Everything about Renee Good’s killing points to an extrajudicial execution

This is what extrajudicial killing looks like when the federal government drops all pretense.

There is a moment in the video of Renee Nicole Good’s killing that does not resemble law enforcement at all. An ICE agent strides toward her car, swearing, trying to open her door, communicating not caution or control but physical intent. Seconds later, another agent fires through her windshield. As she is dying, the agent, though bleeped by media outlets, calls Good a “f***ing b****.”

Nothing about this sequence suggests fear. Everything about it suggests escalation.

The language is damning. The documented profanity spoken during and immediately after the shooting is not stress. It is dehumanization. It is the sound of someone who, by their own behavior, had decided her life did not count before the harm was inflicted. It shows a misplaced notion of superiority and a diminished sense of personhood that is visible in the body language and escalation on the video itself.

Studies have shown that these agents put themselves in front of an automobile to justify violence. Self-defense requires an unavoidable threat. What we see instead is a woman attempting to deconflict, signaling with her hand, smiling, speaking calmly, while armed ICE agents close in. When one agent moves to physically extract her from the car and another positions himself in front of it, the danger is not coming from the driver. It is being manufactured by the state’s tactics.

When armed agents of the state escalate, dehumanize, and kill, then leak videos they believe will absolve them, the problem is not a single officer. Our system has decided that dissent justifies death.