Renee Nicole Good - She tried to move when told to move. And they killed her!

Opinion: What Happens When Accountability Dies

By Kenneth Howard Smith, Guest Columnist

WEST SACRAMENTO, CA [IFS] -- In the days since the shooting, gratitude goes first to the people who risked their safety to document what unfolded—and to the cameraman who stayed in the storm of chaos so that truth could not be erased. What they captured matters, because what follows is a struggle between fact and fiction.

It is unsettling how easily a lie takes hold when people forget what values they once stood for. The official story came quickly: “She used her vehicle as a weapon.” “She disobeyed commands.” “She was blocking the road.” As if three bullets could make any of that right.

From the outset, the contradictions have been glaring. Officials claim an ICE vehicle was immobilized in the snow, yet images show mostly bare pavement. Both accounts cannot be true. One hopes nearby security footage emerges soon, because the story being told doesn’t align with what witnesses describe.

We’ve seen this script before. Officers shout conflicting orders—each one canceling the last—then open fire when confusion takes hold. Later, phrases like “noncompliance” or “resisting arrest” become stand-ins for justification, words chosen not to reflect reality but to manage liability.

What followed stretched the limits of belief. A doctor wasn’t allowed to examine her. Medics were delayed. Witnesses watched as her limp body was carried by the limbs to the end of the block. It sounds dystopian because it is. A lawful society does not treat a citizen that way—not after a shooting, not ever.

Even more telling: the ICE agent was removed from the scene faster than the victim herself.

Let that sink in. No arrest. No immediate accountability. Only a race to control the narrative before the full truth could surface.

This was not self-defense. It was a killing justified after the fact—an act sanitized with bureaucratic language and underpinned by fear. If we accept this as normal, we surrender the very idea of justice.

She tried to move when told to move. And they killed her.

May she rest in peace. And may we not rest until accountability means something again.

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