We see what we want to see. And we’re absolutely sure we see it.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer’s fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis, blocks from where George Floyd was killed in 2020, has produced the same kind of polarized alternate universes of conflicting factual claims that followed Floyd’s death.
In the viral videos circulating online, some see a grotesque murder; others, an act of self-defense. Many say that Renée Good, the woman shot by the ICE agent, clearly hit the officer, Jonathan Ross, with her car. But The New York Times says otherwise, and one commenter on X said that “if you watch” the Times video analysis and “still think those shots were justified, you just might be a psychopath.” On Friday, the public saw a cell phone video of the encounter taken by Ross himself, but it seemed only to reconfirm viewers in their original positions.
Although I have my own view of the videos, I won’t try to speak to the basic factual disputes. But I can answer some of the legal questions.
Does Ross have “absolute immunity” from prosecution by Minnesota?
No, he does not.
Vice President J.D. Vance and other administration officials said Thursday that Ross cannot be prosecuted by Minnesota. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action—that’s a federal issue,” Vance said. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”
