To the Editor:

How do we comprehend the actions of the ICE agent who shot Renee Nicole Good in the face?

Soon after Good was killed, ICE agents also stormed the nearby Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. They handcuffed two staff members. They deployed pepper spray and pepper balls. The community was so shocked by this continuous cruelty that they cancelled school for the rest of the week.

I wonder what the students of Roosevelt High are thinking now. Less than a month ago, a man opened fire in a review session at Brown University. Now, this week, our own government opened fire on its citizens.

We know the regime has been apathetic toward gun violence, but this week, they chose to endorse and vigorously defend it. The administration posted “I stand with ICE” stickers on Twitter. JD Vance labeled Good “a deranged leftist” who tried to run the agent over. There is no evidence for either accusation, and further, Good deliberately turned her car’s wheels away from the agent.

I find Vance’s ability to say whatever he wants astonishing. In “The Great Gatsby,” Nick Carraway found a similar attitude in Tom and Daisy Buchanan. They were careless people: “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness … and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Carelessness was the administration’s approach to gutting the Education Department, or in temporarily suspending SNAP benefits, or in bombing Venezuela. They are careless. And worse, the carelessness is characterized by a feckless and fickle cruelty.

Are young people afforded the same carelessness? Do the students of Roosevelt High, the students at Brown, or Good’s kids get to smash up things and retreat back into their vast carelessness?

Many young upstate New Yorkers voted for this administration out of desperation because they were unable to make ends meet. Yet the administration ultimately did not care enough to address these afflictions.

Maybe the tax cuts for the rich will inflate our dusty pocketbooks — courtesy of last year’s Big Beautiful Bill. At least we could collectively fund a field trip to Minnesota for some poorly-trained Border Patrol officers.

I weep at this immense, ineffable suffering, and at the administration’s carelessness. Alarmingly, the situation has deteriorated so rapidly that even the horror of the Brown shooting is overshadowed by state-sanctioned violence. We weep.

After we weep, we must act. The resolute demonstrators outside the U.S. District Court in Albany this week reminded us that what happened to Renee Nicole Good could have happened to any of us.

Their courage reminds us of our responsibility to build and sustain what Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community. When its project is under attack, we must act. Our administration’s carelessness is not permission for us to be careless, too.

Conor Webb

Guilderland

Editor’s note: Conor Webb, a Guilderland High School graduate, is currently a student at Yale University.