“Complying with violence IS violence. Filming violence when you could disrupt violence IS violence. Standing a safe distance from violence when you could stop the violence IS violence.”
The Minnesota Ice Watch group Renee Good and her wife Becca Good were affiliated with disseminated materials teaching activists how to "de-arrest" themselves and their comrades when confronting law enforcement out in the street. The anonymous document is touched as practical guidance and "purely for educational purposes." In other words, they don't want to be held accountable when people use these tactics in practical circumstances.
The Goods were part of the anti-ICE watch group and had come to be part of it through Renee's son's charter school. A mother whose child attends the school said that Renee "was a warrior. She died doing what was right." Renee's three children are now without a mother, and her youngest son is an orphan.
That mother said that Renee "was trained against these ICE agents — what to do, what not to do, it’s a very thorough training. To listen to commands, to know your rights, to whistle when you see an ICE agent. I know she was doing the right thing. I watched the video plenty of times but I also know in my heart the woman she was, she was doing everything right.”
The tactics included in the "de-arrest" zine instructs agitators to directly disobey law enforcement and while the caution on the post reads, "De-arrests are generally a riskier tactic that may carry physical and legal consequences." It goes on to say, "This post is therefore not telling you (or anyone) what you should or should not do. But it’s important whether or not you ever intend to use this tactic that you understand HOW it’s done and WHY intervening in state violence - whether successful or not - is important."
One of the tactics mentioned is to block law enforcement, including their vehicles, in order to pressure officers to release a person whom they have attempted to arrest. It is noted in the materials that this tactic was effective during the Gaza protests on US college campuses.
The post from Imperfect Activist on Instagram, which was shared by MN ICE Watch, reads that "complying with violence IS violence. Filming violence when you could disrupt violence IS violence. Standing a safe distance from violence when you could stop the violence IS violence. If the impact of your actions/inaction is that violence is perpetrated, you are a party to that violence."
It instructs people to interfere directly with law enforcement, even with "pulling and pushing an officer."
ICE Watch held trainings in Minneapolis and St. Paul in the days leading up to the protest where Brown lost her life when she angled her car in the street to block law enforcement vehicles from driving down the street. She was shot by an ICE agent as she drove her car into him. She'd been told to get out of the car but did not comply.
Becca Good stood outside the vehicle filming and taunting ICE agents ahead of the shooting and was caught on video telling Renee to drive away, which led directly to Renee's death. After she was shot, Becca was heard on footage captured by onlookers to say that it was all her "fault."
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