Asked about the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Jesse Ventura\u2014a former Minnesota governor and Navy SEAL\u2014called her death «murder» and included.<\/b>
\nAsked about the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Jesse Ventura\u2014a former Minnesota governor and Navy SEAL\u2014called her death «murder» and included President Trump in his criticism. The shooting Wednesday «did not have to happen», Ventura said, USA Today reports. The president has said the ICE agent «seems to have shot her in self defense», per the Hill. Speaking to reporters, Ventura contrasted Trump’s Vietnam-era student deferments and medical exemption with his own 17 months in Southeast Asia. Trump is a «draft-dodging coward who, when it was his time to serve his country, he did what all rich white boys did. I wasn’t a rich white boy. We had to go», Ventura said. «He’s gonna tell me what courage is?»<\/p>\n

Ventura, 74, denounced the use of the military against US citizens: «We’re a third-world country now.» He said Republicans in office are disregarding constitutional protections, saying, «Freedom is not arresting people without warrants.» His time overseas, Ventura said, shaped his views, per the Hill. «I was in the Philippines the day [former Philippines President] Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and went under dictatorship. We went from nobody to a guy with a machine gun on every corner», Ventura added. «That’s what happens in a dictatorship.»<\/p>\n

Ventura once belonged to his state’s Reform Party but later went independent. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced this week that he won’t seek reelection, and Ventura, who held the office from 1999 to 2003, acted like that gave him an idea, per USA Today. «Maybe it’s time for Jesse», he said. «I only did one term. I’m owed a second.»<\/p>\n