I research political violence—significantly how each rising applied sciences and mundane instruments will be weaponized. For greater than a decade, I’ve analyzed politically motivated automobile ramming assaults (VRAs) throughout ideologies and contexts. I’m main a multiyear analysis grant on the subject, which pulls from greater than 500 instances worldwide and systematically codes open-source experiences, video footage, courtroom paperwork, and different main supplies. The purpose is to establish patterns, distinguish intent from ambiguity, and perceive how the tactic spreads.
On account of this work, I’ve watched and analyzed an uncomfortable quantity of auto ramming footage, starting from the earliest instances throughout the First Intifada within the late Eighties to the Jan. 1, 2025, New Orleans truck assault that killed 15 individuals. Based mostly on my expertise, I don’t consider that Renee Nicole Macklin Good sought to intentionally hurt Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026, earlier than he fired three photographs into her SUV because it moved previous him.
I research political violence—significantly how each rising applied sciences and mundane instruments will be weaponized. For greater than a decade, I’ve analyzed politically motivated automobile ramming assaults (VRAs) throughout ideologies and contexts. I’m main a multiyear analysis grant on the subject, which pulls from greater than 500 instances worldwide and systematically codes open-source experiences, video footage, courtroom paperwork, and different main supplies. The purpose is to establish patterns, distinguish intent from ambiguity, and perceive how the tactic spreads.
On account of this work, I’ve watched and analyzed an uncomfortable quantity of auto ramming footage, starting from the earliest instances throughout the First Intifada within the late Eighties to the Jan. 1, 2025, New Orleans truck assault that killed 15 individuals. Based mostly on my expertise, I don’t consider that Renee Nicole Macklin Good sought to intentionally hurt Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026, earlier than he fired three photographs into her SUV because it moved previous him.
I’m deeply alarmed that Trump administration officers rushed to border the incident as a deliberate vehicle-ramming assault, weaponizing the language of terrorism to legitimize a killing that, by all seen proof, doesn’t meet that threshold.
Intentional vehicle-ramming assaults show a constant operational signature throughout the a whole bunch of instances that I’ve studied. We usually see a purposeful method line towards a goal, seen dedication to that line, steering corrections that observe a transferring particular person or group, acceleration at or earlier than the purpose of contact, and follow-through after influence. These indicators distinguish incidents the place a automobile is actively used as a weapon from these the place it merely strikes by means of an area.
Within the footage that I’ve reviewed of the Good capturing, together with video recorded by Ross on his cellphone, not one of the typical indicators of an intentional vehicle-ramming assault are current: The SUV doesn’t speed up towards Ross, nor does it observe him as a goal; as an alternative, the automobile seems to be turning away from the ICE officer in the meanwhile that the photographs are fired. This interpretation is supported by impartial analyses from media shops such because the New York Instances in addition to investigative nongovernmental organizations, corresponding to Index and Bellingcat, all of which recommend that the automobile was not directed on the agent when he opened hearth.
The absence of those indicators erodes the muse for any declare of deliberate intent and, by extension, the legitimacy of the deadly drive that was employed by Ross. In such instances, assured assertions of a vehicle-ramming assault aren’t forensic findings. They’re acts of narrative administration, a part of a broader sample during which a VRA turns into a handy script to retroactively justify extreme and typically deadly drive.
This displays what sociologist Stanley Cohen described because the logic of denial, the place deadly violence is adopted by interpretive and implicatory denials that first reclassify the act, then neutralize its ethical and political penalties. The state makes use of its energy to kill its personal residents, then to outline actuality afterward in a means that insulates itself from consequence.
Establishments flip a contested dying into a licensed story of self-defense by means of official repetition, selective framing, and the early stabilization of intent claims earlier than impartial scrutiny can take a look at these claims towards the report. In different phrases, this logic of denial is dying squad logic—tailored to American streets—and successfully permits energy to transform ambiguity into certainty, and certainty into immunity.
To know why the declare of VRA is such an efficient put up hoc justification for state violence, we have to contemplate how the tactic entered public consciousness. Rising within the Palestinian territories within the late Eighties, vehicle-ramming assaults gained worldwide prominence within the mid-2010s, when jihadi teams corresponding to al Qaeda and the Islamic State started selling them in propaganda as low-tech, high-impact strategies for lone actors. This led to a collection of mass-casualty incidents on European and North American streets.
Over time, vehicle-ramming started to perform as a shorthand for terrorism, risk, and justified drive. As soon as a automobile is seen as a weapon and motion as intent, the necessity to clarify or examine additional typically fades. The response turns into computerized. In each public notion and police coaching, automobile ramming now alerts quick and ongoing hazard. In such instances, a deadly response is not only accepted—it’s anticipated.
This body is highly effective as a result of it’s environment friendly. It provides imminence, lethality, and ethical readability in a single stroke. The declare that “she tried to run me over” collapses distinctions between precise risk and ambiguous motion. It retrofits a high-threat story onto a chaotic scene.
And it does so in terrain the place ambiguity is widespread. Autos inch ahead, reverse. Drivers lower their wheels away. Instructions overlap. Audio is garbled. The scene compresses into seconds. That’s exactly the interpretive terrain the place intent will be asserted with out being demonstrable and the place the phrase, “tried ramming” can outrun proof.
This interpretive reflex isn’t uniquely American. World wide, governments and safety forces have routinely deployed the vehicle-ramming body to justify deadly violence, delegitimize protest, and preempt accountability. In Israel, the time period “automotive assault” is regularly utilized to incidents involving Palestinians lengthy earlier than any investigation happens. In some instances, this framing persists even when subsequent proof factors to unintentional veering, routine site visitors accidents, or mechanical failure.
In India, authorities have repeatedly used vehicle-ramming claims to justify the deaths of protesters and dissidents, citing worry for officer security to clarify shootings or deadly stops, even when video proof signifies little or no risk. In Hong Kong, throughout the 2019-2020 protests, Chinese language state media tried to border demonstrators’ interactions with police as deliberate ramming assaults regardless of no clear proof of intent. As soon as utilized, the VRA label restructures the narrative. The main focus shifts from what truly occurred to how it may be made legible inside an current structure of worry, danger, and legitimacy.
That is the interpretive terrain into which the killing of Good enters. U.S. President Donald Trump publicly framed the capturing as self‑protection and described Good as having “viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” treating intent as settled reality, although video proof doesn’t clearly present the officer being struck.
Vice President J.D. Vance echoed this framing, telling People that the ICE agent’s actions had been justified and claiming that Good’s dying was “a tragedy of her personal making.” Two hours after the capturing, Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem held a press convention the place she claimed that Good acted to “weaponize her automobile, and she or he tried to run a regulation enforcement officer over” and labeled Good’s conduct “home terrorism.”
Claiming, with no proof, that Good used her automobile as a weapon imports not only a tactical evaluation but in addition a complete counterterrorism logic—a cognitive shortcut with huge political utility. It shields businesses corresponding to ICE from oversight in a polarized panorama the place immigration enforcement is already a flash level. If a dying happens throughout enforcement, then a story that alerts legitimacy, deters protest, and rallies political assist isn’t elective; it’s operational.
What begins as a put up hoc justification in a single case dangers turning into institutional muscle reminiscence. When narrative certainty replaces factual uncertainty, not solely is particular person accountability eroded, however new permissions are additionally quietly written into future encounters. If the label “vehicle-ramming” can foreclose scrutiny as soon as, then it is going to be prepared to be used once more. The extra that it’s invoked with out verification, the extra that it turns into reflex, not only for ICE, but in addition for any arm of the state that advantages from deadly ambiguity.
We’re already seeing the sample unfold. It was reported that at some point after Good’s killing, a comparable declare was made in Oregon, the place a Border Patrol agent alleged {that a} driver used their automobile as a weapon. That isn’t proof of fabrication. However it’s proof {that a} script is circulating. The hazard is not only error in a single case; it’s normalization throughout instances. The danger is not only of wrongful dying—it’s of a governance system that replaces transparency with certainty, investigation with narration, and accountability with impunity.
