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GoFundMe Ignores its Own Rules by Hosting a Legal-Defense Fund for the ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good
Federal immigration officers have started using Renee Good’s death to threaten more U.S. citizens. A video posted to Reddit showed a screaming ICE agent repeatedly threatening to kill a man who was sitting in his car, asking how he didn’t “learn from what just happened.” In the two-minute clip, a masked agent wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves hat approached the vehicle already furious, while the driver rolled down his window. “Stop fucking following us, you are impeding operations, this is the United States federal government,” the officer shouted. “I live over here, I got to get to my house,” the driver replied calmly. “This is your warning, alright? Go home to your kids, go home to your kids. This is your last warning. I won’t arrest you,” the officer threatened, before stomping away. When the driver tried to engage another agent on the other side of his car, the agent urged him not to “make a bad decision.” “I’m not making any bad decision, I’m peaceful. I serve the Lord, not a draft-dodging coward,” the driver said. “You’re not gonna like the outcome of this, sir. I guarantee you that,” the first officer said, circling back. “I guarantee you’re not gonna like the outcome. Go home to your children. It’s Sunday. It is Sunday. You did not learn from what just happened?” “Learn what?” the driver asked, but the officer did not elaborate, and the group of federal agents appeared to leave without arresting anyone. It seems clear, however, that the agent was referring to Renee Good, the U.S. citizen who was shot multiple times by an ICE agent last week after federal officers surrounded her vehicle. While the Trump administration initially justified the deadly use of force by claiming Good was a “domestic terrorist,” Donald Trump most recently claimed her death was the result of being “disrespectful” of law enforcement. It’s evident that the driver in the latest video hadn’t done anything illegal because none of the agents made the slightest effort to detain him. In fact, the officer seemed to suggest that even if he could, he wouldn’t actually arrest him—he would just kill him. This isn’t the only time that ICE agents have apparently invoked Good’s killing. Another protester, who identified themself as a former U.S. Marine, claimed in an interview posted on X that federal officers had mocked Good while violently arresting them. “They said, ‘Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch!’” the protester said.
The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land. After the tribe sued to stop an immigration detention center, the White House vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded Miccosukee land and environmental stewardship.
Demonstrators have continued to take to the streets of #Iran, defying an escalating crackdown by authorities against the growing #protest movement. An #internet #shutdown imposed by the authorities on Thursday has largely cut the protesters off from the rest of the world, but videos that trickled out of the country showed thousands of people demonstrating in Tehran overnight into Saturday morning. They chanted: 💥“Death to Khamenei,” in reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and: 💥“Long live the shah.” New protests broke out late on Saturday with people rallying in a northern district of Tehran, according to a video verified by AFP. Authorities warned people to not take part in protests on Saturday. The country’s attorney general, Mohammad Mahvadi Azad, said anyone who did so would be considered an “enemy of god”, a charge which carries the death penalty. State TV later clarified that anyone who even assisted protesters could face the charge. Despite the crackdown, more protests were planned for the weekend. Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former shah of Iran, called for protesters to take to the streets on Saturday and Sunday and seize control of their towns. Pahlavi, who has emerged as an increasingly popular figure in the current round of protests, asked people to hoist the pre-1979 “lion and sun” flag that was used during his father’s rule. “Our goal is no longer merely to come into the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize city centres and hold them,” he said, promising he would return to Iran soon.
State and local leaders say they do not believe that the FBI-investigation of the shooting death of #Renee #Nicole #Good will be fair and impartial, and are sounding alarms about the 💥impact of federal officials holding onto evidence in a potential prosecution of the ICE agent who killed her. Minnesota’s lead investigative agency, the "bureau of criminal apprehension", initially began investigating the shooting in conjunction with the FBI. But the #BCA issued a statement Thursday morning saying that “the US attorney’s office had reversed course: the investigation would now be led solely by the FBI, and the BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation”. Hennepin county attorney #Mary #Moriarty, an elected Democrat and the county’s prosecutor, clarified at a press conference Friday that the BCA – which was established in the wake of the George Floyd case – has a very high investigative standard and that this standard can’t be met when the organization doesn’t have access to all the evidence. It does not preclude an investigation, she said. But a lack of access to evidence hampers the investigation. “When the BCA came to the scene, the evidence had been taken by the FBI,” she said. 🆘 “They collected the car and took it wherever the BCA does not have access to the car. And the problem isn’t that the FBI took the car, it’s that 👉the BCA doesn’t have access to the car, or right now, even access to the forensic evaluation that happens as a result of the investigation with that car.” In a press conference on Friday, the Minneapolis mayor, #Jacob #Frey, described the federal government’s narrative casting Good as the villain as “#garbage” and called on the state to conduct its own investigation. “This is a time to follow the law,” he said. “This is not a time to hide from the facts. This is a time to embrace them, making sure that we’re pushing for transparency every step of the way.” “The fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” he added. Media reports have identified the agent who shot Good as Jonathan Ross. ICE agents allowed Ross to #leave the scene in the moments after the shooting, taking the weapon used in the shooting with him. “It doesn’t preclude a state investigation, but if the feds are saying, for example, you don’t even get to look at the firearm that was used to kill this person, that would certainly complicate it,” said #Eric J #Nelson, a defense attorney in Minneapolis with a long record of defending police officers accused of crimes. Nelson represented Derek Chauvin in his murder trial for killing Floyd. The legal standard for proving a case of excessive force rests on the 🔹“objective reasonableness” of the act as given in the 🔹"Graham v Connor" case decided by the US supreme court in 1989. From that case flows policies governing when and how police officers can use force. The standards are essentially the same for both state and federal prosecutions, he said. The breakdown in cooperation between state and federal agencies in this investigation is “shocking”, Nelson said, and flies in the face of the public’s expectations of legal norms. “There may be political differences, but ultimately in a question in a case like this, I don’t really think politics should have a place,” he said.