We've all seen the video. Do Kristi Noem and mainstream media think we're stupid?

I know what I saw. And if you watched the video of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good being shot multiple times by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I know you do, too.

You saw masked men surround a woman's car as one pulled on her door handles. You saw as she turned right, away from the officers, apparently attempting to leave. You saw one agent step away from the vehicle — not get hit by it — and fire three shots into the driver's seat. You then saw the same agent stroll away from the scene, completely unscathed.

Related: Who was Renee Nicole Good? Remembering the Minneapolis poet and mother killed by ICE

And after all of that, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told you Good committed "domestic terrorism." Officials told you that she tried to hit the agents with her car, and that they acted in "self-defense." They told you that the officer who fired the shots was injured to the point of hospitalization.

I'm not just offended on behalf of Good's memory and her loved ones — I'm insulted on behalf of our collective intelligence.

I won't include the George Orwell quote about rejecting the evidence of your eyes and ears in this piece. You've already seen the line posted all over social media in the past few days. What I will say is that I expect the Trump administration to lie to us. But I also expect everyone else not to take those lies at face value.

This especially applies if you're a journalist, yet many articles I've seen covering Good's murder uncritically source officials from an administration that not only regularly spreads disinformation but actively celebrates it. It may be customary to give each party featured in a story the opportunity to comment, but to take one side's comment as the absolute truth is simply malpractice, and particularly egregious when video evidence to the contrary is widely available.

Here's how one The New York Times article covered Good's murder. The publication has other pieces about the incident that are quite comprehensive, which makes the decision to leave this piece up on its own baffling.

"Federal officials said an ICE agent shot and killed Ms. Good in self-defense, and they accused her of trying to use her vehicle to run over law enforcement officers. Local officials have strongly disputed that account."

The article does not give any more information related to what about the DHS statement officials are disputing, nor does it mention that video of the incident was even captured, let alone link to it.

Here's an excerpt from the BBC, which featured twice the amount of quotes from Kristi Noem and Donald Trump than from Good's loved ones:

But White House officials, including the president, have said Good was not simply observing, but also interfering in the officers' work.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had been "stalking and impeding their work" all day by "blocking them in" with her car and "shouting at them".
Good "weaponised her vehicle", Noem told reporters, and then tried to run over one of the officers "in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism".
The ICE agent feared for his life, Noem said, and "fired defensive shots".
This account was backed up by Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that "the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting".
He called her a "professional agitator" who "violently, willfully, and viciously" ran over an ICE officer.

The way Good's murder is being covered, you would think it was a standard police shooting with no body camera footage available, only the word of law enforcement. That's happened countless times before to the Black men killed by police — agencies put out a statement claiming justified force, then footage is released revealing they lied. This time, the video was the first thing we saw, yet our institutions are still using the same tired playbook.

Now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has announced that it will be solely leading the investigation into Good's death, freezing out the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Cover-ups don't get more blatant than this.

Related: Shocking video shows ICE agent fatally shooting woman in south Minneapolis

And make no mistake: they know they're lying. Despite how he acts, JD Vance isn't stupid. He knows that when he calls Good's murder “a tragedy of her own making," his supporters will buy it, because that assertion fits their worldview, and they do not have to challenge it.

Then publications will parrot it so they can keep their exclusive White House contact, or so they're not the target of Trump's next lawsuit. The truth is, there's no such thing as independent media anymore. Even this publication needs to sell ads to stay in business. News outlets are beholden to corporations, and corporations are beholden to the government if they want their tax breaks and mergers approved (remember Paramount and Colbert?). Thus, Good becomes the latest victim not just of ICE's crusade, but of a society that values profit over human life.

The same thing has happened countless times before, and to emphasize again, it primarily happens to Black men. Good is a "terrorist" in the same way George Floyd was a "criminal" — only this time the right has proven it can still vilify a white, Christian mother with no criminal record.

Trump was right when he said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still have supporters. The only thing he left out was that he didn't need to be the shooter.

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