Everyone Thinks They Know What Happened in Minneapolis. Slow Down.

Video and certainty arrived faster than evidence in the ICE shooting. An investigative reporter explains why patience matters.

The shooting involving ICE agents in Minneapolis is already being treated as a morality play, neatly divided into sides that appear to have reached certainty within hours. On one side, accusations invoking Nazis and secret police. On the other, demands for uncompromising immigration enforcement and blanket exoneration. What stands out is not only the speed of the reaction, but the confidence with which judgments were rendered—despite how little is actually known.

I want to offer a note of caution, not as a political gesture, but from the perspective of someone who has spent years investigating violent acts, disputed evidence, and official narratives that later unraveled under closer scrutiny.

If there is one lesson that should have been learned from decades of deadly confrontations between law enforcement and civilians, it is that short video clips are often the most inflammatory evidence and the least complete. They create the impression of clarity while stripping away context—what pre…