On January 7, Renee Nicole Good was murdered by Jonathan Ross, an “experienced” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent with more than 10 years with the agency.

This tragic event was recorded from multiple angles. This includes a video recorded by Ross himself during the confrontation. If you ask me, these videos, alongside detailed frame-by-frame breakdowns produced by the media, clearly show that Good had no intention to hit Ross. She had no malice toward him. She literally says, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

Ross was not in any danger. He didn’t need to shoot, let alone shoot three times. It was not self-defense. He murdered Good—or, as he saw her, a “fucking bitch.”

Yet, many conservatives saw things completely differently. At a press hearing on January 8, Vice President JD Vance remarked, "Everybody who has been repeating the lie that this was some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves, every single one of you.” This viewpoint was shared by Republicans in Congress, like Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), conservative commentators like Jesse Watters and Steven Crowder, and, of course, the world’s most chronically online billionaire Elon Musk.

We have no obligation to follow unjust laws. Our duty, as those who believe in democracy and freedom, is to challenge authoritarianism and injustice anytime and anywhere.

It may be tempting to argue that these people are all simply lying. However, that response overlooks that it’s not just political commentators and politicians—across social media, people are seeing what Vance and others claim.

Here it is important to remember that perception is not neutral. The world we see is very much shaped by our beliefs, values, and our commitments. This doesn’t mean that everything is relative. For instance, it’s clear that Ross fired after he was no longer in the path of Good’s car. But, while some like Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem are blatantly lying, others really are seeing something different here. The question then is: why? What is the basis for these discrepancies? And what does it tell us about where we’re at as a society?

The murder of Renee Nicole Good is a political Rorschach test. At the heart of this test lie two irreconcilable viewpoints: those who align themselves with armed agents and the task of protecting America from the “enemy within,” and those who embrace compassion for others and support their diverse communities. Between those with the guns, and those with the whistles. Between those who think that what happened to Good could never happen to them, and those who see in Good’s death their own vulnerability.

These opposing viewpoints reflect deep divides regarding how Americans think about defiance, vulnerability, and community.

For those who immediately see Good as “a domestic terrorist,” the issue is not about criminality. ICE agents are not police officers. They can only lawfully detain citizens under very narrow circumstances, such as if they interfere with an arrest or assault an agent. None of these conditions applied to Good. She was, by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own standards, outside the scope of their limited authority.

The issue is not about criminality, malice, or citizenship. It’s about defiance. This sentiment is captured in an op-ed written........

© Common Dreams