Renee Just right was once murdered by means of Johnathan Ross, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, at the seventh of January 2026 (Thomas, 2026) when making an attempt to escape ICE brokers. Ross’s position as an ICE agent – an arm of the state—classifies this tournament as an act of state violence (Wertheimer, 2026). In the course of the case learn about of Just right and the State narratives created round her homicide, this essay seeks to reveal how state violence is fiercely legitimated throughout the state’s advent of narratives. Moreover, the essay contends that the state’s monopoly over the use, designation, and definition of violence offers it a disproportionate skill to create narratives legitimating state violence, as demonstrated in Just right’s case. Within the wake of her homicide, Just right’s movements have been mentioned, deconstructed and interrogated to shift focal point from Ross’s deadly use of pressure, a planned manner of legitimation to discredit the sufferer. Handiest as soon as Just right was once portrayed as excessive and violent did the state narrative shift in opposition to Ross: his movements have been then built as self-defensive and pushed by means of concern. The Trump management’s language possible choices have been practical, aiming to offer protection to its agent and legitimise the usage of state pressure to homicide a civilian. Subsequently, this essay hopes to put naked the damaging narratives which search to legitimise state violence.
Working out Violence and the State
Violence has been persistently related to the state; Weber’s conception of the state centres on its “monopoly over the respectable use of pressure”, positing that the state’s true energy is underpinned by means of its skill to gatekeep respectable violence and to delegate this respectable violence to its extensions, such because the police (Weber, Gerth and Generators, 2009). Then again, this monopoly isn’t absolute; this can be a declare to the usage of pressure that will have to be repeatedly asserted and enforced (Anter, 2019). In consequence, to say this monopoly, states will have to additionally declare the ability to designate what counts as violence and when such violence is respectable (Dos Santos, 2022). On this context, legitimacy refers back to the empirical “acceptance of a discourse of legitimation” fairly than to a normative conception of what’s simply or rational (Herzbrun-Dayan, Lowy and Varikas, 2022). The facility to form those legitimating narratives is unequally allotted, concentrated within the arms of the state as a result of its monopoly over violence (CrimethInc, 2012). Subsequently, to care for this monopoly, the state will have to paintings to fabricate becoming narratives that body explicit circumstances of state pressure as appropriate. Because the state has important affect over the narrative during which its personal pressure is known, it’s ceaselessly ready to fabricate a context that permits its pressure to be observed as appropriate among sufficient of the general public, affording the violence it commits legitimacy. This essay seeks to spotlight the strategies and language used to construct those legitimating contexts for state violence.
ICE is a federal U.S. legislation enforcement company tasked with implementing immigration legislation; it receives a mean of $37.5bn every year (RepresentUS, no date). Its status as an extension of the state and its powers will have to be thought to be in working out Ross’s homicide of Just right as an act of state violence. Ross, as an ICE agent, was once performing on behalf of ICE and, in flip, the government. This additionally contextualises the Trump management’s systematic legitimation of Just right’s homicide. If state energy will depend on the monopoly on respectable violence, then the American State and the Trump management can also be understood as protecting a vested pastime in setting up Ross’s movements, understood as a type of state violence, as respectable to reiterate the broader legitimacy of state violence, re-securing their monopoly (Anter, 2019). The Trump management sought to respectable this use of state pressure by means of setting up a story of self-defence, starting with the sufferer’s obvious violence.
Emphasising the Sufferer’s Violence
The groundwork of the American state’s legitimating narrative of Just right’s homicide was once to shift focal point clear of Ross’s movements and in opposition to Just right’s. U.S. Fatherland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that Just right had “weaponised her automotive”, and President Trump labelled her movements as a “second of violence” (Zurcher, 2026). This language, supplied by means of fingers of the state, emphasises that the sufferer’s movements will have to be thought to be in our working out of the usage of state pressure, clouding duty. Donegan (2026) succinctly expressed that federal government have been “keen” to demonise Just right fairly than examine Ross’s deadly taking pictures. The declare that she “weaponised her automotive” can also be confirmed false; the SUV’s wheels grew to become away in an try to flee the ICE brokers, to not assault them (Hjersted, 2026). Irrespective of the info, the Trump management’s narrative interested in framing Just right negatively, a well-utilised device to legitimise state violence.
As Hjersted (2026) articulates, police killings ceaselessly transform a “referendum at the sufferer’s persona” with intense discourse surrounding elements starting from their clothes to compliance. Then again, while Just right was once matter to this victim-blaming, it is very important notice that this building was once most probably tempered by means of Just right’s place as a white girl. Sufferer-blaming is maximum prevalent when sufferers of state violence are African American. Black criminalisation—the over-perception of Black folks as criminals—implies that the accusation of Black folks as criminals is extra simply permitted, underpinned by means of tough, racist notions of illegal activity (Cheek, Bonam, Langhout, 2025). That stated, destructive portrayal of a taking pictures sufferer, without reference to race, can lead folks to sympathise with the shooter fairly than the sufferer (Jones, 2017). Thus, the destructive portrayal of Just right and her movements casts the narrative in opposition to the sufferer, implicitly discrediting her and lending the wrongdoer working out.
Sufferer-blaming now not most effective deflects focal point clear of the shooter and demonises the sufferer, but in addition distorts duty. In Items’ case, this manifested as demonising her ultimate movements and implying she was once liable for Ross’s reaction (Ball, 2016). Because the state claims a monopoly over respectable pressure, any state accusation of violence initiated by means of a non-state actor is robotically coded as illegitimate (CrimethInc, 2012). Thus, by means of setting up Just right’s behaviour in her ultimate moments as violence, the Trump management works to right away delegitimise her movements. As soon as Just right’s illegitimate violence is established throughout the state narrative, ICE brokers transform the bringers of justice, protective different voters from the “rebellious”, the “legal”, the “violent” to care for social order (Vitale, 2017; Ball, 2016). In the end, for the state to outline a civilian and their movements as illegitimately violent is to pre-justify the usage of “respectable” state pressure in opposition to them (CrimethInc, 2012). Thus, the state’s language shifts focal point clear of the wrongdoer of Just right’s homicide to Just right and her purportedly illegitimate movements and behavior. This, then, builds the basis for the justification of Ross’s violence: that he merely replied to Just right’s illegitimate violence, pleasant his state-delegated position of keeping up social order via respectable, reciprocal violence.
Weaponising Terror
The American state deepened its demonisation of Just right’s movements via their building of her movements as terrorism, deflecting focal point clear of its agent who enacted deadly pressure. When discussing Just right’s “weaponisation” of her automotive, Noem selected to explain Just right as a “home terrorist” (Zurcher, 2026). Labelling Just right as a “terrorist” works to build her as greater than simply violent. The labels ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ have come to confer with a selected and heightened type of illegitimate violence (Perdue, 1989). Its invocations sign an inherently illegitimate, outstanding violence that calls for a phenomenal reaction (Huff and Ketzer, 2018), akin to Ross’s taking pictures of Just right. In a similar way to the wider class of illegitimate violence, what constitutes an act of terrorism is deeply contested; terrorism is an idea this is ceaselessly used subjectively and pejoratively to sentence violence the speaker dislikes or seeks to delegitimise (Richards, 2014). This heightened standing is visual in prosecution; terrorism is prosecuted in federal courts, whilst maximum different violent crime is prosecuted on the state stage (Huff and Ketzer, 2018,p. 56).
Given the state’s monopoly on respectable violence and discursive energy, it holds a disproportionate skill to use permitted ‘terrorist’ labels to acts it dislikes, implicitly delegitimating any act (Richards, 2014). Noem, as U.S. Fatherland Safety Secretary, makes use of the state’s defining energy to build Just right as a “home terrorist”, emphasising now not most effective her excessive violence, however implicitly signalling that deadly pressure was once proportional and bonafide; finally, concepts of terrorists are excessive and thus they must be “hunted” fairly than “controlled” (Huff and Ketzer, 2018, p.56). Given the working out that terrorism creates a heightened affect on the preferred creativeness in comparison to different kinds of violence, Noem’s practical escalation of Just right’s violence can also be learn as an extra try to blame the sufferer and assemble her as deserving of the homicide at Ross’s arms, as an arm of the state (Huff and Ketzer, 2018). Thru this language, the state creates a layered narrative of Just right’s violence, now not only illegitimate, but in addition outstanding; this escalation seeks to justify Ross’s outstanding use of pressure in his deadly taking pictures. Thus, by means of interesting to value-loaded, pejorative language akin to ‘terrorist’, the state built a sufferer of state violence as exceptionally, incomprehensibly violent, in the hunt for to respectable a deadly state reaction.
Notions of terrorism additionally ceaselessly depend on framing the wrongdoer as an interloper, their excessive violence observed as concentrated on blameless figures consultant of the country and its values (Stampnitzky, 2017). This building is succinctly summarised in politicians’ common claims that terrorist assaults are “assaults on our lifestyle” (Stampnitzky, 2017). Thus, Noem’s framing of Just right as a terrorist seeks to place her as an interloper to the country, putting forward the narrative that Just right’s violence was once unacceptable and illegitimate, and that Ross was once protective the country and its values, acting his accountability to the actual civilians, the innocents and non-violent round her, via respectable pressure. As Hjersted (2026) articulates, the state required the general public to spot “with the badge”, fairly than with Just right; by means of contextualising Ross’s violence and dramatizing Just right’s movements, the state is encouraging the typical U.S. citizen to perceive his violence over hers, and to understand his violence as vital in protective their country and values in opposition to Just right’s built aggression.
Importantly, the state’s use of labels of terrorism is once more most probably restricted by means of Just right’s status as a white girl. Acts of violence involving Arabs or Muslims are extra steadily labelled as terrorism. Thus, this language is a lot more efficient at development narratives when perpetrators belong to those id teams (Onwudiwe, 2005). Social id concept stresses that variations in id result in much less consider and/or tolerance. Importantly right here, the American state has traditionally aligned itself with whiteness (Murakawa, 2019); subsequently, Just right’s whiteness positions her throughout the “in-group”, running to counteract one of the most penalties that another way is also emboldened by means of the racist connotations throughout the language of terrorism (Kalkan, Layman, and Uslaner, 2009).
Regardless of this, the subjectivity of what constitutes a terrorist act, along the states’ disproportionate discursive energy, permits Ross’s act of state violence to be legitimated via a story of Just right’s excessive, outstanding and illegitimate violence, and the agent’s vital, protecting reaction via deadly pressure.
The Double Requirements of Worry
After all, development upon the prevailing narrative of Just right’s homicide, the state makes use of practical discursive possible choices to erratically distribute the position of concern in Just right’s and Ross’s decision-making. Noem argued that Ross fired “defensive photographs” as a result of he was once “fearing for his existence” (Robertson, 2026). Right here, the state as soon as once more demonstrates its disproportionate discursive energy by means of turning to “cop communicate”, euphemisms and reputable language utilized by police and different state establishments to justify or difficult to understand the hurt they reason (Blanchfield, 2020). “Cop communicate” ceaselessly invokes notions of rationality, permitting the state and its brokers to care for keep watch over over what constitutes rational behaviour and what does now not, and over whether or not concern is known as a think about decision-making. The state’s declare that Ross was once “fearing for his existence” supplies a suitable, justifiable explanation why for deadly pressure, reinforced by means of the development of a story of Just right’s excessive violence.
The state’s skill to fabricate the narrative method the brokers’ position in growing concern isn’t thought to be; as an alternative, the brokers’ concern is emphasized along Just right’s built excessive violence. His deadly pressure, subsequently, turns into a suitable, worried response to a perilous girl performing violently for causes we don’t perceive, as a result of any context has been obscured. This narrative highlights the state’s energy to discursively legitimise state violence; the monopoly on rationalisation implies that a state agent can enact deadly pressure because of a purported concern for his or her lives, whilst performing out of concern as a non-state actor (hesitating, shifting the fallacious approach, making any gesture) can also be cited as evidence that the state had no selection however to react with violence, and in probably the most excessive instances, akin to Just right, to homicide (Blanchfield, 2020).
Conclusion
This essay has demonstrated a spread of ways used to build a legitimating narrative of deadly state violence in opposition to a civilian, throughout the homicide of Renee Just right. The state’s monopoly on respectable violence offers it keep watch over over defining what counts as violence and which violence is respectable; thus, it has a singular, disproportionate energy over production narratives of violence. Its legitimacy will depend on a social insight of state pressure as appropriate, and the state makes use of its disproportionate discursive energy to create narratives surrounding its use of pressure to care for this legitimacy. The U.S. management directed intense focal point in opposition to the sufferer, labelling her as violent and a home terrorist; this labored to mute interrogation of Ross’ movements and in charge Just right’s demise on her personal illegitimate, violent movements. Via framing Just right as exceptionally violent, the state now not most effective implicitly delegitimized her movements but in addition portrayed Ross’s reaction as a vital, defensive use of pressure to offer protection to the country, different innocents, and civilians. This, along side the omission of the ICE agent’s escalatory movements, got rid of any attention of Just right as a sufferer and as an alternative built her because the aggressor, development a resolute legitimating narrative for the usage of state violence that ended her existence.
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Additional Studying on E-Global Family members
