Reporters pressed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about why she had jumped to the conclusion that Renee Nicole Good was a domestic terrorist after she was shot to death by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
During a Thursday press conference in New York, a reporter noted that a discreet operation there contrasted with the chaos surrounding the Minneapolis shooting.
"Because of the protesters and the violent criminals that were attacking our law enforcement!" Noem interrupted. "If you remember in that operation, what happened was our officers were out trying to get a car stuck out of the snow when they were surrounded and assaulted and blocked in by protesters that were inciting."
The reporter pointed out that the officer "fired point-blank into a driver."
"Is that part of the training?" he asked. "How is that self-defense?"
"This is an experienced officer who followed his training, and we will continue to let the investigation unfold into the individual and continue to follow the procedures and policies that happen in these use-of-force cases," Noem remarked. "But let's remember the events that surrounded what happened yesterday on that tragic situation was that these individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in. They were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law, and when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not."
"You called her a domestic terrorist, though!" the reporter exclaimed. "Without knowing who she was or what she was about."
"This was an act of domestic terrorism," Noem claimed. "So this is standard operating procedure after every use of force situation is that we followed these procedures and protocols."