In a Jan. 12 op-ed, former Judge John Danaher urged us to wait for the facts on the video of the Minnesota shooting by ICE. While he may have been correct in saying it’s very hard to analyze whether the ICE agent was justifiably threatened, some elements of the video are not in any doubt. 

The agent who killed the Minnesota mother of three walked in front of the car while the motor was running. A kindergartner knows better than that. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance have both defended the shooting on the grounds that the agent was “following his training.” Training that allows an agent to walk in front of a car, with its motor running during a confrontation, and then use deadly force when he felt threatened, is training and policy that will obviously lead to incidents like the one in Minnesota. 

But, never once has the administration suggested that such lethally flawed training and policies should be reviewed, not to mention immediately ended. Therefore, we can expect more deadly confrontations that could be avoided by training and policies that place a high value on American lives. 

So, even if we are inclined to believe the ICE agent justifiably felt threatened, we should be outraged at an administration that places such a low value on life, because we, too, could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and end up with a bullet in our face. 

Sigrid Olson
Cape Elizabeth