UNBIASED Politics
January 12, 2026: New ICE Footage of Minneapolis Shooting and When Deadly Force Is Justified, Two Transgender Athlete Cases Before the Supreme Court, Reality of Trump's Greenland Comments, and More.
12 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What updates are there on the Minneapolis ICE shooting and deadly force justification?
Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, January 12th. Let's talk about some news. Quick note first about Iran. I know it's a highly requested topic, but just as a reminder, my general rule here is that I do not dive into international matters until the United States takes some form of
you know, action. So when and if the United States does do that and does get involved, I will certainly talk about it then. But for now, we are going to stick to domestic affairs. Starting with some updates to the ICE shooting in Minneapolis. Since we last talked, there have been some updates, and I do want to cover those updates.
I also want to clear up something that I said in last week's episode and answer some of your questions about what kind of jurisdiction ICE agents have over U.S. citizens. So let's start with clearing up some precedent first.
In last week's episode, I highlighted the fact that ICE agents cannot fire at the driver of a moving vehicle unless they have the reasonable belief that the driver poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of Trump's comments about Greenland?
That per The DHS use of force policy to justify the use of deadly force, an agent has to have the reasonable belief that the subject, in this case the driver, poses an imminent threat of either death or serious bodily injury. And that can either be to the agent or to someone else.
So whether the shots were justified here comes down to whether the agent had a reasonable belief that Renee Good posed an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, either to that agent or to someone else. And in last week's episode, we talked a little bit about what reasonable belief means.
And I said that according to the Supreme Court, when it comes to claims of deadly force, it is an objective standard. Meaning the reasonableness of an agent's use of force has to be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene rather than with the 2020 vision of hindsight.
So courts will ask what a reasonable officer on the scene would have done based on the circumstances that the officer actually faced. not with hindsight after all the facts are known. And in answering that question, courts allow for the fact that agents and officers are often forced to make split-second decisions in situations that are tense or uncertain, you know, rapidly evolving.
Chapter 3: What do we need to know about the Supreme Court hearing on transgender athlete cases?
So there's quite a lot of deference given to law enforcement officers, including ICE agents. But this is the part that I messed up.
So in last week's episode, I said that the question is, at the moment the shots were fired, regardless of what happened leading up to that moment, regardless of the actions the officer took beforehand, would a reasonable officer have believed that the driver posed an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury? Now, that's sometimes called the moment of threat doctrine.
But the Supreme Court actually rejected that doctrine very recently in May of last year. And it was in a case called Barnes versus Felix. So the Supreme Court said in Barnes that the moment of threat doctrine is.
improperly narrows the Fourth Amendment reasonable officer analysis because one, it ignores relevant context and events leading up to the shooting, and two, it conflicts with longstanding precedent requiring a broader totality of the circumstances review. So per the court's ruling in Barnes, courts must look not just at what was happening in the millisecond when the trigger was pulled.
They have to consider all relevant circumstances the officer knew before that happened. So deadly force claims are judged by whether a reasonable officer on the scene would have believed there was an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. And this judgment is objective and it accounts for split second decisions.
But courts cannot limit that inquiry to just the moment the officer pulled the trigger. They have to consider the broader context leading up to that moment. So that is what we're looking at here in the wake of Renee Good's death.
Considering the events that led up to the moment of the shooting, would a reasonable officer on the scene have believed that Good posed an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury? And we do have this new cell phone footage that was released over the weekend, which was taken on the ICE agent's cell phone, the agent that ultimately fired the shots.
In that footage, you can basically hear Renee Good saying, actually, exactly what she says is, quote, that's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you.
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Chapter 4: What are the latest political developments in quick hitters?
And she's saying this as the agent is walking around the car, taking a video of the car and of the license plate. While he's filming, there is another woman in the video standing on the street saying things to the agent like, show your face and you want to come at us?
Chapter 5: How does critical thinking apply to current political issues?
You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.
Chapter 6: What is the good news emerging from the protests in Minneapolis?
The woman who's saying those things is also filming the ICE agent as he is filming her as well as Good's car.
Chapter 7: What rights do U.S. citizens have when confronted by ICE agents?
At this point, another ICE agent can be heard telling Good, get out of the car, get out of the fucking car, and again, get out of the car. And that is when Good puts her car into reverse and starts to pull away. The agent recording the video can be heard yelling at this point as if he's about to be hit by the car. And then you can hear contact made or you can hear like impact sounds.
It's unclear whether that impact was Good's car hitting the agent's cell phone, whether that was Good's car hitting the agent's body, whether that was the agent's cell phone hitting his own body. You're not really sure, but he yells as if he's about to be hit And there is some sort of impact heard. But all within a one second time frame, the impact is heard and the shots are fired.
And from there, an ICE agent, it's not totally clear whether it's the one taking the video or it's another agent that's right in that vicinity, can then be heard saying, fucking bitch, as Good's car comes to a rolling stop, crashing into that light pole and a parked car.
So again, you know, from that perspective, now that we have this new angle, now that we have this new footage, we ask the question again, the same question we were asking last week. Would a reasonable officer on the scene have believed that Goode posed an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury? Now, a lot of you also have questions about ICE's jurisdiction over U.S. citizens.
In other words, what power do ICE agents have over lawful U.S. citizens and what rights do U.S. citizens have in the situation where they're confronted by ICE agents? So this is what I will tell you. If an ICE agent confronts a US citizen, that citizen has the same basic constitutional rights that they would have with any other law enforcement encounter.
Now, the problem is a lot of people don't know their rights. And that's why I'm here to help. I'm going to tell you exactly what rights you have. And this applies, you know, in situations with police officers. This applies in situations with ICE agents. You have the same basic constitutional rights. So first, you have the right to remain silent.
You do not have to answer any questions about anything. You don't have to answer where you were born. You don't have to answer questions about your citizenship status. You don't have to answer questions about how you entered the United States. You don't have to answer questions about anything else for that matter, even if an officer or an agent asks you.
You also have the right to ask if you are being detained or if you are free to leave. If an officer says that you are free to leave, you can walk away. If the officer or agent says no, that means you are being detained and you cannot walk away. You also have the right to refuse a search without a warrant unless officers have probable cause or, as I just said, a warrant.
So ICE agents can't search you without your consent unless they have probable cause. However, they can pat down the outside of your clothes if they think you might have a weapon. Now, if an agent tries to search you or your belongings beyond that pat down, you can say you do not consent to the search. Don't get physical with the agent. You can just say you don't consent, and this is why.
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Chapter 8: What legal questions are raised in the Supreme Court cases regarding transgender athletes?
ProPublica found that 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE in 2025. Now, obviously, that number is not zero, but it's a very, very small number compared to the amount of citizens here in the United States. So I never want to scare you into thinking that you're at serious risk of being confronted by an ICE agent or you're at serious risk of being detained.
But as with anything, anything is possible. So it is important to know your rights. And I hope that this conversation helped. Okay, so now what I want to do is briefly talk about Greenland because a lot of you have been asking whether this is serious, what the legal limits are, and why this is suddenly back in the news.
The reason this is back in the news is because this past Friday, President Trump told reporters that we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.
Now, that comment followed earlier comments by him where he suggested that if the United States doesn't act, Russia or China could move in, which, of course, makes it sound like Greenland is more of a national security issue than anything else. Keep in mind that this is not the first time Trump has talked about Greenland.
Back in 2019, during his first term, he openly floated the idea of buying it. And at the time, he said that Greenland was, quote unquote, strategically interesting. That proposal was met with almost universal rejection in Greenland itself. Fast forward to December 2024, a month after the most recent election, Trump brought up the idea again.
And Trump said that the United States' ownership and control of Greenland was an absolute necessity for national security and global freedom. Greenland's leadership responded immediately and again rejected the idea. The then prime minister said Greenland belongs to its people. It is not for sale and it never will be. And European leaders also weighed in on this.
Countries like France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK, Denmark issued this joint statement basically affirming that Greenland belongs to its people and emphasized NATO unity. So That's where we're at with this. But that brings us to the question, why Greenland? Greenland is a self-governing territory within the kingdom of Denmark. It's big too.
It's about 836,000 square miles, but it's not that populated. Only about 57,000 people live there.
geographically it's ice coastline glaciers tundra but economically and strategically it's it's a lot more than that greenland is actually pretty rich in minerals like lithium and certain rare earth elements along with oil and gas and those rare earth elements and minerals are especially relevant because china currently dominates much of the global supply chain for them so
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