Patrick Mund

Senior Manager, Strategy and Retention New England Revolution, German, Sports Fanatic, all views and opinions are my own

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@HowieLongShort @onlocationexp @FIFAWorldCup Hundreds of hospitality clients in Houston ended up with generic handkerchiefs cause they didn’t pay for enough gifts….

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

You Gott have a dude #knicks

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@RevGunner Yes you get a full Apple TV subscription, we sent them out initially last Thursday

[New England Revolution @NERevolution]

Opening preseason with a dub 🙌

#NERevs

[Isaac Saul @Ike_Saul]

Some thoughts, after sitting and digesting for 24 hours:

Renee Good was 37 years old. The mother of three children. A poet. A wife.

A woman — a human being — is needlessly dead. For me, this is most of what matters. At the same time, this shooting provokes genuine political and legal debates, and it’s my job to start with them, even on days like today when that feels increasingly difficult.

As preventable as her death was, it was also bound to happen. This is the totally horrific, tragic, obvious outcome of enforcing immigration laws this way. And it was predictable. It was so predictable that I actually predicted it. Right after Trump was elected, I warned, multiple times, that mass deportation efforts will lead to civil disobedience and clashes with law enforcement. After the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, I warned that confrontations with immigration officials were getting dangerous and would inevitably end with a major violent event that would then be used to justify more law enforcement being deployed. On X, I shared clips of confrontations between citizens and ICE and warned that they were incredibly dangerous, stressing that most people would react defensively if they saw someone dressed like this trying to arrest their neighbor.

This is America. Distrusting government force is in our national DNA. Heavily armed, masked federal agents with unclear levels of police authority and training cannot reasonably expect to just traipse through our neighborhoods as if they were war zones, kicking down doors or descending from helicopters and snatching people off the streets en masse, and then think everyone will placidly accept it. That (thankfully) is not a circumstance of life we are built to accept.

Each tense interaction filmed and posted and dissected in the media makes it increasingly clear that these ICE agents are not prepared for these kinds of confrontations. Trump has put these officers in dangerous positions, demanding a kind of enforcement that is bold, aggressive and confrontational. Interacting in this manner with American citizens and noncitizens alike is not what these officers are trained to do.

Of course, this is America, so — also — this incident jumped straight from the phones of observers into the partisan wringer, with everyone lining up on their respective sides with their respective polarized takes. Many Democrats and political observers, particularly but not exclusively on the left, see a woman shot to death while driving away from the masked agents with guns. The president, DHS, and some Republicans in Congress have begun framing Renee Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run over and kill an ICE agent. Some think the situation was simply dangerous enough that an ICE agent could fear for his life and was justified in using force. Reasonable people whom I respect, like National Review’s Andrew McCarthy (under “What the right is saying”), come to this conclusion honestly. And, for better or for worse, I think there is a decent chance our legal system absolves this agent of any wrongdoing.

But I have some pushback. First, setting aside the legal question, let’s state plainly that government officials are selling a narrative that is not attached to reality — one that is fundamentally different from what we can all see in the numerous videos available to the public. This event was filmed from several different angles, and it has been broken down at several different speeds, with audio. While I loathe going over the available evidence like it’s instant replay in a football game, I also think this use of force was clearly not necessary — and to make my point most strongly I have to start by playing the game everyone else is.

So here is what I can see and hear:

Renee Good’s car is in the street. The videos we have show her trying to wave ICE agents past her car as they pull up in a vehicle with police lights flashing. Two ICE agents exit and approach her vehicle, she is told to get out of her car, and she says, audibly, “I’m pulling out.” At least one agent begins yelling at her to get out of her vehicle, while one puts his hand on the driver’s side door. She puts the car in reverse with the two ICE agents on the left side of her, while a third circles around the car to the left-side front. She then drives forward and turns her wheels all the way to the right; the third agent moves to get out of the way and fires a shot through the windshield. One angle appears to show the officer actually leaning on the front of the vehicle as she drives past, and though it’s blurry and from a distance, that video looks as if the car pushes the officer’s body out of the way. As this is happening, the officer has pulled out his weapon and he then discharges it. As Good’s car passes him, he fires two more shots; photos of the vehicle after the event show one bullet hole in the front windshield, making it likely the other shots were through the driver’s side window, which was down.

As far as I’m concerned, everything after the guns are fired (the speed of the car, where it goes, etc.) is a moot point, since by then Good has been shot and may have been killed instantly. A man identifying himself as a doctor on scene begged to treat her, but the ICE agents refused to let him, claiming they had their own medics (even though none were visible on the scene in videos shot by eyewitnesses).

Did Renee Good make a mistake? Yes, she did. When someone working for law enforcement tells you to do something, barring the most extreme extenuating circumstances, it is a good rule of thumb to do it. Why? Because respecting and listening to law enforcement is the best way to keep yourself safe. Just or unjust (and in this case, I think it is very clearly unjust), this outcome is a distinct possibility when you don’t cooperate.

At the same time, Good was not the only person with agency here. Even if we concede that she did not respond to clear orders to get out of her car, that she should not have driven away and that an officer could reasonably construe her actions as a “lethal” threat, hers are not the only actions we should judge. The ICE agents are the ones with the guns and the authority who are supposed to be in control. So let’s talk about their choices.

One eyewitness said ICE agents gave Good conflicting instructions, with some telling her to leave while others told her to get out of the car. The video backs this up: You can hear a lot of yelling and barking orders, and the officers aren’t approaching her car with uniform calm, control, and clarity. Also, officers are never supposed to position themselves in front of a vehicle or approach it from the front for precisely this reason. DHS officers are generally prohibited from discharging a firearm at a moving vehicle, unless someone is using their car as a deadly weapon and “no other objectively reasonable means of defense is available.” DHS also has use-of-force rules, which are relatively straightforward and include a baseline “respect for human life” and “the communities we serve,” emphasizing de-escalation tactics as a core component.

It seems pretty clear to me from the available video evidence that several of these officers violated each of these rules. The agent who approached her car and grabbed the door handle needlessly escalated the situation. The agent who killed Good positioned himself in front of the vehicle with one hand on the hood and the other on his firearm; he then discharged his weapon into a moving vehicle. As a group, the officers did not display basic respect for human life or the communities they serve, and they did not attempt to de-escalate the situation. Remember, Renee Good looked to be trying to wave the officers past her and said explicitly and clearly, “I’m pulling out” before they surrounded her vehicle and demanded she get out of her car. On a street packed with law enforcement officers and civilians, it would have been safest to allow her to drive past them, then pursue her in their own vehicles if they wanted to detain her.

At the risk of speculating too much, I think the videos clearly show that the reaction from the ICE agents scared Good, and she simply tried to leave. The idea that a deadly use of force here is justified seems farcical to me, even for the agent toward the front of the vehicle who was at most risk of being hurt. McCarthy, for his part, argues (emphasis mine) that Good “may not have intended to run him over, but she sure didn’t appear to be trying to avoid running him over if that was necessary to escape.” What I see, actually, is the complete opposite: that she very clearly turned her vehicle away from them.

Now, I know people are looking to me for a measured, dispassionate analysis of these contentious debates, but, when I ask myself what should be happening — what appeals to my moral center — I really don't feel conflicted at all. At the end of the day, what are we really debating? ICE shot and killed an American citizen, a 37-year-old mom, whose glove box was stuffed with children’s toys and who — prior to being confronted — at the absolute worst committed the crime of blocking traffic to try to obstruct immigration enforcement.

When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, one of the things that struck me was that I could see myself in him — a young dad, political commentator, a podcast host, someone who does public events. As a result, I did my best to emphasize his humanity. Here, again, this killing hits home. My wife is a mom in her 30s and a public defender in Philadelphia. In the last few months, some of her clients have been snatched up by ICE while attending scheduled immigration hearings. What if she got caught in the middle, or responded with fear in a way that police viewed as “resisting” or “interfering”; would millions of people jump to the conclusion that she deserved to be killed? For the crime of standing between ICE and an immigrant alleged to be here illegally?

These feelings are tough for me to shake. Why did an ICE agent pull his firearm on a 37-year-old American woman who looked like she was trying to leave the scene in her car? What threat did she reasonably pose to them? What immigration enforcement are they conducting in preventing her from leaving? Would we have had a better outcome if they simply let her leave? What are we even doing here? An American citizen has been killed by immigration officers, and for what? Who was made safer? What community benefited?

From the very beginning, the idea that masked immigration agents roaming the streets of American cities would be empowered to this degree has been worrisome and frightening, precisely for this reason. They are not adequately trained for these interactions. More to the point, their authority and jurisdiction are, at best, murky in situations like this. They cannot legally detain a U.S. citizen without reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally. They are not the police. They are not the military. They are not the National Guard. They are not the FBI. Yet they behave like they are all of the above, and are egged on by the president, his cabinet, and members of Congress.

Regardless of the minute details, which we could debate and interpret in all kinds of partisan ways, what’s very, very plain to me is that this woman was not a “domestic terrorist” trying to “kill” ICE agents with her car; nor is it a “miracle” they survived (when the video shows not a single one on scene was injured, and the one in the most danger was barely touched by a vehicle moving at a speed of a few miles per hour). These are lies — from the president, from DHS, and from sitting members of Congress. If you believe this account from the government, then we are beyond a Rorschach test on use of force. You are not attached to the reality of this moment.

As one neighbor and eyewitness, who self-identified as “right-leaning,” told reporters, “This is not how we’re supposed to be doing things in America.”

[New England Revolution @NERevolution]

Up next in the Revolutionary Work series: Caroline Gaughan

Caroline is our Hospitality Administration Manager, whose passion for creating memorable moments keeps the Revolution spirit alive! ⚽✨

➥ https://t.co/wM0faZeXAL

[Taylor Twellman @TaylorTwellman]

🤤🫡�

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@austinabbott Christian Watson or Chimere Duke

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

The only thing Quentin Johnston is allowed to do today #TNFonPrime

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@notbriankamler The upgrade is for the tickets exchanged into the game, either from previously “banked” tickets or a future game you might not be able to attend. You are correct that only the additional tickets receive the complimentary upgrade

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@justavaj Your season long season membership pass is good to go for tomorrow

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

Finished off the third quarter with equally terrible 4 shots and made none of them…I’m predicting this terrible offense continues esp because Tatum wrist hurts #celtics

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

We just finished that quarter with 4 straight terrible shots….they all went in tho #celtics

[Isaac Saul @Ike_Saul]

With trust in mainstream media at an all-time low and so many media orgs struggling to keep their lights on, @TangleNews has had the best few months in our company's 5+ years in existence.

Today: 340,000+ newsletter subs, $3 million+ in sub revenue, a flourishing ad biz. Why?

[Isaac Saul @Ike_Saul]

This framework for the Trump-Zelensky mineral rights deal is a great step forward.

Let me start by swatting away some of the nonsense I’m seeing out there. First of all, calling this plan a “shakedown” ignores the basic history of how it’s evolved. A mineral rights deal was literally Zelensky’s suggestion. It was part of the victory plan he released last year, in which he said Ukraine could offer allies “a special agreement for the joint protection of the country's critical resources,” including “natural resources and critical metals worth trillions of U.S. dollars, including uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite, and other strategically valuable resources.”

Not only that, but deals like this are nothing new. The pearl clutching from the liberal class about “Trump's gangster-like shakedown” being a “breathtaking deviation from decades of American global leadership, effectively recasting the United States as a global gun for hire,” is actually laughable.

We have the strongest military in the world. We’re more than a global gun for hire — we have always used our vast power to advance our interests around the world.

We use our military might to defend other nations when our interests are aligned, and we’ve never done any of that for free. We have a checkered track record with military intervention, but throughout U.S. history we have also defended leaders and nations striving toward democracy and freedom. We should be defending Ukraine. But we also don’t intervene in every single conflict. We don’t always fight for democracy or freedom everywhere all the time; we do it when our involvement benefits us in some way. That is not new, it’s not Trumpian, and acting out of self-interest in times of war is not the same as being an unprincipled mercenary.

This minerals deal framework makes obvious sense for us and for Ukraine. It is perfectly in line with similar arrangements that have been made throughout history, and if Ukraine’s allies have economic interests in the country, they’ll want stability. If the U.S. depends in some way on rare earth minerals in Ukraine, the U.S. will be upset if Russia rains bombs down on the Donbas and will find a way to make it stop. That much is simple. Economic interests can produce military security.

Putting aside the U.S. perspective, it’s also a wise political move from Zelensky. On Monday, the Ukrainian president responded to nonsense from Trump and Musk about his own personal interests driving the war by offering to step down as president in exchange for peace or NATO membership — a brilliant response that immediately shut them up and made their dictator claims against him look as silly as they are. Zelensky is good at this.

Zelensky knows that funding from the U.S. and Europe depends on elected officials approving that funding. He understands that those elected officials have to answer to voters at home, who may be wondering why their roads are riddled with potholes while $50 billion is sent to support Ukraine’s government. If he can make the case for defending Ukraine in economic terms, politicians can sell the support to their constituents back home.

On top of being wise, it's rational. Ukraine, like any nation, has strengths and weaknesses. Compared to other European countries, its military is a weakness and its natural resources are a strength. It makes sense to use one to improve the other. Writers suggesting Ukraine is being “asked to trade away its economic sovereignty to fend off Russian aggression” could just as easily write “Ukraine is smartly trading some of its economic strength for its literal sovereignty.”

And let’s be clear here: Zelensky does have some leverage. The United States’ biggest global competitor is China, which is rich in many of the same natural resources that Ukraine is. These minerals are critical for the future of all kinds of electronics and tech — from weapons to electric vehicles. The crucial details of this deal have not yet been finalized, but Trump’s initial lob here was a paydown of some $500 billion in natural resources, and I think it’s pretty clear he’s not going to get that. Zelensky clearly understands the strengths of his position.

Let’s also not forget that last week a lot of people were worried about Ukraine allegedly being “left out of a peace deal.” Now, Putin is being wholly left out of these negotiations and trying to insert himself by offering up hundreds of billions of dollars or even Russia’s own mineral resources (including those on lands Russia is occupying in Ukraine). If you are the Trump administration, this is a good place to be — you want Russia squirming, and you want an avenue toward a long-term, win-win deal with Ukraine.

As I said last week, and have said every time we’ve written about this topic for the past three years, Russia started this war. They can end it any day by leaving Ukraine, and we should never forget that Putin invaded a sovereign country on the trumped-up premise that 40 million free Ukrainians belong to him. That much should be obvious to everyone, including the U.S. president (and it is appalling that it apparently is not).

That being said, I’ll judge Trump by the outcome here. The previous administration had three years to facilitate a resolution to this conflict, which started on its watch. Biden did a good job rallying European allies to Ukraine’s side, and he did the right thing by pushing U.S. lawmakers to support Ukraine in the war. If anything, with 20/20 hindsight, I believe that if we had had more faith in Ukraine and supported them more aggressively early on in the war, it may well be over by now. Unfortunately, while the Biden administration succeeded in helping prevent the fall of Ukraine, it also failed to hammer out a peace deal.

Given that, I do not blame Trump or the Trump administration for taking a different tack. It would literally be insane to keep trying the same thing and expect a new outcome. Do I wish Ukraine had more options on the table — like NATO membership and the return of stolen territory? Yes, I do.

Am I going to object to a deal that would end the bloodshed, improve the United States’ long-term economic goals, tie Ukraine’s security closely to our economic interests, and is apparently good enough for Ukraine’s president?

Absolutely not.

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@Boston_Diehards More like trading Joe Burrow for Cooper Kupp

[Isaac Saul @Ike_Saul]

If you are struggling to understand this moment, I cannot emphasize enough the need for you to get out of your echo chamber and engage arguments/ideas from across the political spectrum.

I have just the place to do that 😉

https://t.co/xLuJlaATqV

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@car0linegaughan It’s still 2 months away!!!

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

This the first thing I thought of

[NBACentral @TheDunkCentral]

Dwyane Wade’s statue 🔥

(Via @WillManso )

[Patrick Mund @Pattheyerman]

@Boston_Diehards He’s just not good