One of the best observations of 2025 went to an X account going by Millennial Woes, which said this: "It's amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible." That tweet explained a lot of events, but maybe none more than the ICE shooting in Minnesota.

I wrote last week that it was a tragedy, but we lacked specific critical facts, including bodycam footage. We finally got that when ICE released footage showing what happened in the lead-up to the shooting and after. In my last column, I had to make a few assumptions based on footage from a distance, one of which is that the woman was likely scared and panicked.

That was clearly wrong. The cell phone footage of the ICE agent shows the driver, Renee Nicole Good, in a belligerent state, with her wife, berating everyone. Another video showed them blocking the street and blaring horns for several minutes while ICE was operating.

Critically, though, the footage revealed a few things hinted at in the initial videos but confirmed in the close-up shots. First, Good had received orders to stop and get out of the car. The agent next to the door had his arms in the Honda Pilot and ordered her to stop and get out.

Good disobeyed that order, reversed the car, and immediately rammed the other agent in front of the vehicle. In short, Good was in the process of fleeing detainment and used the vehicle to ram another ICE agent. The video clearly shows all these things happening in a split second. This kind of occurrence that happens with law enforcement is not rare, and more than one LEO has lost their life in this exact situation.

We literally had a Supreme Court case in 2025 that dealt with this exact fact pattern, Barnes v. Felix. See if this sounds familiar:

Roberto Felix, Jr., a law enforcement officer, pulled over Ashtian Barnes for suspected toll violations. Felix ordered Barnes to exit the vehicle, but Barnes began to drive away. As the car began to move forward, Felix jumped onto its doorsill and fired two shots inside. Barnes was fatally hit but managed to stop the car. About five seconds elapsed between when the car started moving and when it stopped. Two seconds passed between the moment Felix stepped on the doorsill and the moment he fired his first shot.

The family of the deceased man sued the police officer, alleging excessive force and violation of Fourth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court ruled against the family in a 9-0 decision, with Justice Kagan writing the majority opinion. 

The rule in these cases is a "totality of circumstances." And that's what we have here: Good disobeyed orders, attempted to speed off, and rammed a law enforcement officer.

I started with the Millennial Woes quote for a reason. Too many people on the left are flatly ignoring fact and law. The video is transparently clear. Taken together, it paints a picture of a person who was disobeying orders, endangering ICE agents, and, in that split second, there was no way for anyone to determine who or what might be next. 

That doesn't stop us from acknowledging that this was a tragic event. But it was a tragic event in which the woman at the center of it, Renee Good, deliberately created a dangerous situation that required action. In the video and facts we have, the ICE agent has on his side that this was a lawful use of lethal force.

Again, this is not a guess. The Supreme Court's rules on this are unanimous. This is not some closely divided question of law. In the concurrence filed by Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Barrett, Alito, and Thomas, they noted the obvious: traffic stops are inherently dangerous. 

Does that mean there's no room for criticism? Of course not. I've written about traffic stops gone wrong before.

What happened in Minnesota wasn't one of those events. Everything that occurred transpired because one woman took a series of actions that quickly and dramatically escalated beyond reason. She'd be alive today had she complied with the officers. Instead, she chose to break the law, slam it in reverse, and gun the engine. 

These are basic facts. I get that Democrats hate ICE and claim it's illegitimate. Here's the problem: it's not. Every Democratic administration has relied on and used ICE to fulfill its policy objectives. Biden made their jobs impossible, which led to the influx of millions of illegal aliens. 

Americans demanded an answer in the 2024 election. That's happening now. And part of the cleanup is arresting the unbelievable number of people who aren't just here illegally, but are violent criminals. 

All of those points and everything else are ancillary, however. Good took actions that would endanger anyone who took them with any law enforcement. That's not opinion. There's a mountain of case law and practical police experience that confirms this answer. 

Democrats are demanding that everyone ignore the obvious. They're pretending not to understand what happened in those tragic few moments. And in the process, they're whipping up Americans into false outrage that ignores reality. 

You're entitled to your opinions on ICE. Calling what happened in those moments a "murder," as so many have done, is flagrantly false. Fact, law, and common sense prove all this true.

But I know liberals will say I'm wrong about this. Because it's the same circular arguments every time: they pretend not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible. That's why your social media feeds are a mess - they're doing the same thing, again.