First it was Renee Good, 37, who, unbeknownst to herself, committed suicide by ICE by simply doing what she thought she was trained to do, and what she errantly believed was right. As her common-law “wife” commanded her to “drive, baby, drive,” she hit the gas in her Honda SUV and drove directly into eternity without ever learning the full truths about why she did what she did. Mass psychosis can do that to people. They never have the chance to learn from a fatal mistake.
Now it’s Michael Pretti, also 37, who committed suicide by ICE, again not in a premeditated way, though he did everything you could possibly do to get yourself killed by law enforcement under certain conditions.
If you’re not already aware of who Pretti was, he is the man who was shot and killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis yesterday during a melee. He was violently resisting arrest from at least three ICE officers. Like Good, he was there to disrupt ICE’s operations. Like Good, he followed the same guidelines that trained anti-ICE protesters have been following of late: make noise, blow whistles, get in the ICE agents’ faces, and do whatever you can to make it hard on them to arrest you.
Both Good and Pretti followed those guidelines, each in their own way. It would seem that neither expected to be killed for doing what they did. Still, it was they who made all of the decisions they did, which led to their respective deaths. Both had numerous opportunities leading up to their deaths to prevent them.
You already know about what Good did to cause her suicide by ICE. She interfered with federal law enforcement operations. She used a vehicle to impede those operations. She was in the midst of being arrested, fully aware that she was in the wrong.
As we’ve been told time and again by the anti-ICE movement, uncivil disobedience is what’s required right now to effect change. Her actions say she may have believed just that. So, instead of complying with peaceful instructions from law enforcement to get out of her car and plan for her day in court, she hit the gas pedal on her vehicle. She knew there were officers all around her. She had even spoken to the man whom she forced to pull his weapon on her.
It’s safe to assume that she did not want to die on that day. It’s likely that it never even occurred to her that she could die regardless of what she did. Immediately after her death, it appears her partner, Rebecca Good was heard shouting at the ICE officers, asking them why they used real bullets.
I missed this clip before.
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) January 13, 2026
After Renee Wood’s death, someone—apparently her partner, Becca—screaming: “Why did you have real bullets?”
How could she not know law enforcement uses real bullets??pic.twitter.com/JqiBcP0mDV
This underscores that, at the very least, Renee and Rebecca Good had tragically underestimated what could happen when Good decided to violently confront law enforcement officers with her vehicle.
Yesterday, we saw another instance of suicide by ICE when Pretti, in his own way, followed the same template that Good did. He confronted ICE officers, trying to disrupt an active ICE operation. If you watch the video, you can see he clearly was not trying to avoid a physical confrontation. Rather, it looks like that’s what he wanted. At the very least, it’s safe to assume he knew he could be arrested, and presumably, he may have wanted to be arrested in the name of this movement for which he ultimately died.
Pretti violently resisted arrest, and he was armed. Like Good, who was behind the wheel of an SUV, he had the means to instantly kill someone when he willingly put himself in that position. Like Good, he was physically engaged with law enforcement officers who were trying to arrest him when he died. As with Good, I think it’s safe to assume he underestimated what could go wrong, and he paid the ultimate price for this miscalculation.
He could have decided not to disrupt a law enforcement operation. He could have decided not to engage in physical confrontation with ICE officers. He could have decided to leave his handgun at home. Once he had multiple ICE officers on his back trying to subdue him, he could have relented and waited for his day in court.
He did none of that, and so when one of the officers removed his firearm from him in the midst of the tussle, it went off, it would seem, errantly. In the heat of the moment, seconds earlier, ICE officers saw the weapon and shouted, “Gun!” They all now knew at that moment that Pretti was armed, and within seconds, they heard that first gunshot. It appears they responded as trained, and in moments, Pretti was dead.
Investigations are underway, and people far more expert than I will weigh in. But one thing is clear: Both Good and Pretti did the will of someone they didn’t know.
The masterminds behind the anti-ICE movement don’t care about them. They just need martyrs for the good of the cause. To get those martyrs, they have to convince idealistic and willing people to put their careers, their family lives, their freedom, and ultimately their very lives at risk – all for a political objective.
But when you want someone to put all of that on the line, you can’t frame it that way. You can’t simply tell people you want to win a set of elections and put Democrats in power for political reasons. You have to dress it up in cult-like fashion. You have to condition people to believe that they are on the side of “good” in a battle against “evil.” But you also have to condition them to believe that the game they are playing is just a game and there are rules. So long as you follow their guidance, the police can’t touch you.
That’s where death enters the picture. The creators of this guidance know this is a lie. They know that by putting naïve and willing aggressors out on the streets, the police can touch them. The masterminds want the police to arrest their followers, to at least appear to beat those protesters up, and to possibly kill them. They want it on video. They want the death to go viral. They want to use those final seconds of someone's life to destroy a political party and ultimately the country. They want power. To them, someone's "martyrdom" is a small price to pay.
To get people to make the ultimate sacrifice, they need to convince them that some things are bigger than themselves. They need to convince them that the worst that can happen is they'll go to jail for a few hours, but after that, they can become a movement hero. They need to convince their followers that those ICE officers they see day after day, who practice the utmost restraint, really can’t hurt you. They need to convince protesters that once a confrontation starts, the protester is better prepared than those officers, and that the protesters have the power. In short, they want protesters to overestimate themselves.
That's why they invent new, deceptive words like "de-arrest" — to make you think you can somehow not get arrested when law enforcement is in the act of arresting you.
Look at the training “MN Ice Watch” (which Renee Good belonged to) gives:
— Matt Whitlock (@MattWhitlock) January 11, 2026
They train activists to assault law enforcement, to swarm, pressure, and open their car doors.
And they say each “de-arrest” is a “micro-intifada.” Do with that what you will.
H/t @StrackHaley pic.twitter.com/5TjXzJfljy
What they won’t say is police are trained to use lethal means to enforce the law and protect themselves and the public at large. The masterminds know exactly where the lines are and what kind of things will prompt officers to pull their guns.
They have designed everything to put people in this position. They know that if you get enough foolish followers to do what you want, eventually one or two of them will push it too far and pay for it with their lives. Anyone can predict that if you have enough altercations with law enforcement, sooner or later someone will die. That’s the whole point.
Suicide-by-cop is a common term used to describe instances where someone intending to kill themselves will use the police to do it by forcing officers to use deadly force. You see this when someone takes a hostage or brandishes a gun or a knife in a threatening manner in a public space. When the police arrive, they have to make split-second decisions on whether that individual is an immediate threat to those around them.
These same dynamics are at play here; only when a protester dies, it would seem that the one person who never anticipated they could die is the one who instigated the situation in the first place.
This is suicidal. It’s time the people behind the anti-ICE movement are held to account. They know what they’re doing.
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