On January 6, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a 36-year-old woman, Renee Good, spoke with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from her car, and seconds later, she was dead, shot many times at close range, sparking chaos around the state of Minnesota. Good was American writer, poet, and mother of three children. Her death was controversial because people protested that the ICE agent took unnecessary action while the Homeland Security and the Office have confirmed it was self defense.
Good was an award winning writer and earned an English degree from Old Dominion University in 2020. She won an undergraduate prize from the Academy of American Poets for her poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.” A link to the poem appears below:
https://poets.org/2020-on-learning-to-dissect-fetal-pigs
The themes that it focuses on are the loss of innocence, detachment, and respect for life. The meaning of the poem was about how students, learning science through the process of dissecting fetal pigs, also learn how to disconnect emotionally from life. It shows how gaining knowledge can make people less sensitive, and it reminds us that the pigs were once living beings, not just objects to study.
The incident has led to multiple investigations with civil rights groups and local officials calling for a thorough inquiry.
Her death sparked significant outrage and has attracted a lot of people to protest, with actors Mark Ruffalo and Wanda Sykes wearing commemorative pins at the Golden Globe Awards to honor her. A GoFundMe for her family raised over $1.4 Million in the aftermath.
On January 24, just two weeks after the death of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American, died. A nurse who had studied at the University of Minnesota, Pretti was shot and killed; the shooting originated with Border Patrol. The Secretary of Homeland Security and the president quickly defended the agency for shooting Pretti. Members of the administration characterized Pretti as a terrorist or a killer before any investigation. The release of extensive video clips of the shooting online quickly called the administration’s description into question. The administration quietly backed away from these claims without apologizing.
If it is the case the Homeland Security and its agents from various departments violated constitutional amendments that give people the right to certain protections, including freedom of speech and protest and due process, it has led to a terrible outcome where the government is not only after undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens who haven’t done anything. At times, people have done things that make the federal agents want to take action. Sometimes there has been violence, and certainly people have taunted them and tempted them to respond. However, people are born with their own minds, and they develop their own views on society and what they think is good or bad. Because dissenting opinions are natural in a democratic society, protest will always exist. According to the U.S. Constitution, it doesn’t go away because a federal agent chooses to react.
