was not trying to hit the officer,’ Swearer added.
“It matters what the officer can reasonably perceive. He can’t read her mind. He just knows that you have someone who’s ignoring lawful commands, who is moving the car toward him. That is deadly force.”
She compared it to a cop being confronted by a suspect who is reaching for a gun in his waistband while being asked to keep his hands up.
“They don’t have to wait until they’re actually being shot or actually being run over to respond,” she said.
While Democrats are hungry to politicize the shooting, the level-headed analysis from NBC News and Amy Shearer clearly opens the door wide for a self-defense argument by the ICE agent.
The FBI now handles the investigation. The footage will determine whether the shooting was justified under the law. But the detailed NBC breakdown already reveals what Democrats and local officials either missed or, perhaps more likely, chose to ignore in their rush to judgment.
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