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The killing of Renée Good by federal ICE agents in Minneapolis, USA, has reignited a debate about the phenomenon described as “copaganda,” which is basically the coordinated effort by the police and other institutions to normalize police power and make crime seem more dramatic.

On the subject of copaganda, this is a hybrid form of propaganda that aims, on the one hand, to fuel fear of crimes recorded by the police and, on the other, to distort society’s response to them. Media scholars also note that mainstream media often “allow the police and their supporters to dominate public discourse” around “high-profile” incidents. For example, critics of criminal justice note that the media systematically report police claims of “rising crime” or violent threats (often fed by official press releases), while downplaying evidence of structural problems. As Karakatsanis, a scholar of the phenomenon, points out, the legacy big traditional media have been “fed a diet of self-serving distortions by taxpayer-funded representatives” (for example, large police press offices and “crime experts”), who “have misled the public about the causes of crime, blocked reforms, and distracted us from social inequalities.” In Minneapolis, USA, a debate is reigniting about the phenomenon described as “copaganda,” in short, the coordinated effort by the police and other institutions to normalize

Civil rights organizations and academics have made similar criticisms. For example, the NYCLU notes that “copaganda” (police propaganda) presents public safety almost exclusively in terms of street crime and criminals, “limiting our understanding of safety and threat,” resulting in fear being disproportionately focused on marginalized communities. In addition, human rights advocates emphasize how this propaganda inflates perceptions of the threat posed by poor or racialized neighborhoods, thereby justifying aggressive policing and the use of force. As one criminal law commentator explains, when the media “frames the narrative… for almost every significant…event,” protests can be portrayed as violent, even if videos show the opposite, thus justifying police violence.

In summary, copaganda works through repeated official narratives and selective coverage – what a critique of law and society calls “fantastic media that normalize the power, presence, and violent practices of the police”  – exploiting fear and stereotypes to shape public opinion about policing, obscuring police responsibility and accountability. In recent years, both in the US and Europe, a certain rhetoric has been repeated time and again whenever the police or federal forces are called upon to justify the lethal use of force: that the suspect “armed” his vehicle, that is, he turned his car into a weapon against the police. This narrative is convenient because it functions as a ready-made “moral license”: it shifts the perpetrator role to the victim, escalates the incident to an immediate threat to life, and, above all, feeds an initial version that circulates faster than the actual facts.

A characteristic case is that of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. According to ICE’s initial narrative, the 37-year-old domestic worker was killed after “deliberately” using her car as a weapon, endangering agents. This version was not limited to a standard press release: it was reinforced publicly and politically, as it was reproduced on social media by White House officials. At the same time, Vice President J.D. Vance reposted a police video claiming that Good “broke through a police barrier” and used her vehicle “as a weapon to kill police officers.” At the same time, Trump administration officials went so far as to characterize the killing as an “act of domestic terrorism,” establishing early on the framework of “threat” surrounding the victim.

But here begins the second, equally familiar part of the pattern: when independent or primary visual evidence emerges, the “first version” begins to crack. In Good’s case, a new video from an ICE mobile agent allegedly shows her calmly stating that she is unarmed before stepping forward and moving slowly forward, while the agents step aside. Other material confirms—according to what is presented—that there was no contact with an agent and that no one was dragged or fell. The contrast between the “weapon vehicle” and the image of slow movement without impact transforms the initial narrative from a description of events to an attempt to legitimize an already fatal act.

The controversy did not remain confined to activist circles: state and municipal officials—including, as reported, the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis—called the federal version “garbage” and demanded an independent investigation. At the same time, the social construction of Good’s image in the media moved in the opposite direction from the label “threat,” and she was framed and described as a mother of three with a strong community presence who, according to friends, had stopped to check on her neighbors. Her family summed up this dimension in a phrase that acts almost as a counter-frame to the “official” narrative: she was holding “whistles” and not weapons, while the agents were holding weapons. As a practical impact of the massive social support, there was massive financial support through GoFundMe, which raised over $1.5 million, effectively underscoring the speed with which a significant portion of public opinion was not convinced by the initial scenario, although the ideological conflict was not long in coming, as a corresponding fundraiser was launched, raising over $750,000 000 for ICE agent Jonathan Ross.

The Good case clearly illustrates the mechanism of modern copaganda: an official version is circulated instantly, gains political weight through reproduction on social media, stigmatizes the victim as the aggressor, and prepares society to accept lethal violence. The rhetoric of “weaponized the car” also appeared in another case in Portland, indicating that this is not an isolated statement, but a recurring argumentative pattern of justification. And that is precisely the crucial point: not only whether a car could objectively become a weapon at a given moment, but how the “weapon” argument is used in communication to prematurely close the debate on proportionality, accountability, and institutional violence. 

In the Greek example, which demonstrates both the European nature of the phenomenon and its peculiarity in being imported wherever and by whomever it is needed, the narrative “the car became a weapon” did not simply function as a version of events; it served as the central alibi. The case of Nikos Sampanis, at the end of October 2021 in Perama, near Piraeus, began as yet another pursuit of a “stolen vehicle” and ended up as one of the most characteristic moments where the official announcement ran faster than the truth.

Following the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Roma driver, the Hellenic Police issued an immediate statement claiming that the vehicle “rammed five motorcycles” and injured seven police officers, which, according to the statement, “was not the case.” immediately issued a statement claiming that the vehicle “rammed five motorcycles” and injured seven police officers, which, according to the police, made it necessary to use firearms to “immobilize” the car. The wording had all the elements of a ready-made narrative: immediate danger, injured police officers, proportionate response. Within a few hours, this version was reproduced verbatim by most of the Greek media, creating a first impression in the public mind of a “dangerous perpetrator” who attacked and was “necessarily” neutralized.

The problem is that when the first visual evidence appeared, this image did not emerge. Videos taken by residents and security camera footage—as you mention—showed that the car had essentially been immobilized or “cut off” by a bus, without turning against the police officers and without causing the injuries described in the official statement: no police officer appears to be dragged, knocked down, or hit by the vehicle. In other words, the core of the claim of “ramming” – which justified the escalation – remained unsubstantiated.

The case became even more complicated in terms of accountability when the issue of evidence was raised. The prosecutor’s remarks—as you convey them—noted that the vehicle itself, the most crucial piece of evidence for expert analysis, was destroyed, scrapped before an autopsy/examination could be performed that could confirm or refute the official narrative. In such cases, the absence of key evidence is not a “procedural accident”; it is a blow to the very ability of the justice system to verify what happened.

Based on the evidence, the body of the victim, Nikos Sampanis, was shot in the chest and neck, while the police claimed they shot at the tires to stop the car. The difference between “shooting to immobilize” and “wounding in vital areas” is not just a technical detail; it is the difference between a claim of necessity and an image of excessive, lethal violence. Even the injuries that were actually recorded—to the passenger and a police officer—do not confirm the “story” of the ramming, as they are not attributed to the car.

This case goes beyond the question of “what happened during the chase” and touches on the question of “how it is chosen to be presented.” The coalition of rights organizations you mention interpreted the entire sequence as evidence of racial profiling: the scenario of a “stolen vehicle” and “dangerous maneuvers” served as a framework for legitimizing a hail of bullets on an unarmed Roma teenager. And in the media, the initial reproduction of the official version was reinforced by a second, darker dynamic in some publications. Sampanis was presented from the outset in terms of social disapproval, even with racist characterizations, which “locked in” the impression of the “dangerous other” before people saw the videos. The collapse of copaganda became apparent when the case moved from the realm of communication to that of criminal evaluation. The fact that the seven police officers involved were ultimately charged with manslaughter through negligence—as you note—is in itself an institutional admission that the initial “story” of self-defense was not sufficient to close the case.

If anything connects Minneapolis (January 7, 2026) with Perama (October 22–23, 2021), it is not the “uniqueness” of each case but the infrastructure of the narrative: an institution with enormous power produces the first version in no time, the media (and now political accounts on social media) broadcast it as an interpretation rather than an allegation, and thus accountability is put at a disadvantage before the evidence even appears. In the Renée Good case, the federal line of “self-defense” was dressed up with the heavy label of “domestic terrorism” by the political leadership of the DHS, while Vice President J.D. Vance publicly adopted the narrative that “went to shoot him”—but videos quickly began circulating in the public debate that cast doubt on whether an agent had been “dragged/run over” as the initial statements implied, and local officials (the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota) openly clashed with the federal narrative, while the family took legal action to demand an independent investigation.

In Perama, the corresponding “moral alibi” was constructed from the outset on the basis of statements such as “he ran over/rammed five police motorcycles” and “a total of seven police officers were injured,” along with the familiar formula “we fired to immobilize”—a version that was widely reproduced before the visual material and factual gaps began to deconstruct it. In both cases, the crucial question is not whether “a car can theoretically kill” (obviously it can), but how the phrase “weaponized the car” functions as a prefabricated bridge from the controversial fact to the “necessarily legal”: it turns ambiguity into certainty, labels the victim an “attacker,” and shifts the discussion from proportionality/rules of engagement to a panic-stricken narrative of survival. This is precisely where contemporary copaganda, as described by Alec Karakatsanis, comes in: not as “fake news,” but as a systematic food chain where press releases, ” crime experts,” selective statistics, and television reflexes produce a world where the only crime that counts is what the police record—and therefore the only “cure” that seems reasonable is more police, more tolerance of violence, and less examination of structural causes.

These examples are not the only ones; from Nanterre‎‎ to Streatham Hill, we see the same communication pattern repeating itself almost mechanically. In the early hours, the “easy” narrative of the car as a weapon acts as a ready-made alibi, turning a shooting into “self-defense” before the evidence or the competent investigative authorities can reach a conclusion. The media often becomes the fastest amplifier of this frame, until video/witnesses appear that dispel the initial version and force retractions, while the damage has already been done. In the meantime, the first impression has already taken hold, the victim has been portrayed as a threat, the social/racial dimensions have been “buried,” and the use of force has been pre-legitimized. Copaganda is not an isolated “mistake,” but a structural tactic of first-narrative—a sprint of institutional self-preservation that always runs faster than evidence.

The ultimate consequence for journalism (especially in high-profile murders by uniformed/federal officers) is harsh but clear: the “first version” must be treated as a high-risk political product, not as information—and basic ethics today is a regulatory act against speed: persistent linguistic labeling (“the police/ICE claims”), searching for primary material before drawing definitive conclusions, demanding independent investigations/transparency, and (in the Greek context in particular) zero tolerance for the “disappearance” of critical evidence that stifles accountability in advance.

 

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