Morris: A death that did not have to happen

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We must not rush to judgment. But there is a primal scream stuck in our collective throat. Our heads are spinning as we try to make sense of what happened on a south Minneapolis street Wednesday, Jan. 7, in broad daylight, captured on video for a state and nation to absorb.

Renee Nicole Good, 37, is dead, shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Another violent image now joins the grim archive that has made Minnesota an unwilling stage for national trauma for years running. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz have called for calm and restraint as facts are gathered. Frey also has said what many in this city are also thinking: ICE should “get the fuck out” of Minneapolis.

That’s part of the scream.

Federal officials say agents fired defensive shots after community members tried to block ICE vehicles. They claim the now-deceased woman attempted to run agents over. The secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, went further, calling the incident an act of domestic terrorism. The mayor, who has reviewed the video and been thoroughly briefed, called that explanation “bullshit.”

What is not in dispute is that a woman is dead. And that this death was tragically predictable once the federal government decided to turn Minnesota into a testing ground for the most aggressive street-level immigration enforcement yet deployed.

In the middle of grief, confusion and anger, here is what we know. Minnesota must protect its people and its future. That requires discipline as well as resolve. Our elected officials, community leaders and residents must resist the urge to leap to conclusions before the facts are established. But restraint does not mean passivity.

The federal government should immediately withdraw agents from the area, and likely from the Twin Cities altogether, to prevent further provocation. Meanwhile, a transparent, independent and untainted investigation is not optional. It is the bare minimum owed to the dead and the living.

This latest disaster will be framed by some as another blow to Minnesota’s reputation. That is dishonest. The reputational damage flows from a federal strategy that seems to openly court confrontation. The administration has named it Operation Metro Surge. Minnesotans did not ask to be cast in it.

The right to protest that policy peacefully must be protected, now and going forward, regardless of where the investigation lands. Democratic dissent does not vanish because the federal government makes people afraid.

Right now, Minnesota feels like ground zero for something terrifying. The country feels dangerously fractured, and one of those fault lines runs straight through our state. Decades ago Nina Simone sang, “Mississippi Goddam.”