Five years ago, video images emerged from a Minneapolis street showing a police officer kneeling on the neck George Floyd When his life spiraled downhill it ignited a social movement.
Now, videos are emerging from another street in Minneapolis The last moments of Renee Goode’s life It is central to another debate about law enforcement in America. They have been sliding day by day since ICE Agent Jonathan Ross shot Good last Wednesday in her maroon SUV. However, compared to 2020, the story these images tell is more ambiguous, subject to manipulation within the image itself and the way it is interpreted.
This time, too, the Trump administration and its supporters worked to establish their public vision of the event before the inevitable photos emerged.
But half a decade later, many things aren’t the same anymore — from cultural attitudes to rapidly evolving technology around all kinds of photos.
“We are in a different time,” said Francesca Dillman-Carpentier, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina and an expert on the media’s influence on audiences.
Anyone who watched the painful video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin holding his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, Chauvin’s deadpan face insisting he couldn’t breathe, is unlikely to forget it. United in disgust, the protesters began one of the largest social movements ever seen in the country. He was chauvin convicted Of murder.
The footage “caused many individuals to have an epiphany about racism, specifically cultural racism, in the United States,” legal scholar Angela Onwuachi Willig wrote in a Houston Law Review study that examined whether white Americans experienced collective cultural shock.
She ultimately concluded that this did not happen and that the effect diminished over time. the Roll back diversity programs With the second Trump administration providing evidence for its argument.
“The people writing the cultural narrative of the good shooting took notes from Floyd’s killing and are running that narrative differently,” said Kelly McBride, a media ethics expert at the Poynter Institute.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Judd, who was demonstrating against ICE’s enforcement of immigration laws, as… Domestic terrorist – an explanation rejected by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey with an expletive. Both President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance suggested the shooting was justified because Judd was trying to run Ross over with her car.
On the night of the killing, White House border coordinator Tom Homan was circumspect in an interview with CBS Evening News when he… Anchor Tony Dokoupil He showed him the most viral video of the incident, taken by a bystander and published by a reporter for the Minnesota Reformer. The veteran law enforcement official said it would be unprofessional to prejudge before investigating.
Later that evening, Homan issued a statement calling the shooting “another example of the results of hate speech and violent attacks” against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers.
Video of the incident was generally inconclusive about whether Goode’s car actually struck Ross before he opened fire. Even if he did, many experts question whether that would be a reason to fire his weapon. But clearly that would enhance public sympathy for the officer.
“The ICE videos present irrefutable facts — a woman drove and was then shot and killed by an ICE agent,” said Duy Linh Tu, a documentary filmmaker and professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. “What the videos can’t show is the intent of the woman or the officer. That’s the hard part.”
Jade clearly can’t talk about what prompted her to get into her SUV and move down South Portland Street.
Many news organizations have carefully examined the forensic evidence that has emerged. The Associated Press wrote that it was unclear whether Goode’s car made contact with Ross. “The videos examined by The Washington Post, including one Trump shared on Truth Social, do not clearly show whether the agent was hit or how close the front of the car came to hitting him,” the Washington Post wrote.
The New York Times said, “In one video, the customer appears to have been hit by an SUV. But when we sync it up with the first clip, we can see that the customer was not run over.”
Video it It showed up Friday From the Minnesota Alpha News website, it showed the incident from Ross’ point of view. It also left many questions and there was no shortage of people willing to answer them.
Vance is associated with online video And he wrote: “Many of you have been told that this law enforcement officer was not hit by a car, was not harassed and did not kill an innocent woman. The truth is that his life was in danger and he fired in self-defense.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer Books online “How can anyone on the planet watch this video and conclude what J.D. Vance is saying?” Schumer said the administration is “lying to you.”
When an online commenter wrote that Judd didn’t deserve to be shot in the face, conservative media personality Megyn Kelly said so He responded“Yes, I did. I hit a policeman and almost ran him over.”
Poynter’s McBride said the media in general has done a good and accurate job of identifying the evidence that is circulating among the public. She added that the administration has also been effective in disseminating its interpretation.
There are more camera angles available now than there were with Floyd, but “I don’t know if that adds clarity or more blur to this case,” Tu said. “I think people will see what they want to see. Or rather, they will choose the angle that aligns with what they already believe.”
This nagging sense of uncertainty left behind by the videos leaves experts like Tu and Carpentier to conclude that their impact will pale in comparison to the Floyd case. With each passing year, the public becomes less sensitive to images of violence – e.g The footage spread across the Internet She said Republican activist Charlie Kirk’s presentation was illustrative.
The spread of AI-enhanced fake images also teaches the public to question what they see, she said. Before Ross was identified, the BBC said that false images had spread online speculating on what the masked agent looked like, and a fake video of a demonstration in Minneapolis had spread.
“Now you can’t believe what you see,” Carpentier said. “You don’t know if what you’re seeing is the real video or if it’s been manipulated. I don’t think AI is friendly in this case at all.”
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him on http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.