Beyond a reasonable doubt and Jonathan Ross
Poetic justice finds those who don't heed the 9th Commandment: Do not bear false witness
“He will get away with murder,” said a friend, referring to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota on January 7, 2026 by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
“We saw a person get murdered,” said Rep Ilhan Omar. “Now this is the most high-profile and most heinous act of violence that has been undertaken,” said Senator Chris Murphy. A person was “assassinated,” according to DNC Chairman Ken Martin, as he wept on air.
In this hyperbolic, overly-emotive environment, my friend is convinced conservatives are the enemy, “It’s Nazi Germany, don’t think it can’t happen to you.”
It is a shame that as inconclusive as the Minnesota shooting is, many see it definitively and conclusively as murder by an ICE agent of an innocent woman, and one of the biggest examples that immigration law enforcement agents are the Gestapo.
If this shooting is the most heinous act of violence to support the narrative that federal agents under Trump are Nazi’s killing and indiscriminately assaulting innocent people, then that narrative at best is desperately wanting, at worst, it is bearing false witness on an entire group of people whose crime is their identity.
Both sides are not blameless in the tension that surrounds us. Yet in this case, the accusations against Ross are dangerously false, designed to paint him and his side as evil. But slander never ages well as God detests false witnesses, and demands any accusation be made beyond a reasonable doubt.
From her side
For those who don’t want the wrath of God for bearing false witness, abstain from assertions and be mindful of all the facts on both sides pertaining to a situation.
We can all agree this was a tragedy. A woman, notwithstanding her interference with law enforcement officials from doing their job, was shot three times for recklessly trying to get away. She didn’t look like a menace, and she didn’t, at least not from the video I saw, spew angry expletives at the agents though she was obviously ridiculing and taunting them. She wasn’t throwing rocks nor did she have a gun. She didn’t initially seem to pose much of a threat. She doesn’t appear to have a criminal record.
Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and put ourselves in her position. She wanted to resist ICE and support her community as her wife stated. “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” said Becca Good. So Renee Good parked her car in the middle of the road to block ICE agents from whatever activity they were carrying out. She wanted to be helpful by being part of the resistance that gave her a sense of purpose and duty. She never intended to ram an officer with her car. She was smiling. She just wanted to do one thing: Annoy the agents. To that end, she succeeded. She was incredibly annoying. Then she just wanted outta there. “Drive!” her spouse urged. At that moment, Good panicked and quickly accelerated toward an agent. Is that enough to be shot?
It is reasonable to ask: Yes, she tried to get away and her car happened to be facing the agent, but was he justified shooting her? Her intent was not to kill him, most likely. Should he have shot three times? Shouldn’t he have known shooting a car wouldn’t stop it but would have caused it to drive into something else, which it did? It seems excessive. It may even seem vindictive or haphazard. In the past, agent Ross tried to detain a man in a vehicle who refused to comply. Ross reached into the vehicle to unlock the door at which point the driver dragged him along the street for about 50 yards, which resulted in 30-plus stitches. Could this past experience taint Ross’s ability to act reasonably? Or is he unforgiving toward any non-compliant person in a vehicle?
These are questions to ask him or investigate before assigning blame.
He is, after all, owed the presumption of innocence. Despite the outcry against him that’s put him into hiding, based on the public evidence we all have, half the country and maybe more would not consider what he did a murder. He did not kill Good in cold blood. He is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If we are going to be fair to the woman, which many people are, why aren’t people being fair to him? Why aren’t they putting themselves in his position?
From his side…
Ross is conducting an operation and a car obstructs the road for at least three minutes, according to a video. It is a chaotic scene as car horns honk relentlessly. Ross is aware that there is precedent of cars being used as weapons, not the least of which was the time in 2025 when he was dragged by a vehicle. He’s also aware of the many other incidents in which protestors used cars to obstruct ICE agents, such as the multiple vehicle caravan in Chicago in 2025, where a civilian was shot. According to DHS, agents are “experiencing a 3200% increase in vehicular attacks.” And something that Ross wouldn’t have known at that moment but underscores this pattern is that in Portland, Oregon on January 8, 2026, another car was allegedly used as a weapon to hit an ICE agent. The driver of the vehicle is allegedly part of the Tren de Aruaga gang.
Given the context and the heated polarizing and angry environment toward ICE agents, imagine if you were Ross.
You’re taking a video to show proof of the type of ridiculous disrespect and hostility the agents face every day. For example, Good’s wife is heard goading you and your partners, saying, “You wanna come at us, you wanna come at us, I say go get yourself some lunch big boy.” Good has clearly committed a crime by obstructing you and your fellow agents in their duty, according to 18 U.S. Code 111. You have a heightened sense of awareness that protestors are unpredictable and are willing to use their cars to hurt you. You walk around the car to get evidence of the situation and then in a split-second find the car accelerate toward you, potentially dragging the other officer whose arm and hand were in Good’s car to try to unlock the vehicle. In that moment, your job is to defend you and your partner from death or serious bodily injury.
What do you do? Be honest. Some may say, “I would jump out of the way.” Others would say: “Stop the threat from hurting me, my partner and others immediately around me.” If that’s the case, his guilt is not beyond a reasonable doubt because others would have acted the same.
Take away the veneer, what are the facts?
Now some may say Good was immediately falsely accused of being a domestic terrorist. Who’s causing division here? Was that label too harsh? Maybe. But the definition of a domestic terrorist is far broader than a murderer. Good was someone ideologically driven to impede law enforcement action, resulting in the weaponization of her vehicle (regardless of her intent), which threatened the lives of agents. Take away the veneer of her being a mother, poet and good neighbor who just wanted to drive away, based on the facts, the label is not entirely inaccurate.
Some may say, he’s at least guilty of Second Degree Manslaughter because he acted with reckless regard for human life. Did he? One cannot make that determination beyond a reasonable doubt. She wasn’t moving away from him. Initially, you can see in the video that her car wheels were facing away from him to the left. She reverses and turns her wheel to the right which aims the car directly at him, and she accelerates. It doesn’t matter her intent; it doesn’t matter if she was scared; it doesn’t matter if she didn’t see him. What matters are the facts. She positioned her car toward him and accelerated and hit him. That’s reckless. It also doesn’t matter if she missed and he successfully dodged her vehicle to stay relatively unharmed. That’s the point. He did what he did to avert harm to himself and those around him.
Moreover, what if he did jump out of the way? What kind of precedent or incentive does that create? That people shouldn’t be afraid of recklessly driving away from law enforcement because officers must stand down and jump away? These are legitimate moral questions to ask that many aren’t bothering to ask themselves.
The Bible and false accusations
So what does the Bible say about such situations?
Firstly, we are called to not make accusations, but to find witnesses on all sides.
In Deuteronomy 19:15 - “One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” This also appears in Matthew 18:16 - “If they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
Secondly, we are called to introspection by asking God to judge not only the accusers, but ourselves.
In Psalms, a Benjamite falsely accuses David of backstabbing his friend and plundering his enemies. David runs for his life from Saul, the King of Israel and as he does so he prays that God judge the accusers as well as himself. In Psalm 7:3-6, he writes: “Lord my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands – if I have repaid my ally with evil or without cause have robbed my foe, then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and me sleep in the dust.”
Lastly, we are reminded that false accusations can lead to ironic punishment.
In Deuteronomy 19:18-19 - “The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” In my weekly Bible study, we just studied Esther, which illustrates the irony of false accusations. Haman, a leader and friend of King Xerxes and hater of Jews, spreads falsehoods to convict a Jewish man named Mordecai and have him hanged on gallows for his crimes. Then Haman’s lies were exposed and he was hung on the gallows he built for Mordecai.
Don’t be Haman. Don’t make false accusations. If we abdicate the truth, then on what grounds can we come together? No one is celebrating Good’s death. In like vein, no one should celebrate his - yet these accusations are essentially equivalent. If there is reasonable doubt that Ross is guilty - which there is - and yet you continue to spread false accusations, poetic justice will find you.
(Image source: Holyanspecialist.com)