(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Letter to the Editor)

As with the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the determination of whether a shooting is a murder or justifiable self-defense by the police of a civilian is based on three criteria at the said time and place.

The first, a threat must be present. The threat need not be verbal. Renee Good blatantly ignored a lawful order to step from her vehicle. Instead, she attempted to flee the scene, running down ICE officers in the process of fleeing, with her Honda Pilot SUV. A definite threat to ICE officers present.

The second, the presence of a weapon to execute the threat. Good had that weapon, her two-ton Honda SUV. A speeding SUV is as deadly as any firearm.

The third, the opportunity to implement the threat. The ICE officers were standing in the street when Good piloted her SUV directly at them, granting her the opportunity to commit her act of mayhem.

Good made no effort to avoid hitting ICE officers and struck ICE officer Jonathan Ross. She was a clear threat to the ICE officers present. The shooting of Renee Good was a justifiable act by ICE officer Ross, in defense of his life and the lives of other ICE officers. Opportunity, the third criterion, was met.

There will be more “Renee Goods” and “Alex Prettis” as long as uninformed people Karl Marx referred to as “useful idiots” continue assaulting ICE officers in performance of their already difficult deportation duties.

Some “talking heads” on the fake news networks have asserted President Trump has no (constitutional) authority to send ICE agents into “blue” states against the will of their Democratic governors. Not so.

The U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2 reads, in part, “This constitution and the laws of the U.S., which shall be made in pursuance, thereof; shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution of laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Therefore, the president has constitutional authority to send ICE into any state, “red or blue” without their governors’ “blessing.”

Minnesota’s “civil unrest” would abate if their Democratic “leadership” would cease inciting Minnesotans into violently confronting ICE and protest peacefully.

Sadly, Minnesota’s Democratic leaders have 9 billion reasons to keep the violence and chaos going to “mask” their massive fraud scandal from national news coverage.

Steve Wolverton

Parkersburg