In the days since Renee Nicole Good’s death, the grainy video has become a national mirror, forcing people to decide what they believe they see: a weapon or a woman in panic. The clinical and forensic psychologist who reviewed the footage described the SUV’s hesitant lurch, the angle of the steering wheel, and the way her body seemed to pull away rather than charge forward. To him, those subtle details pointed to confusion and survival instinct, not aggression.

Yet for the agents on the ground, a moving vehicle in a confined space looked like imminent danger, and that split-second interpretation can never be rewound. As the public replays the same few seconds in search of certainty, friends and family remember a mother, not a headline—her errands, her children, the ordinary things left unfinished. Between intent and fear, between policy and humanity, her story now lives in the questions she can no longer ans.