Tangle - The ICE shooting in Minneapolis.

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

On Wednesday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a woman in her vehicle during an operation in a Minneapolis, Minnesota, neighborhood. Federal officials claimed that the woman was attempting to run over ICE agents, while local officials said the officer acted recklessly. The incident comes amid heightened tension in the city and state, which has become a focus of the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: What do you think of the shooting? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the ice shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, yesterday. An American citizen is dead, and much controversy and debate has erupted. Before we jump into that story, though, we do have a correction we have to issue. In yesterday's your question's answered section in the newsletter, we mistakenly identified Senator Josh Howley, the Republican is representing Arkansas. He's actually the senator from Missouri.

There slipped through our fact-checking process, and we've corrected the identifier online. That was our 149th correction in our 335-week history and our first since December 15th. We tracked these corrections and place them at the top of the podcast. and newsletter in an effort to maximize our transparency with listeners and readers. All right, with that, I'm going to send it over to John to introduce today's main topic, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today.

First up, the U.S. military said it seized two oil tankers linked to Venezuela, including a Russian-linked ship that it had pursued over the past two weeks. The U.S. accused the ships of engaging in deceptive practices, and carrying illicit oil shipments. Number two, the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture released updated nutrition guidelines, encouraging protein consumption and discouraging sugar and alcohol consumption. Number three, two people were killed and six injured in a shooting outside a church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Law enforcement said they are still searching for the suspect. Number four, President Donald Trump asked Congress to increase the U.S. defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, saying that the larger budget would allow the country to build the dream military. And number five, Representative Steny Hoyer, the Democrat from Maryland, announced he will not run for re-election in 2026. Hoyer is the third longest serving member of the House and served as House Majority Leader from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023. Dramatic video purportedly shows the moment an ICE agent fatally opened fire on a woman in Minneapolis, who DHS says attempted to barrel her SUV into the path of an officer.

As multiple angles of the incident have emerged and gone viral across the internet, users are left divided on whether or not the agent's actions were reckless or in self-defense. On Wednesday, an immigration and customs enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in her vehicle during an operation in a Minneapolis, Minnesota neighborhood. Federal officials claimed that the woman was attempting to run over ICE agents, while local officials said the officer acted recklessly. The incident comes amid heightened tension in the city and state, which has become a focus of the Trump administration's deportation efforts.

This week, the Department of Homeland Security deployed approximately 2,000 ICE agents to Minneapolis, which the agency called its largest operation ever. 600 agents are investigating fraud schemes from the state after the issue gained national attention in the past month. Other officers are conducting immigration operations, one of which was underway when the fatal shooting. occurred. The victim was identified as Renee Nicole Good, 37, a Twin Cities resident. Good's mother said she did not think her daughter would have been part of any groups attempting to impede ICE agents. Video of the incident showed two cars in the middle of a road busy with ICE agents and vehicles. As another ICE vehicle approaches, one car drives off. Multiple agents exit their vehicle and approach

Good's car. At least one agent instructs her to get out, and one reaches for her driver's side door. Shortly after, Good's car moves in reverse, then drives forward, at which point an agent who has moved in front of the left of her vehicle fires at least three shots towards Good. DHS spokesperson, Trisha McLaughlin, said that ICE officers were injured during the incident, but are expected to recover. She did not detail what injuries they sustained. Whether Good intended to hit or drive away from the officers is a central point of contention.

Many Republicans, including President Trump, say that Good posed a threat to the officers and the agent who found. fired his weapon, who has not been identified, acted in self-defense. At a press conference on Wednesday evening, DHS Secretary Christy Noem described Good's actions as domestic terrorism and said her death was preventable. Many Democrats say that Good was turning her car away from the agents and her actions did not necessitate lethal force. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Freight strongly condemned the shooting in ICE's presence in the city. We've dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis, Frey said at a news conference. To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.

Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. Minnesota Governor Tim Walls also criticized ICE's deployment to Minneapolis, saying, we do not need further help from the federal government. Walls also issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard and shared that the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the incident. In the aftermath of goods' death, at least two people, protesters have been arrested and Minneapolis public schools announced that they would be closed on Thursday and Friday out of an abundance of caution. Today, we'll share perspectives from the left and the right on the shooting. And then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, first up,

let's start with what the left is saying. The left is appalled by the shooting and many worry about the fallout from the incident. Some say ICE's presence in cities made violent confrontations inevitable. Others say the ICE agent involved in the shooting can and should be processed. In the Minnesota Star Tribune, Phil Morris called the incident a death that did not have to happen. We must not rush to judgment, but there is a primal scream stuck in our collective throat. Our heads are spinning as we try to make sense of what happened on a South Minneapolis Street, Wednesday, January 7th, in broad daylight, captured on video for a state and nation to absorb Morris route. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noem, called the incident an act of domestic terrorism, the mayor who has reviewed the video and has reviewed the video, and been thoroughly briefed, called that explanation bullshit.

What is not in dispute is that a woman is dead, and that this death was tragically predictable once the federal government decided to turn Minnesota into a testing ground for the most aggressive, street-level immigration enforcement yet deployed. The federal government should immediately withdraw agents from the area, and likely from the Twin Cities altogether, to prevent further provocation.

Meanwhile, a transparent, independent, and untainted investigation is not optional, Moore, said. This latest disaster will be framed by some as another blow to Minnesota's reputation. That is dishonest. The reputational damage flows from a federal strategy that seems to openly court confrontation. In The Intercept, Natasha Leonard argued, ISIS' raids and impunity were always going to lead to death. Given ICE's violent impunity-drenched core, at a moment when the Trump regime is leaning heavily into a vision of dominance grounded in aggression and lawlessness, such a killing was all but inevitable,

Leonard wrote. This is not the first ice shooting, and it is not the first time a civilian has been killed during a vile anti-immigration operation. According to gun violence investigations in the trace, federal agents have shot people 14 times since last January, killing at least four. On multiple occasions, officers shot at people observing ice raids and people attempting to drive away. Justice, according to the criminal legal system, would see the ice shooter charged with murder, and that would no doubt be appropriate, Leonard said. This seems a tall order in our current context of fascist impunity. It has already been announced that Trump's FBI will oversee the shooting investigation, after all. Even if this particular ICE agent is held

accountable in a court of law, however, it would be an impoverished justice indeed. In the American prospect, David Dayan said ICE agents can be charged with murder. The Department of Homeland Security, while confirming the broad details, claims that the ICE agent acted in self-defense to avoid being run over by the vehicle. These are the kinds of disputes that the courts are equipped to handle, because if an agent shot directly into a car and killed the driver without some credible fear of personal harm, it would be called murder. And federal agents can indeed be prosecuted for murder, day and route. States can prosecute anyone for violations of state law, regardless of their rank or authority. Murder is a felony in the state of Minnesota, as it is in every other state.

The law does not confer automatic immunity to federal officers. Federal officers, federal officers and employees are not merely because they are such, granted immunity from prosecution in state courts for crimes against state law, the Supreme Court wrote in Colorado v. Symes nearly 100 years ago, Dan said. Of course, President Trump would almost be certain to act to punish Minnesota in some way if they dared to indict an ICE officer for murder. But Trump is already acting unilaterally to punish Minnesota. That's why these Asians are out-hasseling Minneapolis residents in the first place.

All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is saddened by the shooting, but many say the agent's actions appear to be legally justified. Some argue the left's demonization of ice set the stage for violence. Others criticize political leaders for jumping to conclusions about the incident. In National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy wrote about the legal fallout from the Minnesota ice shooting. The battle lines are being drawn on what seems to me to be a flawed legal assumption to wit. If the woman, who was allegedly blocking ICE agents with her car, was merely trying to flee rather than run over,

the agent, she should be understood as a murder victim rather than a criminal engaged in a dangerous act that justified the use of lethal force by law enforcement, McCarthy said. It's really not in either-or situation. Undoubtedly, if it is reasonable to construe the woman's action as a deliberate attempt to mow down an ice agent with a speeding vehicle, the use of force was justified. But even if the woman was mainly trying to get away, which is what it looks like to me, she was engaged in an actionable assault on a federal officer. Even if you believe, you believe, leave that the woman was trying to just get away, she did so by swiping the car in the agent's direction. She may not have intended to run him over, but she sure didn't appear to be trying to

avoid running him over if that was necessary to escape, McCarthy wrote. Either way, the agent's life was jeopardized, and the responsive use of force would be reasonable. It is settled Fourth Amendment law that a police officer may use deadly force against a fleeing suspect if he has a good faith belief that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others. The New York Post editorial board argued the left bears full blame for the Minneapolis ice shooting. Remarkably, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls is right. Wednesday's deadly shooting in Minneapolis was so preventable, so unnecessary. That protester didn't need to be blocking ice agents in the first place, let alone gunning her SUV at them. The left bears full blame for this bloodshed. Her car hit

the agent before he shot her. He wound up hospitalized, the board said. Attack someone with a deadly weapon. That's attempted assault in the eyes of the officers, even if it wasn't intentional. Yes, it was aggressive for the feds to deploy some 2,000 immigration agents to Minneapolis this week, but far more aggressive for protesters to try to block them. This follows months of Democrats cheering law-breaking protesters calling for resistance to ICE as if it weren't a duly constituted law enforcement agency, the board wrote. The last year has seen. seen hundreds of attacks on ice and border patrol agents, all too often egged on by elected Democrats. That madness has to stop. Anyone who doesn't like how the law is enforced is free to work

to elect different leaders and to advocate for different laws. The free press editors offered the right response to the Minneapolis ice shooting. A fatal shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday launched an immediate information war in which politicians drew lines and exchanged accusations long before they knew the facts. From President Donald Trump down to Mayor Jacob Frey, the supposed authorities showed little interest in learning what happened and guiding the public with sound conclusions, the editors said. The videos leave room for reasonable debate about the nature of the incident

and who was at fault. It isn't clear whether Good intended to strike the officer when she turned her vehicle or if she meant to steer beyond him and accelerate away. Mistakes and distortions like those that follow Wednesday's shooting are hard to avoid at a moment when so many public figures pre-judge every news story. Partisans witness messy events like a rapid standoff turned shooting and instantly crammed them into neat lines that confirm their worst impressions of their political opponents, the editors wrote. There's a large audience for the quick takes among the polarized public,

but that doesn't absolve officials of their responsibility to wait for the facts and state them clearly. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. Renee Good was 37 years old, the mother of three children, a poet, a wife. A woman, a human being, is needlessly dead. For me, this is most of what matters. At the same time, this shooting provokes genuine political and legal debates, and it is my job to start with them, even on days like today,

and that feels increasingly difficult. As preventable, as her death was, it was also bound to happen. This is the totally horrific, tragic, obvious outcome of enforcing immigration laws this way. And it was predictable. It was so predictable that I actually predicted it. Right after Trump was elected, I warned multiple times that mass deportation efforts will lead to civil disobedience and clashes with law enforcement. After the arrest of Newark Mayor Ross Baraka, I warned that confrontations with immigration officials were getting dangerous and would inevitably end with a major violent event that would then be used to justify more law enforcement. enforcement being deployed. On X, I shared clips of confrontations between citizens and ICE and warned that they were incredibly dangerous, stressing that most people would react defensively

if they saw someone dressed like the way ICE agents are dressed trying to arrest their neighbor. This is America, distrusting government forces in our national DNA. Heavily armed mass federal agents with unclear levels of police authority and training cannot reasonably expect to just traips through our neighborhoods as if they were war. zones, kicking down doors or descending from helicopters and snatching people off the streets in mass, and then think everyone will placidly accept it. That, thankfully, is not a circumstance of life we are built to accept. Each tense interaction filmed and posted and dissected in the media makes it increasingly clear that these ICE agents are not prepared for these kinds of confrontations.

Trump has put these officers in dangerous positions, demanding a kind of enforcement that is bold, aggressive and confrontational. Interacting in this manner with American citizens and non-citizens alike is not what these officers are trained to do. Of course, this is America, so also, the incident just jumped straight from the phones of observers into the partisan ringer, with everyone lining up on their respective sides with their respective polarized takes. Many Democrats and political observers, particularly but not exclusively on the left, see a woman shot to death while driving away from the mass agents with guns. The president, DHS, and some Republicans in Congress have begun framing Renee Good as a domestic

terrorist who tried to run over and kill an ICE agent. Some think the situation was simply dangerous enough that an ICE agent could fear for his life and was justified in using force. Reasonable people, whom I respect, like National Reviews, Andrew McCarthy under what the right is saying, come to this conclusion honestly. and, for better or for worse, I think there is a decent chance our legal system absolves this agent of any wrongdoing. But I have some pushback. First, setting aside the legal question, let's state plainly that government officials are selling a narrative that is not attached to reality,

one that is fundamentally different from what we can all see in the numerous videos available to the public. This event was filmed from several angles, and it has been broken down at several different speeds with audio. While I loathe going over the available evidence like its instant replay in a football game, I also think this use of force was clearly not necessary. And to make my point most strongly, I have to start by playing the game everyone else is. So here is what I can see and hear. Renee Good's car is in the street. The videos we have show are trying to wave ice agents past her car as they pull up in a vehicle with police lights flashing. Two ice agents exit and approach her vehicle and she is told to get out of the car, and she says, audibly, I'm pulling out.

At least one agent begins yelling at her to get out of her vehicle, but one puts his hand on the driver's side door. She puts the car in reverse, with two ice agents on the left side of her, while third circles around the car to the front left side. She then drives forward and turns her wheels all the way to the right. The third agent moves to get out of the way and fires a shot through the windshield. One angle appears to show the officer actually leaning on the front of the vehicle as she drives past, and though it's blurry and from a distance, that video looks as if the car pushes

the officer's body out of the way. As this is happening, the officer has pulled out his weapon and he then discharges it. As Good's car passes him, he fires two more shots. Photos of the vehicle after the event show one bullet hole in the front windshield, making it likely the other shots were through the driver's side window, which was down. As far as I'm concerned, everything after the guns are fired, the speed of the car, where it goes, etc., is a moot point. since by then Good has been shot and may have been killed instantly. A man identifying himself as a doctor on scene begged to treat her, but the ICE agents refused to let him,

claiming they had their own medics, even though none were visible on the scene and the video shot by eyewitnesses. Did Renee Good make a mistake? Yes, she did. When someone working for law enforcement tells you to do something barring the most extreme extenuating circumstances, it is a good rule of thumb to do it. Why? Because respecting and listening to law enforcement,

is the best way to keep yourself safe. Just or unjust, and in this case, I think it is clearly unjust. This outcome is a distinct possibility when you don't cooperate. At the same time, Good was not the only person with agency here. Even if we concede that she did not respond to clear orders to get out of her car, that she should not have driven away, and that an officer could reasonably construe her actions as a lethal threat, hers are not the only actions we should judge.

The ICE agents are the ones with the guns. and the authority who are supposed to be in control. So let's talk about their choices. One eyewitness said ICE agents gave good conflicting instructions, with some telling her to leave while others told her to get out of the car. The video backs this up. You can hear a lot of yelling and barking orders, and the officers aren't approaching her car with uniform calm, control, or clarity.

Also, officers are never supposed to position themselves in front of a vehicle or approach it from the front for precisely this reason. DHS officers are generally prohibiting, from discharging a firearm at a moving vehicle unless someone is using their car as a deadly weapon and no other objectively reasonable means of defense is available. DHS also has use of force rules, which are relatively straightforward,

and include a baseline respect for human life and the communities we serve, emphasizing de-escalation tactics as a core component. It seems pretty clear to me from the available video evidence that several of these officers violated each of these rules. The agent who approached her car and grabbed the door handle needlessly escalated the situation. The agent who killed Good positioned himself in front of the vehicle

with one hand on the hood and the other on his firearm, he then discharged his weapon into a moving vehicle. As a group, the officers did not display basic respect for human life or the communities they served, and they did not attempt to de-escalate the situation. Remember, Renee Good looked to be trying to wave officers past her and said explicitly and clearly, I'm pulling out before they surrounded her vehicle

and demanded she get out of a car. On a street packed with law enforcement officers and civilians, it would have been safest to allow her to drive past them and then pursue her in their own vehicles if they wanted to detain her. At the risk of speculating too much, I think the videos clearly show that the ICE agent scared good and that she simply tried to leave. The idea that a deadly use of force here is justified seems farcical to me,

even for the agent toward the front of the vehicle who is at most risk of being hurt. McCarthy, for his part, argues emphasis mine, that good may not have intended to run him over, but she sure didn't appear to be trying to avoid running him over if that was necessary to escape. What I see, actually, is the complete opposite, that she very clearly turned her vehicle away from them. Now, I know people are looking to me for a measured, dispassionate analysis of these contentious debates, but when I ask myself about what should be happening, what appeals to my moral center, I really don't feel conflicted at all.

At the end of the day, what are we really debating? Ice shot and killed an American citizen, a 37-year-old mom whose glove box was stuffed with children's toys and who, prior to being confronted, at the absolute worst, committed the crime of blocking traffic to try to obstruct an immigration enforcement. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, one of the things that struck me was that I could see myself in him.

A young dad, a political commentator, a podcast host, someone who does public events. As a result, I did my best to emphasize his humanity. Here, again, is killing hits home. My wife is a mom in her 30s and a public defender in Philadelphia. In the last few months, some of her clients have been snatched up by ice while attending scheduled immigration hearings. What if she got caught in the middle or responded with fear

in a way that police viewed as resisting or interfering? Would millions of people jump to the conclusion that she deserved to be killed? for the crime of standing between ICE and an immigrant alleged to be here illegally? These feelings are tough for me to shake. Why did a nice agent pull his firearm on a 37-year-old woman who looked like she was trying to leave the scene in her car? What threat did she reasonably pose to him? What immigration enforcement are they conducting and preventing her from leaving?

Would we have had a better outcome if they simply let her leave? What are we even doing here? An American citizen has been killed by immigration officers, and for what? Who was made safer? What community benefited from her child being an orphan? What community benefited? From the very beginning, the idea that mass immigration agents roaming the streets of American cities would be empowered to this degree has been worrisome and frightening precisely for this reason. They are not adequately trained for these interactions. More to the usual point, their authority and jurisdiction are at best murky in situations

like this. They typically cannot detain legally a citizen of the United States without reasonable suspicion there in the country illegally. They are not the police. They are not the military. They are not the National Guard. They are not the FBI. Yet they behave like they are all of the above and are egged on by the president, his cabinet, and members of Congress. Regardless of the minute details, which we could debate and interpret in all kinds of partisan ways, what's very, very plain to me is that this woman was not a domestic terrorist trying to kill ice agents with her car, nor is it a miracle they survived when the video shows not a single one on scene was injured and the one in the most danger was barely touched by a vehicle moving at a speed of a few miles per hour. These are lies

from the president, from DHS, from sitting members of Congress. If you believe this account from the government, then we are beyond the Rorschach test on use of force. You were not attached to the reality of this moment. As one neighbor and I witness who self-identified is right-leaning told reporters, this is not how we're supposed to be doing things in America. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take. We're skipping today's your question answered. And I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod. Reminder that we have a review of our 2025 coverage coming out tomorrow. So keep your ears and eyes out for that. We'll see you then. Be safe. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under-the-radar story for today, folks.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the United States' population will begin shrinking in 2056, reflecting the country's aging population and declining fertility. Previous estimates had forecasted it would reach 372 million people in 30 years. Now, the CBO says the population will grow to 364 million in that span before beginning to decrease. The office noted that since foreign-born women have more babies than U.S.-born women on average, the Trump administration's efforts to reduce immigration are likely to lower the overall fertility rate. The Wall Street Journal has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. And last but not least, R have a nice day story.

On December 18th, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee pardoned the singer Jelly Roll, who had previous convictions on robbery and drug charges. While the artist has risen to stardom in the last two years, he had a challenging youth and had amassed multiple felonies by age 23. Jellyroll said that he found songwriting therapeutic, helping him turn his life around. Now, in addition to making music, he tours the country sharing his story and helping others experiencing similar challenges. The pardon will make it easier for him to travel internationally and perform missionary work. His story is remarkable, and it's a redemptive, powerful story, which is what you look and hope for, Governor Lee said. The Associated Press has this story and there's a link in today's episode description.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, If you'd like to support our work, please go to readtangle.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. Isaac R.A. and Camille will be here tomorrow with the suspension of the rules podcast, and I will return on Monday. For the rest of the career, this is John Wall signing off. Have a wonderful weekend, y'all.

Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.