Thursday, January 15, 2026

The Too-Online Super Sleuths Got It Wrong Again

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

 

It is every American’s God-granted constitutional right to mouth off on the internet about events they do not understand and circumstances they couldn’t possibly comprehend. But that doesn’t mean they won’t humiliate themselves in the process.

 

According to a breaking CBS News report, “The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.”

 

But how could that be? After all, “Multiple videos taken at the scene suggest Ross was in no danger,” American Community Media reported. That was not just the general consensus among the uncredentialed forensic detectives who populated the internet with definitive pronouncements on Agent Ross’s state of mind during his fatal altercation with Renee Good but also the objective threat he faced in that moment. That was elite consensus as well.

 

Ross “was clearly in no danger,” the author Joyce Carol Oates presumed. “Renee Good was not a threat,” Representative Pramila Jayapal declared, “and Trump’s ICE agent still killed her.” According to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Ross “walked away with a hop in his step” — not only uninjured but unfazed by the fatal encounter. Indeed, many local and state officials in Minnesota said that amateur footage of the confrontation “demonstrate that Good was not a threat as she was turning away from the agent,” the BBC reported. And so on.

 

This revelation does not preclude the possibility that the Department of Homeland Security’s protocols were not strictly observed during this fateful conflict between federal law enforcement and semi-professional anti-ICE protesters. There will be additional inquiries into this episode by the relevant bodies — institutions that are equipped to collect and evaluate evidence and render determinations informed by more than a subjective reading of fragmentary details.

 

At the very least, CBS News’s scoop should demonstrate to the progressives who so eagerly prejudged this case that it’s smarter to wait until the facts are in before pronouncing a verdict — particularly one that is liable to inflame passions and radicalize the impressionable. Perhaps a modicum of prudence is too much to ask.

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