While everyone was gearing up to celebrate the ending of 2025 and the beginning of a new year, Keith Porter Jr. was shot and killed by ICE. The events that led to the incident are still being investigated, however what is known is an ICE agent approached Porter Jr., who was outside of his apartment in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. They had words and then the ICE agent fatally shot him.
Keith Porter Jr.’s death on New Years Eve 2025 was a bookend to the inhumane destruction that is President Donald Trump’s first year of his second term. This was a reminder that Trump 2.0’s assault on undocumented immigrants can and will spill over to everyone. Nearly a week later, in Minneapolis, MN, Renee Nicole Good was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, shot three times. Two weeks following that shooting, Alex Pretti, also residing in Minneapolis, Mn was another victim of the federal agency, shot multiple times while at a protest. These three people – Porter Jr., Good, and Pretti were all murdered by ICE, however, only the later incited protest, anger. and outrage. The former’s death was mentioned or cited very little by the media and social action circles. Why? Because Porter Jr is a Black man, and being that elicits not much sympathy or concern.
When discussing Alex Pretti, his employment as nurse in the VA and service to veterans is amplified. Renee Nicole Good’s title as a Mother is one of, if not the first thing that is mentioned. However, when or if we talk about Keith Porter, him being a father, active member of his community, and avid fisherman, is rarely discussed. There is no such thing as a perfect victim, but Porter is not even seen as full human being. Nothing about his life is discussed; he is just another casualty of Trump’s war against Brown people.
For Black people in America, the lack of coverage of Keith Porter Jr.’s death and acknowledgement of his life is nothing new. When an African-American man or woman is killed by law enforcement, there may be a pause, sadness even. However, questions will then arise: What was he doing? Did he comply? Was he violent towards the police? Did he follow the rules… We are never just victims of an aggressive and/or racist authority, who we are always play into our fate. Black folks do not get the benefit of the doubt in these situations. In this case, what is more striking is how little sympathy Porter Jr. has gotten compared to Good and Pretti. His death is barely mentioned in the media with those two. In the killings of Good and Pretti, they are presented as an escalation of ICE’s brutality to murder. It is shocking that this white man and woman were shot to death by the federal government. Their deaths are framed as “It can happen to anyone.” In the killing of Keith Porter Jr, he is just another dead Black man by the hands of law enforcement. Nothing shocking here.
For me, the difference in the response between the deaths of Keith Porter Jr, Renee Nicole Good, and Alex Pretti says this: white life and death exponentially holds more weight than Black life. Seeing white folks being killed while unarmed by law enforcement elicits fear and concern. White America usually is not on the end of state sponsored terrorism, so when it does happen the uproar is loud and alarming. There has always been a saying where I come from – “Change will only happen when it affects them” and I believe that is what we are seeing.
However, there is another possible viewpoint – the expectation and desensitization of Black death. In the history of America, African-American’s have always been killed by some kind of law enforcement. From the everyday brutality that enslaved African’s faced, lynchings, mass shootings by racist white men, to the recent scores of unarmed Black men that have been killed by the police and caught on video, Black death is viewed a regular occurrence. This is a part of our experience in the US of A. We have come to expect it. When someone who is white is killed in the same manner, there is a shock to the system. The once safety that whiteness afforded is being challenged. “This is not supposed to happen to us, only to them” is being said.
In a just world, the death of Keith Porter Jr. by the hands of an ICE agent would be an equal rallying cry to dismantle the federal organization as the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, but it is not. Seeing the coverage and lack of empathy Porter Jr. received, as a Black man is disheartening and unsurprising. “We don’t even register,” I say to myself. Our lives garner disdain and our deaths are not even an after thought. As African-American’s we cannot let the deaths of young men and women like Keith Porter Jr. be forgotten. We must continue to remember him and keep his name out there, even if everyone else won’t.