Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, reportedly had a history of escalating arrests with violent tactics. 

Ross, a 10-year law enforcement veteran, was injured in June during the chaotic attempted arrest of Roberto Carlos Muñoz, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala with prior convictions for criminal sexual conduct, who drove off during a traffic stop in Bloomington, Minnesota. 

Ross and another agent pulled in front of Muñoz’s vehicle to force him to stop. The two officers exited their vehicle and aimed their firearms at Muñoz, demanding he provide documentation, which he did, according to the affidavit. When the officers demanded that Muñoz roll down his window, he refused. Ross pulled out his taser, which he aimed at Muñoz’s chest, and the officers warned Muñoz that they would break the window if he did not comply.

Ross used a spring-loaded window punch to break the rear driver’s side window, and reached in to try and unlock the driver’s side door. Muñoz put the car in drive and dragged Ross roughly 100 yards, while Ross fired his taser “at least twice,” according to the affidavit. The agent later testified that he fired his taser 10 times.  

Eventually, Ross was shaken loose from the window, falling into the street. “The agent suffered serious lacerations on both arms, which required 33 stitches in total to close,” the affidavit said. 

“I was fearing for my life. I knew I was gonna get drug,” Ross said, according to a transcript of his court testimony from December. “And the fact I couldn’t get my arm out, I didn’t know how long I would be drugged. So I was kind of running with the vehicle.”

The claim that an officer was “fearing for their life” is a common phrase used by officers to justify their use of deadly force—and has become a familiar refrain for ICE agents who claim protesters’ vehicles were “weaponized” against them.  

Vice President JD Vance delivered a full-throated defense of Good’s killing Thursday, while botching some of the details of Ross’s backstory. 

Complaining about a CNN headline that described the incident, Vance said: “What that headline leaves out is the fact that that very ICE officer nearly had his life ended, dragged by a car six months ago, 34 stitches in his leg, so you think maybe he’s a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him with an automobile?” 

Setting aside the fact that it was Ross’s arm, not his leg, that was injured, Vance’s remarks also absurdly suggest that any officer hurt in the line of duty has a free pass to remain in the field and shoot dead civilians if they get scared. That’s exactly why desk duty exists, right?

It’s hard not to see the parallels between Ross’s interactions with Muñoz and Good. Not in the fact that Ross was in any danger from Good, but that in both cases, he drew his weapon in order to threaten his target when they did not immediately comply with his commands. In one case, that decision was deadly. 

The court documents involving Muñoz’s arrest also contained other information about Ross. He described himself as an Indiana National Guard veteran who served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before joining Border Patrol. In 2015, he joined ICE and was assigned to the Enforcement and Removal Operations special response team, where he pursued “higher value targets.”

The White House ballroom project is about to get even bigger.

East Wing ballroom architect Shalom Baranes revealed new plans for the executive mansion Thursday, showcasing a previously unreported, one-story addition to the West Wing that he claimed would balance out the 90,000-square-foot development.

The expansion, which would take place after the ballroom is completed, would “restore a sense of symmetry around the original central pavilion,” according to Baranes.

Responding to questions from members of the National Capital Planning Commission, Baranes said that the potential West Wing project would affect the West Wing colonnade but not the building proper, reported ABC News. The architect did not offer a timetable for its completion, and did not say if the West Wing’s proposed growth would add to the redevelopment plan’s $400 million price tag. (The project was, initially, supposed to cost $200 million before Donald Trump decided to tack on extra construction.)

Baranes also offered more details on the magnitude of Trump’s highly controversial ballroom, projecting that the new building will have 40-foot ceilings, be able to accommodate up to 1,000 seated guests, and would constitute just 22,000 square feet of the 90,000-square-foot development.

Baranes took over the ballroom project after Trump fired the original architect in early December. Despite handpicking James McCrery II to lead the renovation, Trump soon began clashing with McCrery after he disagreed with Trump’s desired size for the new East Wing.

A White House official who aided the presentation, Josh Fisher, said that the administration is also considering changes to Lafayette Square, which is located due north of the White House in the President’s Park.

Will Scharf, a senior White House official on the NCPC, claimed that the myriad changes to the White House were necessary in order to bring it up to snuff with the residences of other world leaders, comparing the symbol of democracy to the sprawling estates of King Charles of England.

But Trump also has his eyes set on spending heaps of taxpayer money on other portions of Washington.

The “Arc de Trump” is expected to be erected near the Arlington Bridge, opposite the Lincoln Memorial. It will be modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the historic monument that commemorates those who fought and died for France during the country’s revolution and the Napoleonic Wars—though the president’s arc is, by its namesake, expected to honor just him.

Trump also renovated Jackie Kennedy’s famous Rose Garden, mowing down flowers in order to literally pave paradise. He gutted the Lincoln bathroom, transforming it from Lyndon B. Johnson’s favorite office into a marble-slathered eyesore, and swapped the historic Palm Room’s lush green tones and tall ferns for white paint and framed photos of plants.

Meanwhile, his administration is doing some demolition of its own, reportedly planning to destroy some 13 historic buildings on the grounds of former psychiatric hospital St. Elizabeths in order to expand facilities for the Department of Homeland Security.

Donald Trump’s........

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