The video of the Minneapolis shooting convinced these Trump voters that it was justified

By Julia Harte

Jan. 13 – A video of a Minneapolis mother shot in her car by a U.S. immigration agent on Wednesday has divided the nation, becoming a political Rorschach test that draws different judgments depending on who watches it.

President Donald Trump and his administration have defended the agent and declared 37-year-old Renee Goode a domestic terrorist. Local leaders and protesters across the country have condemned the shooting and said the fact that Goode turned his wheels away from the officer as he passed him proved his peaceful intentions.

Since the shooting last Wednesday, Reuters has spoken to six Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 — a group of 20 that Reuters has interviewed monthly since February — to better understand how they rate the event captured on video watched by millions.

Each of these half-dozen voters, who vary in their assessment of Trump’s immigration policy and overall performance, came to the same conclusion from the video: The agent feared for his life and his decision to shoot Goode was justified.

Their decision is a reflection of the Trump administration. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem told reporters hours after the incident that Goode had refused the agents’ orders to move and then “proceeded to arm his vehicle.” Trump said on social media that the woman “ran over an ICE officer.”

Many Americans disagree. Tens of thousands of people marched in Minneapolis to condemn the killing, and the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, called the Trump administration’s assessment “nonsense.” Frey said the video “shows the agent recklessly used force that resulted in someone being killed, killed.”

But the video convinced all six voters that the agent shot Goode because he thought she was trying to kill him. All expressed sympathy for the stressful conditions in which ICE and other law enforcement officials work, and many accused Democratic leaders of stoking anti-ICE sentiment, causing agents to fear attacks from members of the public.

Amanda Taylor, 52, an insurance firm employee near Savannah, Georgia, who considers herself “always pro-police,” said the agent was “protecting the community and protecting herself” when she opened fire on Goode.

Taylor, who voted for Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 and has mixed feelings about Trump’s economic policies and governing style, said in the video that the moment Good Defiance agents ordered her to stop her car, she told the agent she was a potential public danger.

“If they’re running from you, what else are they going to do?” she said.

The first videos to be widely circulated showed two masked officers approaching Goode’s car, which was stopped at right angles to a Minneapolis street. An officer ordered Goode out of the car and, holding onto her door handle, the car briefly reversed and then turned right and began driving forward.

Another officer, since identified as Jonathan Ross, was positioned to the left in front of her car. He drew his gun and fired three times, the last shot aimed through the driver’s side window. The extent to which the car made contact with the officer sitting at his feet has been debated.

threat perception

Many other voters also argued that Goode died by his own actions. “When I watched the video, only one word came to mind, and that was ‘outrageous’: Another person failed to respect the law,” said Herman Sims, 66, a night operations manager for a trucking company in Dallas, Texas.

“We’ll never know what would have happened had she kept going. Would she have run into someone else on the road blocks away?” Sims said.

Chad Hill, 50, a supervisor at a nuclear power plant near his home in northwestern Ohio, was also “100% right” to use deadly force against ICE agent Goode after he ignored authorities’ orders to stop.

“Putting a vehicle in drive and driving it toward a law enforcement officer is like pulling a gun and pointing it,” Hill said. He added that “the political landscape in liberal cities has demonized ICE agents simply for doing their jobs”.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it was self-defense,” said John Weber, 45, a Walmart retail worker in Indiana who strongly supports Trump’s immigration crackdown. “At that moment he threw his car inside [drive] And resurrected, if she was trying to avoid ICE agents, she came very close.”

‘Pressure Cooker Status’

Voters with mixed feelings about the administration’s deportation drive also felt the agent should not face legal consequences.

Don Jernigan, 75, previously told Reuters that some footage of ICE raids reminded him of Nazi Germany. But after watching video of the incident, the Virginia Beach retiree said he thinks the ICE agent who shot Good should not be prosecuted, having just been trained.

“When he was out of the way and she was right next to him, yeah, really, he shouldn’t have shot at her,” Jernigan said. “But at that point, he didn’t know. He knew someone was trying to kill him.”

Although Lou Nunez, 83, shared Jernigan’s concern about the aggressive tactics used by some ICE agents during the raids, he said he would not prosecute Goode’s shooter. The Des Moines-based veteran said the officers “work in a pressure-cooker situation” and that their responsibility to follow orders was good.

(Reporting by Julia Harte in New York; Editing by Paul Thomas and Claudia Parsons)