Tag: minneapolis

FFS Friday 1/16/26- Final straw

I wrote about the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by a masked ICE agent on Tuesday.

I am outraged and you should be too. This was a final straw moment.

The final straw is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the “last in a series of bad things that happen to make someone very upset, angry, etc.”. Seems to me we are at the final straw stage with the ICE bullying bullshit. And now that bullying bullshit has been fatal.

I wrote on Tuesday about the bystander who was yelling that he was a doctor and was pleading to go to her side. They said no.

I wrote on Tuesday that the 6 minute delay from the shooting to the time that local EMS arrived can be deadly. Because the golden hour still stands for something. Even the golden minute.

Do you know how long it takes to die when you stop breathing? The consensus seems to be 2 minutes to unconsciousness, 4 minutes to permanent brain damage, and 4-6 minutes to death.

Get a timer, dial to 6 minutes. Start the timer and wait. Try to wait without breathing. You can’t, your body won’t let you.

Imagine the drag of the minutes if you are bleeding and have just been shot.

No one can know if Renee Nicole Good was aware after the shooting.

But we know terrible things that happened beyond the fatal shooting.

We know that there was an on-site physician, who identified himself as such.

We know that this physician was denied the chance to check on Renee Nicole Good by the ICE agents on scene.

We know that it took SIX excruciating minutes for EMS to arrive to begin treatment.

The first thing you are taught about on site treatments after, well, anything, is that the scene has to be secured before you can treat the wounded.

There were records, obtained by the The New York Times, that show Renee Nicole Good was not breathing but had a pulse. The report is that she had a pulse but it was thready. This means that her heart was beating quickly and was probably lightly felt.

This is known in the medical field as not being dead.

The ICE agents on scene wasted SIX minutes of her life. Minutes that could have been used to treat her. To comfort her. To save her.

Instead they denied that. They denied her and her wife.

I am not saying that Renee Nicole Good could have been saved after the shooting. No one can say that, especially with the 4 gunshot wounds that have been reported, one arm, 2 chest, and one head wound. We can’t know that.

But it certainly feels like a final straw moment.

Tuesday Top of Mind 1/13/26- This is why we choose the bear

As I am sure you are aware of, last week what we have all been warning about with the lawlessness of ICE came to pass. And a mother and a wife and a writer is dead.

On Wednesday morning, January 7, at 0937 CST, a masked ICE agent stepped forward so he could have some sort of self defense claim, see through like 1 ply tissue paper, moved his phone to his non dominant hand, pulled out his weapon and shot Renee Nicole Good through the windshield.

One shot.

The car kept moving forward and he stepped forward and shot again through the open side window.

Two shot.

Third shot.

The car crashes.

Her wife, who had been screaming, rushed to her side.

A bystander, who was yelling that he was a physician, offered to check on her. The ICE agents said no, help was on the way. Well, gunshot wounds don’t care that “help” was on the way. It took more than 6 minutes for first responders to be on scene. I know that not everyone is medical or technical but a 6 minute delay can be deadly. Hell, a one minute delay can be deadly.

He murdered her in cold blood.

Not because he was in any danger of being struck by her car. Although there was a specious report that he was, after he shot the windshield. uh-huh. sure he was.

Not because he was afraid for his life.

Because he could.

She was a woman and in his way.

She was a woman and not immediately following the confusing instructions that several officers shouted at her.

She was a woman.

The consensus was that she was murdered because she was not afraid of him and he desperately wanted her to be.

A white, blond woman was murdered in her newly adopted city. Leaving behind children and a wife.

Because she was a woman and she was not afraid. She tried to reassure him prior to the shooting that she wasn’t mad at him.

And the blood on their hands right wing media rushed to fill the airwaves with lies and half truths and bad AI. To try to cover it up, to try to blame her.

It is always blame the victim with these clowns.

I purposefully did not write about this on Friday or even through the weekend because I was sitting with my thoughts and my reaction. I stopped listening to the breathless news accounts and even throttled down my reading of the tragedy. But I still could not get it out of my mind.

Renee Nicole Gold, a prize winning poet, a mother, a wife, should not be dead. ICE should not be in Minneapolis. A woman should not be widowed and a 6 year old child orphaned.

None of this had to happen.

But it did in this officer’s mind as he pulled his gun and murdered her.

This is why women choose the bear.

A bear doesn’t take out his misogyny and hatred on women.

A bear doesn’t say with utter contempt after murdering a woman “fucking bitch”.

A bear just wants to be left alone to do bear type things.