I’ll get to the question of ICE refusal to equip its agents with body cameras. However let’s start with the video you started seeing in the hours after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. News anchors and pundits kept saying we ‘needed more context’, that we don’t know what was going on before Good’s vehicle would wind up where it did when ICE agents approached it. Now we have several minutes worth of video from an upper story of a house across the street that pans back and forth. The shooting doesn’t take place until the final seconds.
DHS is, as RWNJs have said since Ross’ cell phone video was leaked (by him?) claiming it’s proof that Good was an awful person, a domestic terrorist agitator. Not just picking on our ‘bigly, tough brave ICE agents’ but STALKING them. Well, like pigs that bullshit doesn’t fly. As the video itself shows Good wasn’t out there running around and screaming at agents. Then there’s the FACT she and her partner/wife had just dropped off her six year old at school. How could she have as Noem had claimed from the start spent the whole day STALKING the ICE agents? Remember, Good was shot and killed around 9:30am. But Noem, like the rest of Team Trump isn’t about to let the freaking truth interfere with an ugly-assed piece of art she’s trying to pass off as a Masterpiece.
As with Ross’ cell phone video the new clip put out by Fox simply doesn’t say what Noem, DHS claims. I tried to copy and paste it here but was unable to do so. However this article from Fox News leads with it. If you don’t believe me (we do have conservative lurkers on Politizoom) watch it for yourself. It’s several minutes of a camera panning back and forth, with sounds of car horns honking and some whistles sounding. Some vehicles are seen maneuvering and/or driving (carefully) down the street including at the end one passing in front of Good’s SUV. It was sitting at a bit of an angle in the right hand lane but the entire left hand lane (and several foot wide bike lane) were unobstructed and even a large SUV had plenty of room to pass. As we’d already seen on previously shown video.
What the video doesn’t show is any “stalking” (again, she’d been going about her morning routine and dropping her son off at school) or her out and walking around ‘agitating.’ On the contrary which brings me to a couple of points that aren’t getting talked about. First, in the early hours of the video showing the seconds before the shooting there was ten seconds of so of video showing Good trying to exit her parking space. I’ve talked about this before.
For anyone who hasn’t driven on snowy/icy streets wheel traction can be tricky, especially when transitioning from stopped to moving again. Those (to me) crucial ten or so seconds show her pulling out of the spot and the vehicle unexpectedly leaps forward. Any of us who’ve driven in such conditions know the “oh sh*t” feeling that comes with that. Good hit the brakes, and understandably (to me) took some moments to settle down and collect herself and figure out what to do next. Back up onto the same snow/ice she’d just gotten off of or wait for her partner to get back in so they could leave and go about her day? Or pull forward using the open lane in front of her and once straightened out in her own lane thirty feet or so down the road wait for her partner to catch up.
For reasons we’ll never know Good chose to sit tight for a bit and that decision would wind up costing her her life. In the so often seen video we see her window down and her waving a vehicle past since there was plenty of room. We see that second, gray SUV which we’d learn had a couple of ICE agents in it approach and she can be seen waving to IT, and then as they got out saying ‘go around.’ Not in a nasty or mean tone I might add and if you don’t believe me go back and look and listen for yourself. You know what happened after that.
However as I said newies kept making a BFD for a couple of days about lack of “context” as in what happened prior to the shooting. I’ve explained what I think is a significant part of that context – the news folks themselves CUT OUT the seconds where Good tried to exit the parking space and almost lost control of her vehicle! However they also made a BFD about what went on in the minutes prior to all that. Now we know. Not much but a whole lot of noise in a nice, not exactly upscale but quite comfortable neighborhood of large older homes. A handful of people milling about and a handful of vehicles trying to navigate icy streets.
We also know from ICE they weren’t in that neighborhood to detain anyone, but were just passing through. It seems one of them lost control of his vehicle and everyone stopped. Noem initially claimed it was stuck in a snowbank and a ‘domestic terrorist’ tried to murder agents trying to free it by ramming them with her own vehicle. That quickly went by the wayside. There WAS a vehicle, apparently belonging to ICE also blocking the right hand lane. The one Good tried to pull around. Perhaps it had in fact been stuck and some agents helped push it out into the traffic lane. Why at that point didn’t they get into their vehicles and go on about their day? Hell will freeze over before we get an answer to that.
Which brings me to my second point which given the title picture you’ve probably guessed. If the agents had been wearing body cameras a LOT more of that ‘context’ talking heads blathered about would exist. Many have systems that allow them to start recording (both video and sound) the moment an agent exits a vehicle. Law enforcement which had long become accustomed to dashboard cams were reluctant at first to have body cameras. Many still are, because too many in LE would so bad things they are afraid to do since they have to wear the things. Some go so far as to ‘lose’ them during an encounter or have practiced at least partially blocking the image but the things still record sound.
Over time the bulk of LE has realized body cams can actually be their salvation. And there’s little doubt that various departments/agencies have save FAR more by successfully using footage to defend themselves in use-of-force lawsuits. As an added bonus it’s ever so slowly helped build up trust with the public. In fact, it’s when attempts are made to HIDE teh footage that the public gets their back up. The public, and even more so news outlets want every bit of footage made public right away. That is in a word STUPID because it can contaminate a trial (criminal or civil) if things come to that. However, refusing to allow families or at least their attorneys as well as town/city council members to see footage on a promise of not blasting details all over the news is reasonable. When even that is refused a department/agency sets itself up to lose.
Body cameras aren’t cheap. At least not good ones with good software for storing and accessing footage. However they aren’t ridiculously expensive either. Axon seems by far the dominant player in the body-cam for LE market and they have the best product with the most available features. A brand new latest model goes for six hundred bucks. Plus the licensing fee and a fee for the first years data storage. There are ongoing annual costs for that last service. Plans vary in expense depending on how much of the camera’s capability a given LE force want to utilize.
Larger departments, agencies can of course negotiate a lower cost per unit price. Also grants are available to small departments which would otherwise be unable to afford body cameras. Over time, now that the technology is well-established and use has reached a tipping point someone will introduce a new brand and provide Axon with meaningful competition which will bring the price down. However let’s focus on the here and now.
First, keep in mind that a department/agency doesn’t have to buy a body cam for every single officer/agent. They only need enough for the people working any given shift. Plus some extras for when extra personnel are called in for big situations. When someone’s sfit is done they turn the camera in. It’s put in a charger and the footage is uploaded into a server. That means however many are out on the streets at a given time there should be two cameras, but keep in mind not everyone is out on the streets in the first place. Atill, that can be a lot of cameras. However foor an agency the size of ICE it’s hard to imagine they wouldn’t be able to negotiate an upfront cost of a thousand bucka.
Let’s get ridiculous and assume DHS get’s its wet-dream made real and they wind up with twenty five or even thirty thousand Klasmen in Kamo out on the streets at any given time. Double that number for reasons I just explained and you’re talking about fifty or sixty million dollars to initially equip agents out on the streets with body cams. And somewhat less in succeeding years as only storage/access costs would have to be paid. That means an initial expense of (two cameras for each agent expected to be out on the streets – one being used and another being recharged) of fifty to sixty million dollars. Hell, let’s go crazy and assume fifty thousand hate filled thugs out there terrorizing people. That still only a hundred million to start.
Remember Trump’s BBB? Or as I think of it BUFB? (figure it out)Â DHS got hundreds of billions and ICE alone got thirty or forty billion. Even a hundred million would be mere tip money. Hell, given how much ICE saves by cutting training for new agents at FLETC by more than half they’d recoup a lot of the cost right there!
My point in this admittedly lengthy article is to note that we COULD and SHOULD have plenty of objective video of what took place that day. Video taken by every ICE agent that was part of the group out doing actual terrorizing in Minneapolis. We don’t because they don’t want any objective record of their blatant and often criminal abuse of power! They hide their faces in shame not because they are afraid of retribution from liberals, but to try and hide who they are and what they do from those they spend time with/around while not on duty. Perhaps even their own families. No other law enforcement people get to hide their identity this way as a daily matter of course.
ICE agents do because even those who enjoy inflicting cruelty and terror don’t want people to know who they are. It stands to reason they gaddamn well don’t want there to be objective proof in the form of video and sound of their wrongdoing. If, as should be the case ICE was equipped with body cams (and vehicle cams) Noem and others couldn’t get away with the LIES they’ve been spouting about Good ‘Stalking’ them ‘all day.’Â Body cams would have provided visual and audio proof of agents escalating the situation. A body cam would have provided a clear image from Ross’ point of view of that first shot from the right/front(ish) corner of the vehicle. In fact, a frame-by-frame would show him leaning forward TOWARDS the SUV instead of trying to get out of the way because he was ‘in fear for his life.”
Body cam footage would make even clearer what we have already seen. And the everything Noem and her cronies have claimed is pure bullshit. It would, from those who cause Renee Good’s death prove she was not a threat and should have been shot dead. Most importantly, just as has taken place to a significant degree in departments/agencies that do use body cams it would rein in many of the excesses of people who probably shouldn’t have a badge, much less be out working the streets in the first place.
If I was a Congress Critter I’d be shouting for a law that withholds funding unless/until ICE equips every agent in the field with body cameras. AND every time a camera is ‘lost’ or ‘malfunctions’ ICE has to pay an immigrant support organization ten million dollars. That’s something to start advocating for starting right now.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
