Minneapolis videos from Floyd to Good highlight how images are contested
Five years ago, video images from a Minneapolis street showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd as his life slipped away ignited a social movement. Now, videos from another Minneapolis street showing the last moments of Renee Good’s life are central to another debate about law enforcement in America.
The Associated Press reports that the Good footage has been slipping out day by day since ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good last Wednesday in her maroon SUV. The story has become more contested as different public interpretations have appeared alongside the imagery itself, including what the AP describes as efforts by the Trump administration and its supporters to establish their own view before the images circulated widely.
Francesca Dillman Carpentier, a University of North Carolina journalism professor who studies media’s impact on audiences, told the AP, “We are in a different time.” She said that the way audiences receive violent images depends heavily on the broader media environment, and that environment has shifted since 2020.
The AP contrasts the Floyd period with the Good case. For many people who saw the Floyd video on May 25, 2020, including Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, the details have remained seared into public memory. The AP says Chauvin’s impassive face and Floyd’s insistence that he couldn’t breathe helped unite demonstrators in revulsion and helped drive one of the nation’s largest-ever social movements. Chauvin was convicted of murder.
The AP also points to an academic study as part of the aftermath of the Floyd-era footage. Angela Onwuachi-Willig, writing in a Houston Law Review study, said the footage “caused many individuals to experience an epiphany about racism, specifically cultural racism, in the United States.” The AP reports that she later concluded that the cultural trauma described in the study did not happen and that the impact diminished with time, with the rollback of diversity programs under the second Trump administration cited by the AP as offering evidence for that view.
In the Good case, the AP reports that some officials moved quickly to assign motive and meaning to the incident as the videos circulated. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Good, who was demonstrating against ICE enforcement of immigration laws, a domestic terrorist, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey dismissed Noem’s characterization with an expletive. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance suggested the shooting was justified, saying Good was trying to run Ross down with her vehicle.
The AP reports that in an appearance on the “CBS Evening News” with anchor Tony Dokoupil, White House border czar Tom Homan was cautious after being shown widely distributed video of the incident. The AP says Homan told Dokoupil it would be unprofessional “to prejudge before an investigation,” before later issuing a statement calling the shooting “another example of the results of the hateful rhetoric and violent attacks” against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers.
Video evidence in the Good case has not settled the key questions, the AP reports. It says video has generally been inconclusive about whether Good’s vehicle actually hit Ross before he opened fire, and that even if contact occurred, experts question whether it would have represented grounds for firing his weapon. Documentarian Duy Linh Tu said to the AP, “These ICE videos do present irrefutable facts — a woman drove her car and then she was shot dead by an ICE agent,” adding, “What the videos can’t show is the intent of the woman or the officer. And that’s the tricky part.”
The AP describes how, as additional footage has emerged, different interpretations have continued to diverge. It reports that the AP itself wrote it was unclear whether Good’s car made contact with Ross, and it says other outlets reached similarly limited conclusions based on video review. The Washington Post, the AP reports, said videos it examined—including one shared on Truth Social by Trump—did not clearly show whether the agent was struck or how close the front of the vehicle came to striking him. The New York Times, the AP reports, said that one video appears to show the agent being struck, but synchronization with a first clip showed the agent was not being run over.
With more angles now circulating, the AP reports that competing claims have escalated through prominent political voices. JD Vance linked to video and wrote, “Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn’t hit by a car, wasn’t being harassed and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self-defense.” Chuck Schumer posted online, “how could anyone on the planet watch this video and conclude what JD Vance says?” and added that the administration “is lying to you.”
Megyn Kelly also weighed in on the interpretation of the footage, telling the AP in a reported exchange that the person criticizing the shooting was wrong. The AP reports Kelly said, “Yes, she did. She hit and almost ran over a cop.”
Even as more camera angles have appeared compared with 2020, Tu told the AP that added footage might not translate to clearer answers. “I don’t know if that adds clarity or more fog to this case,” Tu said, adding that “people will see what they want to see” and will pick the angle that aligns with what they already believe.
The AP says Carpentier and Tu both concluded that uncertainty and audience fragmentation may limit how powerfully the Good videos resonate compared with the Floyd footage. Carpentier told the AP that public desensitization to images of violence has grown over time, and she pointed to examples including the online spread of footage showing Republican activist Charlie Kirk. She also warned that AI-enhanced material is adding new doubts about whether what people are seeing is real.
The AP reports that before Ross was identified, BBC Verify said false images were spreading online speculating about what the masked agent looked like, and that fake video of a Minneapolis demonstration circulated as well. Carpentier said, “Now you can’t believe what you’re seeing,” adding that, “You don’t know if what you’re seeing is the real video or if it has been doctored,” and “I don’t think AI is being a friend in this case at all.”