Over a decade ago on this blog, and in a presentation at the RSA Conference with a U.S. Army JAG, I discussed how the Clegg court had long ago distinguished between three shots fired while an approaching vehicle posed a threat, versus the fourth shot fired after the threat had passed.
The situation involved soldiers on patrol who ordered a car to stop. When the car failed to follow orders it was fired upon. The soldiers’ claims were evaluated against scientific proof that a fourth shot hit the threatening vehicle after it had passed (entered it from the rear) and was more than 50 feet away. This contradicted Clegg’s testimony that he fired three shots through the front and the fourth shot through the side door as the car passed nearby. The judge thus ruled a fourth bullet was fired “with the intention of causing death or serious bodily harm” and Clegg was found guilty of murder.
In Minnesota news today we have a case directly relevant.
A federal officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday, shortly after the Trump administration deployed thousands of immigration agents to the city.
A federal agent appears to have created his own separation from a trapped woman and then fired when she fled, killing her. Quick review of the video circulating online shows an officer who manufactured his own safety position and used it to murder, meaning kill someone who clearly posed no threat to him.
I expect formal reviews also could confirm all the strikes on the car by agents constituted provocation, followed by lateral movement to get clear before firing from a safe position. If that’s what is found, it means evidence of premeditation measured in seconds—but nonetheless premeditation of murder.
Renee Nicole Good wasn’t even the target of whatever operation the agents were supposedly running. MPD Chief O’Hara stated “There is nothing to indicate that she was the target of law enforcement activity.” She was a bystander. She was a mother of a 6-year-old, a wife, a poet, who got caught at a deadly militarized checkpoint.
The self-defense framework I presented back in 2012 explains how this tragedy isn’t a failure of training that led to a bad heat-of-the-moment decision. This is a sequence of deliberate choices, each of which moved agents toward killing rather than away from it. Any “heat of the moment” defense requires a lack of time to think. The video shows, in direct contrast, an aggressive escalation over many seconds, then a planned step-to-the-side, draw and fire from a stable position. It shows time to reposition. That time was used to aim, and shoot to kill.
Notably, approaching the vehicle to trap, yell and repeatedly bang on it is an aggressive act, not a defensive one (as defined by police themselves, given harsh charges dispensed on pedestrians who dare to obstruct or touch a vehicle).
Two agents approached. KSTP reported audio of agents shouting “Get the fuck out of the car” while violently and repeatedly yanking the door handle for over three seconds—accomplishing nothing except terrorizing the driver into fight or flight. The other positioned himself at the front left of the vehicle, indicating a trap blocking flight, to force a fight. When the panicked driver refused to fight and turned hard right to flee, the blocking agent pivoted left and fired into the departing vehicle from a safe position to the side and behind it as it drove away. He then kept walking toward the car he had just shot into—no stumble, no hesitation, no physiological response of someone who had just escaped a threat. Just forward motion toward his target.
A de-escalation-trained officer would step back, create space, communicate calmly. These agents did the exact opposite, pushing hard for a fight.
Their efforts of violent escalation were not a response to any threat. Stepping in front and then quickly to the side for a clear shot before firing is the evidence that an agent had planned and created clearance for himself, not for safety but for a provocation and pivot to achieve a deadly firing angle. You cannot create a threatening situation through your own aggressive conduct, premeditate lethal force, and then claim self-defense against the response you provoked.
When I first looked at the video, given I’ve studied self-defense ethics for over three decades and hold two degrees in it, my impression was that this has all the hallmarks of an execution sequence. Federal agents appear to have setup the exact plan seen around the world in military dictatorships. It is especially reminiscent of the 1989 checkpoint killing of Marine Lieutenant Robert Paz, which was used as a casus belli for America invading Panama to remove the dictator.
This federal checkpoint in a US city trapped and killed an innocent citizen who became terrified and panicked. She was trying to leave them, which paints a structural parallel to Panama that is damning. In 1989, checkpoint killings were considered acts of war against Americans in another country. In 2026, we see such acts of war at home. Who is going to invade America to protect citizens from the dictator, given Renee Nicole Good is a modern day Lieutenant Robert Paz?
Let me explain in more detail.
Look at the agent movement frame-by-frame. Around 16.5 seconds into the video I have the agent who had been positioned at the front of the vehicle pivots to his left and fires into the car from a safe distance to the side. The vehicle already turned HARD RIGHT and is moving safely AWAY from all the agents to flee them. At the moment of discharge, the shooter positioned himself clear and to the LEFT SIDE and then rear of the vehicle—completely opposite its path.

A further analysis of 701 extracted frames at 30fps offers several provable conclusions:
- Direction of travel: Vehicle turned right, agents all stood to the left. No agent was in danger on the right or in the vehicle’s path at the moment shots were fired at the vehicle leaving them.
- Temporal gap: Approximately 1-2 seconds elapsed between vehicle movement initiation and shooting—enough time for the agent to assess threats (if any existed) had passed.
- Agent mobility post-shooting: All agents standing and walking normally in aftermath frames. The supposed agent at risk is the most able and active, appearing to still be in aggression mode walking towards the vehicle. No agent showed any indication of any harm. Noem’s claim that the officer was struck is contradicted by the video that shows the officer positioned himself to strike the vehicle (not the other way around) and then shot the driver in violent aggression and escalation when the driver was leaving.
- The pivot-to-the-side: The shooter had been at the front left of the vehicle. As the vehicle began moving, he pivoted left and fired from a position completely to the side—safe, clear, and facing a departing vehicle. He manufactured his own clearance, then used it to shoot.
This checkpoint killing is far worse than the foundational Clegg findings.
In that case, the court had to reconstruct bullet trajectories to prove the fourth shot entered from the rear. Here, you can watch the geometry in real time as an officer steps back and murders a woman who poses no threat to anyone. The agents’ high aggression and vehicle’s rotation away from the agents is visible frame by frame.
The Clegg forensics have been disputed in subsequent decades. But in Minneapolis, there’s no trajectory reconstruction needed as you can watch an agent step to the side and fire at a vehicle driving away from him. Even extremist gun advocates accept that shooting at a fleeing vehicle would be murder if proven. They just dispute whether it was proven in Clegg. In Minneapolis, it’s on video.
The video also shows a doctor identifying himself and attempting to provide aid, only to be told “I don’t care” by an agent who directed him to back away. That’s obstruction of emergency medical care to someone they just shot. It compounds the accountability question.
