Eyewitness Disputes Self-Defense Claim in ICE Shooting (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: An eyewitness of the shooting speaking out tonight, her name is Emily Heller. She lives on the street where the shooting happened and she filmed video that we have here just now to share with you out front. It shows the chaos immediately after Renee Nicole Goode was shot and killed by that ICE agent in Minneapolis hours ago. We're going to play it for you. I do want to warn you that it is graphic.

[00:00:24] Speaker 2: Can I go check a pole? No. Back up. Now. I'm a physician. I don't care. I understand. We got EMS coming. I get it. Just give us a second. We have medics on scene. We have our own medics. Where are they? Where are they? How can I relax? You just killed my neighbor. You caught butter in the face. You killed my neighbor. How do you show up to work every day? How the f**k do you do this every day? You're killing my neighbors. You're stealing my neighbors. What the f**k, man?

[00:00:58] Speaker 1: Emily Heller is out front now, who you heard there and filmed that in that horrifically traumatic moment. So Emily, I know you live there. This is your street. This is your home and you're inside your house. You hear all of this commotion. Everything is starting to happen. Okay. Can you tell me what happened then? You hear everything. You come outside and then what?

[00:01:21] Speaker 3: I hadn't even gotten dressed. I was making breakfast. I came. I went out. I heard the commotion. I heard whistles, which is a common sign of ice is nearby. And I went out onto my front porch. I didn't even have shoes on. And within 60 seconds, everything had already gone down. But there was an ice convoy that seemed to be stuck. And then there was a protester who was blocking traffic so they couldn't progress. And she was totally peaceful. And ice, it seemed completely unorganized. They didn't really know what they were doing. They were screaming at her to move, move, move. And then they approached her vehicle aggressively, grabbed, tried to open her door. And then that's when she got spooked. And she reversed her vehicle to turn her wheels to try to escape. And that's when an ice agent stepped in front of her vehicle and said, stop. And then, I mean, she was already moving and then point blank shot her through her windshield in the face.

[00:02:33] Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it was to see that, Emily. The way that you are laying this out, though, I just want to repeat and make sure that I'm clear. And please correct me if I say anything wrong. You're saying that what you saw was disorganized ice. But then when they tried to get her to stop, she got spooked. She reversed her car to turn her wheels to get away. And that was when the officer stepped in front.

[00:02:58] Speaker 3: They were telling her to leave. They were telling her to move. And then all of a sudden, they seemed like they were trying to get her. So they were telling her to move. And then in a split second, they were trying to get her out of the car. So it was like she was trying to move. Once they were trying to get in her car, of course, she wanted to leave at that point. They were extremely aggressive.

[00:03:23] Speaker 1: Yeah. She would have been scared, obviously. You know, President Trump, as you know, posted. He posted a video saying that it's like the ICE agent was alive. And I just want to be clear, the ICE agent is walking afterwards. And we know that from anything that he had in the hospital, he's fine. He's out. But President Trump posted there. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Tell me what you're going to say about what he did afterwards.

[00:03:44] Speaker 3: Oh, he just stood there. The ICE agents, other ICE agents surrounded him. He was obviously spooked, too. I mean, they seem like children. They seem like untrained people. And so that agent was obviously spooked because he had just killed someone. And it was very obvious to everyone who had witnessed it all that she would not make it. And so they kind of gathered around him. And then there was a gold SUV that came and they put him in it and got him out of there because everyone knew he had murdered someone.

[00:04:16] Speaker 1: So President Trump says the woman was disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self-defense. He shared a video of the incident from a different angle. What's your response to that version of events?

[00:04:34] Speaker 3: I mean, that's the only reason why I'm here. I don't think I'm the most articulate person. I don't think that, I don't want to be here. But I knew that this would be twisted and it would be self-defense. And that's absolutely not what happened. But it's just, my life is forever changed from having witnessed this. And I just can't let this narrative that it was self-defense go any further because it's absolutely not what it was. And yeah, my neighborhood, my neighbors, we're all going to be pretty traumatized from this for a long time.

[00:05:09] Speaker 1: In that video that you shared with us that I just played, the 34 seconds, you're obviously incredibly distraught and there's a doctor next to you or near you. We can hear him saying, I'm a physician, I can help. And they say, no, we have our own medics. But the doctor is there offering to administer CPR standing right there. I don't want you to have to relive what you were looking at when the horror of her death, but how did agents respond to him? Was there a speed and a desperation in trying to get any sort of assistance to her? Because it didn't sound like that from what you gave us.

[00:05:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, they wouldn't let him near. And they said they had their own medics that were on their way, which it was, I mean, I don't know. It was at least 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived. And then the ambulance couldn't even get through because the ICE agents had all abandoned their vehicles in the road. So the ambulance couldn't get through. So they parked at the end of the block and about five paramedics came in and examined her for, I didn't see this, but I just, they were with her for a few minutes and then they carried her limp body away by her limbs, not even on a stretcher, just carried her down to the end of the block where they could get a stretcher because there was, they couldn't get through with their ambulance.

[00:06:36] Speaker 1: Emily, I appreciate your talking about this. I know it has to be incredibly difficult. And I think everyone understands why you're choosing to do it to make sure people understand exactly what it is that you saw undocumented. And I appreciate your being willing to do it. Yeah.

[00:06:52] Speaker 3: Thanks.

[00:06:53] Speaker 1: All right, Joey, you heard what Emily had to say. And, you know, she said, I don't want to be a here, but I'm here because I want everyone to know what I saw. And she's very clear about what she saw.

[00:07:04] Speaker 4: Listen, it's got to be a very traumatic experience. What I'm concerned about, though, is the nature of the investigation. Let's be clear that there are going to be, of course, local officials investigating this Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, in addition to the federal government. In the event that there's anything federal here, of course, then Trump would have the power to pardon. We're not there yet. There's not been a prosecution. There's not been an indictment. There's not been a criminal charge levied. However, in the event that it goes that way, I think it's very important that the community gets a sense of fairness, a sense of justice. And in the event that it is federal, of course, there would be, according to Trump and what he put out already, he's judged that there's nothing to see here. And so if the locals get it, what will they do? Will they move forward? And if they move forward, what will that look like? Would it look like a, you know, actual prosecution? And what would be the prosecution here? Criminal negligence, intent? We'll see.

[00:07:57] Speaker 1: Gil, I'm curious. You know, Emily was talking about, you know, there's that physician. And I understand that in the moment like this, right, there's, the most important thing about this country is it's a country of rules and laws. And if they're not upheld in one horrific part of something, it doesn't mean that they should also be dropped in another. In that context, even with that said, though, when the physician says, I can help, and he's right there, and maybe at that point it appears to everybody she's dead, but to take 15 minutes for someone to get there and to not allow someone who might be able to administer CPR, that, just on a human level, that's really hard to hear.

[00:08:32] Speaker 5: Well, if you do have paramedics that are trained, and I believe ICE and CVP, Customs and Border Protection, has people that are trained, and they're right there, that can be a help. I think you're always going to be, as a law enforcement officer, maybe a little suspicious of the person that said, wait, I'm a doctor, I'm a physician, I can help, et cetera. I mean, I think they could have been handled much better, but if they did have the paramedics there immediately, immediately on the scene, they're going to give her treatment.

[00:09:07] Speaker 1: Right. Of course, they said it was 15 minutes, but the trauma there that you heard, the trauma.

[00:09:11] Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, that's what struck me. There's two things that struck me. First of all, just how horrific to witness this on your street, right? And then the second thing is her characterization of the behavior of the ICE agents, the lack of training, the disorganization, the way that they were talking to her, giving her contradicting advice. So I think there's a lot to unpack here.