New Poll – Was Shooting Justified?

A new poll from Quinnipiac University finds that most Americans believe the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis was not justified.

On Wednesday, January 7th, 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, later identified as Johnathan Ross, during an operation in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis. While video of the incident was quickly available online, there were conflicting reports about the motivation of the agent in the shooting and whether the shooting was a justified use of force.

Get our free mobile app

The poll, taken January 8th through the 12th, found more than 80 percent of the respondents had seen a video of the shooting. A slight majority, 53%, believed the shooting was not a justified use of force by the ICE agent. The poll has an advertised margin of error of +/- 3.7%.

As one might expect, the responses were split among political party lines. Those claiming to be Republican were more likely to say the shooting was justified than those who identified as Democrat. 59% of the respondents who said they were independent felt the shooting was not justified.

The job approval rating for Kristi Noem, the current Secretary of Homeland Security, has never been strong, but continues to slip as the enforcement actions drag on. In the most recent poll, 52% of respondents are dissatisfied with her job performance, with approval mainly along party lines.

While the responses were about what I expected in this politically charged atmosphere, this study reveals one interesting point: in the week after the incident, more than 80% of Americans had seen the video. That’s a double-edged sword. We get to see what happened and decide for ourselves, but we have no framework to determine if the video is authentic. Artificial Intelligence is getting very good at making things up.

While you keep that tidbit in the back of your mind, our owners have put the following rule out for us to follow: unless you take the video yourself, you CANNOT publish the video unless you have two videos of the same incident from two different angles or by two different people. While it makes my job much harder, I think the rule is valid.

It might be a rule we all should follow.