The Shots Heard ‘Round the World: Misuse of State power killed Renee Good and is being used to suppress dissent and condition the public to fear government

In this article I lay out the constitutional rights ICE agents routinely violate with impunity; Rights which belong to all persons in the United States:

The killing in Minneapolis of Renee Good, by an agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) marks an inflection point in American history, not unlike the famous “shot heard ‘round the world,” that sparked a revolution in the American colonies.

As a member of Congress, I voted against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. I understood then, as I understand now, that the expansion of federal police power inevitably endangers freedom. That danger is no longer theoretical. Federal police power has entered our communities and is a menace. This is no longer a debate about immigration policy. We are in a Constitutional crisis.

In a democratic society there are safeguards to prevent the abuse of power. This Administration has stripped those safeguards. None of us are safe when government agents, gestapo-like, bring terror to our streets, arbitrarily detaining people based on skin color, ethnicity, or accent, denying due process, and acting as police, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

Americans are flooding streets in major cities with massive marches and other acts of resistance, which will be further fueled by the federal government’s complicity and the transparently calculated attempt by top officials to cover-up the murder.

The killing of Renee Good comes at a moment when Americans are already weary of escalating government intrusion into their private life: Mass surveillance, facial recognition, warrantless searches, investigation of journalists, monitoring of protestors, and the expansion of artificial intelligence for domestic law enforcement further erode Americans’ expectation of privacy.

The specter of the National Guard activated by the President, for obvious partisan purposes, was a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which was passed to prevent federal troops from being involved in local law enforcement.

As protests against wars abroad and conflicts at home escalate, the possibility exists that this President will invoke the Insurrection of Act of 1807, placing Posse Comitatus in abeyance, federalizing the National Guard and sending the Guard and the US military to quell civil disorder which the President himself has incited.

Before our eyes America is being transformed from a republic in which the rights of citizens are protected by law into something very dark, an authoritarian order in which individual rights are nullified.

Our government, acting as though unbridled by law, has licensed itself to accost, beat up, drag, kidnap and imprison people within the United States, including American citizens, while abroad it wages war wantonly and kills with abandon. ICE has stormed into American cities, not in a manner consistent with lawful immigration enforcement, but as a show of force, directed at the public itself.

The clear purpose in intimidation. State power is being used to suppress dissent and condition the public to fear its own government.

A timid public, cowed by the knock at the door and armed agents roaming neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and places of worship, may forfeit their rights, unless it understands the urgency of knowing and then asserting them.

Here are the constitutional rights ICE agents routinely violate with impunity; rights which belong to all persons in the United States:

First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, peaceful protest, freedom of the press, to record public officials, and the right to freedom of association.

Fourth Amendment rights to be secure against unreasonable search and seizures.

Fifth Amendment rights to avoid custodial interrogation without being read Miranda rights.

Sixth Amendment rights include assistance of legal counsel, prevention of indefinite detention, notice of charges, right to know the nature of the accusation.

Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and equal protection, including protection from racial profiling, excessive use of force and unjustified deadly force

Taken together, ICE’s violations threaten the life and liberty of every person in this country.

None of us are safe when agents of the federal government aggressively roam the streets of our cities, invade our schools, our places of worship, our workplaces, our businesses without warrants, and arbitrarily arrest people based on their skin color, their ethnicity, their accents, denying due process as though storm troopers.

Like many Americans, I have carefully studied the videos of the killing of Renee Good. As a former chair of a congressional investigative subcommittee on Domestic Policy, I am committed to a careful review of all available evidence.

The evidence supports but one conclusion. Renee Good was killed by an agent of the United States government who was visibly not in imminent danger when, in less than a second, he fired three shots, point blank, at Renee Good as her vehicle slowly turned away from him.

At least two rounds from the agent’s 9mm Glock struck her in the head, killing her instantly. This happened almost immediately after (with her driver’s window rolled down), she calmly told the agent: “I’m not mad at you.”

After the fatal shots were fired, as the car careened, the agent added a chilling, dehumanizing punctuation which could lead to first degree murder charges: “Fcking btch.” The agent walked away from the site, unmoved and unscathed.

Renee Good was not a domestic terrorist, despite false and defamatory claims made by high-ranking officials attempting to smear the dead woman to deflect accountability. The fictionalized account of her “running over” the agent, the lack of an immediate interview of the agent by his supervisor, the spiriting away of the agent from the scene, the concoction of an official narrative at odds with observable facts, will raise profound questions about a cover up which could shake the foundations of this country.

Renee Good was a mother of three. An award-winning poet. A wife. She had just dropped her six-year-old child at school. Her car contained stuffed animals children hug for comfort. The car’s rear window was covered with decals from visits to America’s National Parks.

What makes her death so searing is the violent collision on the streets of an American city between a gentle soul expressing warmth and compassion to the very government agent who then murdered her.

We must not direct hate toward the agent, or toward the government itself, which remains our government. But accountability is not negotiable. That accountability extends to every official who authorized, condoned, or excused the killing of Renee Good.

Her death is a warning to the nation: Government power without restraint leads to deadly repression. A silent Congress enables it. A passive public invites it.

We the People must know our constitutional rights and be prepared to assert them. The Founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to secure our Independence, our Constitution,and our Bill of Rights. If we fail to defend freedom now, we risk losing everything.

We must all become peacefully visible, everywhere, to affirm we heard the shots, that we saw what happened to Renee Good, and that we will challenge our government to honor the Constitution of the United States.

After the shooting, Renee Good’s wife, Becca, in heartbreaking grief, sat in the snow alongside the couple’s dog. She called out, plaintively, in a voice that surely must have touched Heaven itself: “What are we going to do?!”

What Must Now Be Done

Renee’s killing provokes deep grief and outrage. It necessarily requires lawful action to restore constitutional boundaries and to reassert civilian control over the use of federal police power.

First, Legal Accountability Must Occur. An independent special prosecutor should be appointed to fully investigate Renee Good’s killing, including the actions of the federal agent involved, the chain of command and any officials who participated in the construction or dissemination of a false narrative. Illegal use of lethal force must be prosecuted, as should concerted attempts to construct a cover-up.

ICE must be Investigated for Civil Rights Violations. A special, independent prosecutor must be appointed to initiate a wide-spread probe into practices of ICE which have violated the constitutional rights of countless persons in America. If sufficient evidence exists that ICE has systematically violated the U.S. Constitution, ICE must be abolished.

Courts must impose constitutional restraint. The federal courts exist to check executive overreach. Judges must rigorously enforce limits on search, seizure, detention, interrogation and the use of force. Suppression of unlawfully obtained evidence, civil liability for rights violations, and injunctive relief against abusive practices all must be considered. The rule of law must be restored to its fullness.

Congress must reclaim its rightful role as a co-equal branch of government. Congressional oversight has been abdicated. That abandonment of duty must end. Congress must investigate the militarization of ICE, its violent enforcement tactics and the erosion of constitutional safeguards.

Congress must reclaim its power of the purse, conditioning department funding on strict constitutional compliance and full adherence to due process rights. Legislation must limit federal police activities within states and municipalities, place further prohibitions on the use of military force for civilian law enforcement, and require transparency regarding the action of federal agents who use force.

The Constitution does not defend itself.

Citizens must act, lawfully and visibly.

Rights survive only when people know them, can recite them and insist upon them. Citizens must document encounters with federal agents, assert their right to remain silent, demand warrants and refuse unlawful searches, consistent with constitutional rights.

Peaceful protest is not disorder. It is one of the highest expressions of our freedom. Communities must organize peaceful, visible, nonviolent assemblies that affirm constitutional rights and reject intimidation.

It is time to return to campuses with teach-ins about the individual rights granted by the Constitution and the legal means to assert those rights. Faith communities, civic organizations and local governments must publicly affirm constitutional protections apply to all persons, without exceptions.

The Founders understood that the principles they inscribed upon parchment could be guaranteed only by an informed and engaged public. When government forgets its limits, it is the duty of the people to remind it. This is the sacred obligation of citizenry.

The shots that killed Renee Good must not be answered with fear or silence. They must be answered with law, with accountability and the unyielding insistence that the Constitution still governs this nation.