There Must Be a Reckoning

At the end of a piece I published in January on the killing of Renée Good, I wrote, “We can look forward to more tragedies unless we put our foot down and say ‘enough.’” Unfortunately, America did not say enough. In fact, some people in the Objectivist movement did not say enough. A few prominent Objectivists even defended ICE, focusing on the alleged violence of the anti-ICE protesters, rather than on the fact that ICE agents were operating outside of constitutional limits and without regard for public safety. When you expect better behavior from protesters than from supposedly trained law enforcement officers, it seems to me you’ve lost the plot on the proper purpose of government, and what a free people should expect from that government.

At the time I wrote about Good and Alex Pretti, I was chastised for rushing to judgment before all the facts were known — even though the most relevant facts were already available from the many witnesses’ videos and statements. I was assured that a full investigation would uncover the truth of what had taken place, and that we should reserve judgment until then. However, I predicted — and have been proved correct — that there would be no such investigation. This administration has no interest in finding the truth, especially when they know it will reveal at best gross incompetence, and more likely a malignant disregard for the law and the rights of the human beings whose lives were carelessly snuffed out.

The circumstances of the two recent ICE killings, one in Texas and one in Maine, are slightly different from the earlier ones in Minnesota. These were traffic stops: none of the people involved were protesters. The men killed weren’t even the targets the ICE officers were after! In both cases, ICE is falling back on their old favorite of claiming the victim’s vehicle was a threat.

In Texas, that narrative is contradicted by witness reports. ICE agents were in unmarked vehicles and apparently did not identify themselves to the victim, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Would you stop your car if some random masked men in an unmarked vehicle told you to? Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina professor who focuses on use of force and is a former police officer, saw the available video footage and said it “looks more like a carjacking attempt than it does a police stop.”

Equally tragic is the case in Maine that occurred just a few days later. When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from an address they were investigating, the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the department said. The victim was Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a twenty-six-year-old father of a three-year-old girl. A witness reported that his last words were “I tried to stop.” Guerrero was from Columbia and had been granted a government-issued work authorization and a Social Security number in May 2025, which allowed him to work legally while his immigration case was pending. But even if he had been in the country illegally, that would have been a misdemeanor offense. A free country should not shoot people over misdemeanor offenses. Conveniently, this time there is no video of the actual shooting, despite DHS’s official policy (ICE Directive 19010.3) requiring officers to turn on their cameras during all enforcement actions, including arrests, warrants, and vehicle stops.

As I discussed back in January, standard police procedure is to NOT fire at a fleeing vehicle — even when the person fleeing is a known criminal. Years of experience have taught law enforcement that firing at moving vehicles is itself a danger to public safety. Actual police don’t do it except in extraordinary circumstances, so why is ICE routinely doing so? Because they are a rogue agency who believe they are above the law. And the rationalizations from MAGA and others to justify their actions have led them to believe they can continue to act with impunity.

This was all predictable (indeed, I predicted it) and incredibly depressing. On the brighter side, after months of delay, the Feds were finally forced to turn over evidence to Minnesota state investigators concerning the Renée Good and Alex Pretti killings. I hope the state conducts the kind of thorough and objective investigation that should have been done by the Feds (but wasn’t), and then follows up with arrests, when the evidence warrants it, as they have already done with ICE officers Christian Castro and Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr.

If we are to have any hope of maintaining a country in which individual rights matter and the rule of law prevails, we must be vigilant in prosecuting these cases and all the cases of abuse by ICE agents (as well as other government officials). Because, unfortunately, the problems are much broader and deeper than one rogue government agency. In fact, the crimes committed by this administration are historically unprecedented. They include the killing of civilians in international waters (the “double-tap” strikes against shipwrecked people in the Caribbean), the protection of sexual predators, and open bribery and the selling of favors (including pardons for dangerous criminals) on a previously unheard of scale. All these crimes need to be exposed and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Anything less is a betrayal of the principles on which America was founded.

Other countries have successfully gone after their corrupt politicians; I hope America has the guts to do the same. We should all be as brave as Ashley Brouillette, who came forward after her ex-husband, David Brouillette, shot and killed Guerrero (in Maine). She told the world that he’d asked her to lie for him — and she refused. It turns out he is a violent, unstable, abusive man whom the government decided should be allowed to wield state power. Is ICE doing any vetting at all on whom it hires? Or is Brouillette exactly the kind of thug they like to employ?

When Trump is no longer in power, there will inevitably be calls to “just move on.” At least some Republicans will acknowledge that mistakes were made, but they will likely urge “restraint” and warn against punitive, politically-motivated retribution. While revenge-seeking and politically motivated prosecutions would of course be a mistake, going after politicians and government officials for actual crimes — such as the murder of innocent civilians and the facilitating of such murders — would not be retribution. It would not be political payback. It would be justice. It would be a return to the idea that no one is above the law. If properly carried out, this could be an affirmation of the idea of America as a country where we truly believe in “justice for all.” If we wimp out, if we decide to “let the past be in the past,” we signal to the next set of corrupt politicians and jumped-up bullies with badges that they too can get away with anything. If we do this, we will no longer have the right to claim that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave.