In the weeks following the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minnesota, there have been countless dissections of the events of each shooting — the moves of all parties slowed down, paused and rewound ad nauseum.
One detail in Good’s death in particular is something that has lingered in the minds of countless women (and those who love them) since: the video footage showing that in the seconds after the agent, later identified as Jonathan Ross, shot Good in the head, he referred to her as a “fucking bitch.”
And it’s that detail that seems to be a pretty accurate temperature read for how Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been reacting to women who are protesting and observing in Minnesota, as Megan J. Peterson, executive director of Gender Justice and Gender Justice Action, a Minnesota-based gender equity organization, told HuffPost.
“We are seeing basically in the reports that are coming in that, it’s not just [Good] who he called a ‘fucking bitch,’” Peterson said. “That is now a popular refrain that ICE is using when encountering women protesters and ICE Watch folks. We’ve definitely gotten reports of that in an ongoing way.”
She said her organization, which launched a tool for reporting gender-based violence from federal law enforcement after the killings, also found that ICE agents were “making comments to women that ‘they should be home with their children,’ making disparaging comments about women’s appearances ... and the systematic misgendering and mistreatment of trans women in detention.”
