The murder of Renee Nicole Good caught on video by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis is both shocking and unsurprising. Equally unsurprising is the next person who will be shot and killed by ICE since in their infinite stupidity Kristi Noem and donald trump are sending hundreds more ICE agents to Minneapolis to try to provoke more violence. For some reason – and I am guessing it has something to do with hindering voting in the mid-term elections – this federal government is on some kind of quest to kill, injure, or harm residents of the United States who are not billionaires.
The response to the government-sanctioned murder of Renee Nicole Good has been overwhelming and peaceful. Vigils and marches across the country have taken place. I participated in one Sunday night next to the Frederick Douglas Bridge in order to demonstrate to the people of DC that ICE violence and murder is no different than what Black and Brown people face every day at the hands of local police departments across the country. In essence, this is what we have empowered law enforcement to do in our local communities because those who reside on the upper ends of the economic and political power structures want to make sure those on the lower ends remain under control. That has been the function of police since its inception.
While we decry the atrocities and blatant human rights violations of this current administration we would do well to remember that some of the most draconian criminal justice legislation that impacts people of color were passed under Democratic leaders. In a truly excellent book, The End of Policing, Alex Vitaly writes of both the history of where the police came from and why reforms continually fail. I cannot recommend a book more than this one.
Through careful research Vitaly shows that the police, which was first formed as slave patrols in the South to recover runaway slaves and return them to their plantations, have always served as “a tool for managing inequality and maintaining the status quo.” (p. 15) While many point to some members of law enforcement and challenge the assertion that all current police are inherently racist (a point I would agree with), there has to be, in any honest discussion, an admission that the police have deeply oppressive and racist roots. This does not necessarily have to damn whatever roles the police may play in society currently, but to completely ignore the deep harms and trauma this history has had on people of color only does more damage. Acknowledging history is a necessary step towards any kind of healing and progress.
There was an opportunity for the country to acknowledge the harms law enforcement have committed when, in response to the rise of urban rebellions in the 1960s, President Johnson formed a commission headed by the former Governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner, to study what needed to be done. The Kerner report essentially stated that the nation was moving towards two nations, Black and White, separate and unequal. The Report called for significant investments in education and employment, but President Johnson had other ideas.
Johnson felt that Black people owed him. He had engineered tremendous gains in civil rights legislation to be sure, but he failed to truly understand the extent of hundreds of years of oppression and marginalization and so he went the exact opposite way from what the Kerner Commission recommended. President Johnson instead thought the best way to deal with uprisings was with overwhelming force and so he oversaw the passage of the Safe Streets Act in 1968 which “primarily granted funds in large blocs to states…[and] the result was a massive expansion in police hardware, SWAT teams, and drug enforcement teams – and almost no money toward prevention and rehabilitation.” (p. 14)
Thus, the arms race began. Since 1968 the easiest way to score political points – by both parties – is to pour literally billions of dollars into law enforcement. Is there crime? We need to pour TONS of money into the police and arm them! Is drug addiction rampant? We need to pour TONS of money into the police to lock up drug dealers! Police brutality? We need to pour TONS of money into the police and retrain them (which Vitaly shows has not worked at all)!
We have done everything in our public safety discussions except acknowledge the fact that over 50 years of pouring money into law enforcement has not worked! It has indeed been 50+ years of failure with devastating results.
So, as we rightfully mourn the loss of Renee Nicole Good we should also remember the three Black people DC police killed in 2025 – three names I never heard until I looked it up.
- Derrick Williams (45), killed on January 13, 2025,
- Kevin Booker, killed on November 14, 2025,
- David Warren Childs (25), killed on November 17, 2025.
No loss of life can be justified. We must be outraged at the loss of all human life. And especially when that loss of life results from state-sanctioned murder. We desperately need to reimagine public safety in DC and across the country.
