Let’s Call a Murder a Murder

Thursday, 8 January 2026

The New York Times has frame-by-frame analysis, from three angles, of the murder of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis yesterday. She was shot to death by a still-unnamed mask-wearing ICE agent Jonathan Ross, with what was obviously no justification. The shooting is, justifiably, national news. I’m sure you’ve read about it. But this Times analysis coolly and calmly shows just how outrageous it was, and how preposterous the claims from President Trump and Secretary of Hats Kristi Noem are ostensibly attempting to defend it — both as an act of self-defense by the cowardly ICE agent and, even more absurdly, as an act of “domestic terrorism” by Good, who was attempting to do nothing more than drive away from the scene.

George Orwell, in 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Let’s stop pussyfooting around what happened here. This ICE agent murdered Renee Good, in broad daylight, in front of many witnesses and multiple cameras. Trust the evidence of your eyes and ears.

But I want to add another note. The main footage here comes from bystander Caitlin Callenson. Here’s her full 4m:25s footage, uncensored, hosted — with credit, and I hope, permission — on the YouTube account of Minnesota Reformer. Be warned that it shows Good being shot to death (albeit sans gore), and contains many loud profanities. This is very good and clear footage. It is difficult viewing but you should watch it. Callenson was very close to Good’s vehicle. I’d say about 30 feet or so. You can see why she thought to start filming before the murderous agent drew his gun and fired. The scene was already chaotic. But then, after the murderous agent fired three shots — just 30 or 40 feet in front of Callenson — Callenson had the courage and conviction to stay with the scene and keep filming. Not to run away, but instead to follow the scene. To keep filming. To continue documenting with as best clarity as she could, what was unfolding.

I’d like to think I’d have done the same. I’m not sure at all that I would have. I definitely might have been using my iPhone to shoot video of the incident up until the shots were fired. But when that happened, my mind would immediately have turned to “These agents are scared and angry and out of control, and that one just went psycho and fired his gun unprovoked. That guy is just as likely to shoot more people as he was the woman he just shot. His angry, scared, obviously undertrained colleagues might join in. And the most likely people they’ll shoot next are people pointing cameras at them.” I do not know what I would have done in that moment. I hope I never find out. But I know with certainty what I would immediately think, which is that if I choose to continue shooting video of the incident, there is a very good chance one of them will shoot or brutalize me next. It would make more sense to shoot someone filming the scene than it did to shoot Renee Good in the first place. Good’s killing was utterly senseless. Shooting a witness with a running camera and then destroying their phone to eliminate the evidence (and a witness) would make some sense. Sick sense, but sense.

But in that moment of pandemonium and obvious danger to herself, Callenson didn’t merely continue filming. She didn’t merely stand her ground. She proceeded into the scene to get closer to Good’s vehicle after it crashed into a parked car, Mr. Brown-style. She pointed her camera directly at the only-partially-masked face of the murderous agent as he walked away from Good’s crashed vehicle, then got into an unmarked Chevy Tahoe and just fled from the scene like the obvious coward he is. I presume the murderous agent will soon be identified, and Callenson’s clear steady-handed footage may be the reason why. [Update: While I was finishing this post, the Minnesota Star Tribune identified and named him — Jonathan Ross — and indeed, it was Callenson’s footage that made his identification possible.] And, to top it off, all the while — starting before the shooting — Callenson was screaming “Shame!” in the faces of these agents, and calling them out on their abhorrent indefensible actions. To each of their directives to her, she responds, with the definition of righteous anger, “You shot someone in the fucking face!” (Emily Heller, Renee Good’s neighbor, showed similar courage, telling an ICE agent who refused to allow a citizen physician to check on Good (who laid dying or dead inside her car), as she filmed the scene, “How can I relax, you just killed my fucking neighbor! You shot her in the fucking face! You killed my fucking neighbor! How do you show up to work every day?”)

Callenson’s courage in the face of obvious danger is just remarkable. My god. She rose to the moment in a crucible of chaos, insanity, and murderous violence. We all need to think about what she did, to really imagine ourselves in the same moment — the danger she stood up to, and the principles she stood up for — if we hope to do the same if a similar moment comes to us.

And, to top it off, she had the presence of mind to shoot her historic footage in widescreen.