Breaking Down the Renee Good Shooting (with Vanita Gupta)
Episode
12 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Science & Discovery, Economics & Policy
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Updated Use of Force Policy: Federal policy now explicitly includes duty to render medical aid and deescalate, based on 2017 and 2020 consensus standards developed with state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies including IACP and Fraternal Order of Police, not created by bureaucrats without law enforcement input or expertise.
- ✓Vehicle Shooting Restrictions: Firearms cannot be discharged at moving vehicles solely to disable them due to risks of losing control and injuring bystanders. Officers must move out of the way unless the vehicle threatens deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself, a standard adopted by most agencies over the past decade.
- ✓Multi-Shot Investigation Protocol: FBI investigators examine each individual shot fired, not just the first one. In cases with three shots, investigators analyze whether the second and third shots were necessary, which shot caused death, and vehicle movement after each shot to determine if force escalated beyond what circumstances required at each moment.
- ✓Prosecution Complexity: Even with evidence suggesting policy violations, convictions remain difficult because officers receive due process and juries hear mitigating factors like prior traumatic incidents. Video analysis, victim statements like "I'm not mad at you," autopsy results, and millisecond-by-millisecond positioning all factor into charging decisions and trial outcomes.
What It Covers
Vanita Gupta analyzes the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Goode in Minneapolis, examining whether federal use of force policies were followed, the duty to deescalate and render medical aid, investigative procedures, and challenges in prosecuting law enforcement officers under updated Justice Department standards.
Key Questions Answered
- •Updated Use of Force Policy: Federal policy now explicitly includes duty to render medical aid and deescalate, based on 2017 and 2020 consensus standards developed with state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies including IACP and Fraternal Order of Police, not created by bureaucrats without law enforcement input or expertise.
- •Vehicle Shooting Restrictions: Firearms cannot be discharged at moving vehicles solely to disable them due to risks of losing control and injuring bystanders. Officers must move out of the way unless the vehicle threatens deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself, a standard adopted by most agencies over the past decade.
- •Multi-Shot Investigation Protocol: FBI investigators examine each individual shot fired, not just the first one. In cases with three shots, investigators analyze whether the second and third shots were necessary, which shot caused death, and vehicle movement after each shot to determine if force escalated beyond what circumstances required at each moment.
- •Prosecution Complexity: Even with evidence suggesting policy violations, convictions remain difficult because officers receive due process and juries hear mitigating factors like prior traumatic incidents. Video analysis, victim statements like "I'm not mad at you," autopsy results, and millisecond-by-millisecond positioning all factor into charging decisions and trial outcomes.
Notable Moment
The ICE agent involved had previously been dragged by a car during duty, suffering injuries requiring thirty stitches. This prior trauma would be admissible evidence affecting jury perception of reasonableness, raising questions about whether the agent should have been placed in similar operational settings afterward.
Episode Transcript
Hey, folks. Joyce Vance here. Preeta and I are out with a new episode of the Insider Podcast. Today, we're joined by our dear friend, Vanita Gupta. Vanita is an experienced civil rights attorney who served as United States associate attorney general, led the Justice Department's civil rights division, and is now the director of the Center for Law and Public Trust at NYU Law School. She joined us to discuss the fatal shooting of Renee Goode by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, including whether use of force policies were followed, if the ICE agent will face accountability, and what the future of ICE might look like in the aftermath of this incident. If you're a member of Cafe Insider, head to the Insider feed or click the link in the show notes of this podcast to hear the full analysis. Stay tuned listeners. Stick around for an excerpt from our conversation. Members of Insider help support our work and get access to full episodes and other subscriber benefits. We're living in unreasonable times, so join our community of reasonable voices. Head to cafe.com/insider or staytuned.substack.com. Now, on to the show. Let me get in, if it's okay, a little bit into the updated use of force policy because we updated it for a few reasons. After George Floyd was murdered and the justice department was in Minneapolis prosecuting the four officers responsible for his murder. There were some important charges that we led with, including the duty to render medical aid, which is something that people don't always assume as part of the federal use of force policy. And while agents federal agents were trained to the duty to render medical aid, it wasn't part of the policy, and so we updated it. And so it isn't just the actual shooting itself that needs to be investigated. It's also what happened after with the duty to to deescalate and the duty to render medical aid. But let me get into the initial encounter for a second. The investigators, were there to be an actual investigation here, the FBI would have typically looked at the circumstances leading up to the shooting, so not just the placement of the agent and agents vis a vis the movement of Renee Goode's car. And now there's, you know, a lot of analysis showing that she was turning the wheel away from the agent to leave as the shooting began, but also about the comments that she made. I don't have the words right in front of me, but something like, I'm not what were the words? It was like, I'm not out to get you or something like that. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you. Or I'm not mad about you, something like that. And that would have, again, gone to the people's frame of mind. And, you know, was there escalation versus de escalation? But it also remember, there were three shots fired. An investigator would be the …
Get the full transcript (1,831 words) + summary by email — free
One-time email with the complete transcript and AI summary of this episode. No account needed.
One email, no spam. We’ll also show you what SignalCast does.
You just read a 3-minute summary of a 9-minute episode.
Get Stay Tuned with Preet summarized like this every Monday — plus up to 2 more podcasts, free.
Pick Your Podcasts — FreeKeep Reading
More from Stay Tuned with Preet
25 Years After 9/11 (with Lisa Monaco & Ken Wainstein)
Sep 10 · 74 min
The Daily (NYT)
On the Front Line of Minnesota’s Fight With ICE
Jan 21
More from Stay Tuned with Preet
Trump’s Push to Reshape the 2026 Election (with Kate Shaw)
Sep 9 · 13 min
The Daily (NYT)
‘A Breaking Point’: The Minneapolis Police Chief on ICE
Jan 12
More from Stay Tuned with Preet
We summarize every new episode. Want them in your inbox?
25 Years After 9/11 (with Lisa Monaco & Ken Wainstein)
Trump’s Push to Reshape the 2026 Election (with Kate Shaw)
How We Value Life: The 9/11 Victim Fund (with Ken Feinberg)
Democrats, Republicans & the Border (with Ken Salazar)
The Weaponization of the FCC (with Jessica Rosenworcel)
Similar Episodes
Related episodes from other podcasts
The Daily (NYT)
Jan 21
On the Front Line of Minnesota’s Fight With ICE
The Daily (NYT)
Jan 12
‘A Breaking Point’: The Minneapolis Police Chief on ICE
The Daily (NYT)
Jan 26
10 Shots: Federal Agents Kill Another Person in Minnesota
Making Sense
Jan 21
#454 — More From Sam: Minnesota, Greenland, Iran, S**thole Countries, and More
Pod Save America
Jan 18
What It Would Take to Rein in ICE
Explore Related Topics
This podcast is featured in Best Politics Podcasts (2026) — ranked and reviewed with AI summaries.
You're clearly into Stay Tuned with Preet.
Every Monday, we deliver AI summaries of the latest episodes from Stay Tuned with Preet and 192+ other podcasts. Free for one show.
Start My Monday DigestNo credit card · Unsubscribe anytime