In Minnesota there's plenty of wrong to go around

 How many wrongs does it take to make a right in Minneapolis? Of course I am referring to the death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen, who lived in Minneapolis with her partner, and her 6-year-old child, according to an account in The New York Times.

There are many things we do not know about this tragedy, but we do have at least two videos that show statements by Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,  Kristi Noem, and President Donald J. Trump, were inaccurate. I am not going to call them lies, because they were not at the scene and based their remarks on what they were told by others, who themselves might not have been at the scene.

Noem said Good was a “domestic terrorist” and that the agent who killed her “used his training to save his life and those of his colleagues.”

The way I see the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1rlh51RqBQ only one ICE agent was in her path, and her wheels were turned away from the unidentified officer, who may have been nicked as Good drove away from a legitimate traffic stop. Noem accused her of "stalking" ICE agents all day.

That is Good's right, providing she did not interfere with law enforcement operations. It is not her right to defy a command from law enforcement, which she did. All officers who approached her car had their weapons holstered, until she moved her red Honda Pilot forward. That proved to be a fatal error.

Did she deserve to die? Of course not. In my opinion, the ICE agent (who reportedly had been dragged by a motorist in an earlier incident) freaked out. In any event, he should be relieved, face an internal hearing and perhaps criminal charges where all the facts will come out.

I don’t want to blame the victim, who was probably motivated by good intentions after consuming too much hooey about ICE being the Gestapo, as Gov. Tim Walz calls them.  Think back. How many times has a motorist been shot by a cop during a stop, when the civilian refused to obey officers’ commands? 

I am not throwing a blanket over all officer actions. Those who break the law must pay the penalty. I am suggesting simple common sense. They teach defensive driving in school; maybe they should also teach defensive cop stops, starting with something as simple as putting your hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 and politely ask the officer why you were stopped. Don't scream. Don't drive away.

You may remember Chris Rock’s hilarious – and intensely wise – video about what to do when stopped by a cop. First rule? Be polite. Had Good obeyed the officer’s commands, she probably would be alive today.

But she was a virtue-signaling jerk, unmindful of the consequences.

The ICE officer was a gun-happy jerk, using bullets instead of brains. He could have stepped calmly out of harm’s way and have had the Pilot pursued.

So she was wrong, and he was wrong.

Is ICE wrong in rounding up and deporting illegals?

No.

That is its job and it is one of the issues that Trump rode to the presidency.

Is ICE conducting its mission wrong?

Yes, according to the polls that show a majority of Americans do not approve of DHS’ and ICE’s heavy-handed tactics, including breaking the law by illegally deporting many without due process. Many on the Right think that is a trifling nicety, and not mandatory for noncitizens.

They are wrong on both counts.

Both sides call the U.S. a nation of laws, yet both sides toss it aside like an empty potato chip bag when it suits them.

The Right would deny fundamental Constitutional guarantees, while the Left feels morally obligated to ignore other laws it doesn’t like. 

One example is Sanctuary Cities that nullify immigration – and other – laws, one example being the recent felony obstruction conviction of a Milwaukee district judge for helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest by ICE. What do we do when even judges place themselves above the law?

One thing that would help is a kinder, gentler ICE, and for Democrats to stop the demagoguery and drop the Nazi imagery.