Stephen A. Smith thinks the ICE agent who shot Renee Nicole Good dead in Minnesota was ‘completely justified’ from a legal standpoint after she appeared to drive her car towards officers in her final moments.
Smith added, however, that if the agent had enough time to step out the way, which he appeared to, he should have shot the tyres instead of taking aim directly at Good, a 37-year-old mother-of-one, who died behind the wheel of her car after she was shot three times in the face.
‘I saw the video on numerous occasions and seeing what transpired from a lawful perspective, as it pertains to a law enforcement official, don’t expect him to be prosecuted. He was completely justified,’ Smith said in a 25-minute video uploaded to his YouTube channel.
But the ESPN analyst continued: ‘From a humanitarian perspective, however, why did you have to do that? If you could move out the way, that means you could have shot the tyres. That means you could have got a few feet away after you shot the tyres and if you were unsuccessful at doing that you could have got her down the road.
‘She wasn’t driving down the road, coming at you 90 miles an hour, she was parked in the middle of the street. Rather than get out the car, she wrongfully tried to drive off. And wrongfully disregarded a law enforcement official because that it was ICE is and as a result, lost her life because of it.’
The initial video that circulated online shows an officer approaching an SUV stopped in the middle of the road and trying to open the driver’s door.
Stephen A. Smith has given his verdict on the Minnesota shooting by an ICE agent
Renee Nicole Good, pictured, has been named as the woman shot dead by ICE in Minneapolis on Wednesday
Seconds later, the car drives away and a different ICE officer standing in front of the car fires at least two shots toward the driver. The SUV appeared to knock the officer back but not down.
The car then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop.
ICE said that Good deliberately drove her burgundy SUV at agents – something that was disputed by witnesses and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey even called ‘bulls**t’.
The increasingly political Smith insisted that the officer who fired the shots will not be prosecuted. Federal officials have claimed that he was acting in self-defense and President Trump echoed that response on Truth Social.
Smith said: ‘From a legal perspective don’t expect this ICE officer to be prosceuted, I’m telling you right now. She was in the car, protesting, blocking off the street, an officer got in front of the car, another on the side, and she tried to take off.
‘And in their eyes… other folks, on the right, are saying no, they consider it an act of domestic terrorism becaise she tried to run over an ICE officer. Not gonna be prosectued.
‘My point is let’s not focus on that for a second, ok. She was wrong to drive off, she shouldn’t have done that. Or she should have asked the officer, “I am pulling over, can you move out the way please?” instead of trying to disregard him totally to the point where you are gonna take off and potentoally hit him and he moves out the way and draws his gun and shoots through the front windhsield and takes her out.’
‘But it wasn’t necessary. You could have arrested her, you could have spared the woman’s life. You didn’t have to kill her.
Good was shot three times in the face at a protest in Minneapolis on Wednesday and died at the scene after trying to drive off
‘So even though the law, from a literal perspective, might be on his side, the reality is your humanity comes into question because you didn’t have to kill her. She didn’t have to die.
‘We’re living in a country now where some people more often than not are becoming lawless and law enforcement officials are not only about enforcing the law while serving and protecting, but they are also taking lives.
‘At least in this casen that was the case. I believe it was totally unnecessary.’
At a press conference on Wednesday night, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said the ICE agent ‘used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues’.
She added: ‘Any loss of life is a tragedy, and I think we can all agree it was preventable.
‘Our officer followed his training and did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation.
‘The officer was hit by the vehicle. She hit him. He has been released [from hospital], but he is going to spend some time with his family.
‘He is an experienced officer, he has been in situations like this before, and he certainly went out and used his training today.’
