On January 7 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, a thirty-seven-year-old woman who had been observing ICE raids from her car in her Minneapolis neighborhood. In videos of the incident, we can see Ross firing through Good’s windshield and open window as she begins to drive away. The horrific footage of the killing felt like a stark symbol of today’s authoritarian moment—but at the same time, I knew that anyone involved in the struggle against police violence would find it tragically familiar.

To put Good’s killing in context, I spoke with historian and Boston Review contributing editor Robin D. G. Kelley, whose forthcoming book, Making a Killing: Capitalism, Cops, and the War on Black Life, covers the history of county, state, and municipal police violence—as well as the activism against it. In an email exchange, we discussed the pitfalls of the “perfect-victim narrative,” policing’s terror tactics, why agents don’t need more training, and where we go from here.