What happened to Mike, Terry's cousin, in Rebel Ridge explained

Warning! This post contains spoilers for Rebel Ridge.

Terry Richmond's story in Rebel Ridge Is driven by his desire to protect his cousin, Mike, and Mike's fate eventually forces Terry to take desperate measures to find justice. in Rebel RidgeIn its opening moments, a former Marine, Terry Richmond, bicycles into a small town with a bag of money, hoping to bail his cousin out of prison before he is shifted to the state facility. However, before he can achieve this, two police officers brutally ram his bike off the road and seize his money through civil asset forfeiture.

Terry Richmond finds his back against a wall but doesn't give up hope on the legal system. He believes that even though the police officers wrongfully took his money, he will eventually get it back and evict his cousin before it's too late. However, to his dismay, Mike eventually gets shifted to the state facility before he can bail him out. Soon after, he is found dead. Since many factors contribute to Mike's death in the Jeremy Saulnier movie, audiences may be curious about what led to it and how it changes director Terry Richmond's story in Rebel Ridge.

Mike was killed for being an informant in a previous murder case

Terry knew that Mike would not survive in the state facility

in The opening arc of the Netflix action movie, Summer tries to understand Terry's situation by asking him about Mike and why moving to a state facility could get him into serious trouble. Terry reveals that long before Mike was arrested for drug possession, He served as a cooperating witness on a capital murder charge. He was previously an informant for law enforcement and helped them depose a leading gang member in a murder case.

However, since he betrays the gang and its leaders to help the police, his actions put a target on his back, making it unsafe for him to move to the state-run facility where the gang members are being held. Terry realizes that the gang members that Mike betrayed would want revenge. Therefore, he tries to bail him out before he is transferred to the state facility.

Unfortunately, since the police seize the bail money, Mike eventually ends up in a state-run prison. Terry warns Mike to keep his head down at the state facility and assures him that he will try to get him out. however, The gang members learn of his arrival and kill him Before Terry can do anything to save him.

How the police were partially responsible for Mike's death at Rebel Ridge

They have many opportunities to prevent it from happening

Since Terry had the money to get Mike out of prison before he was sent to the state institution, he could have easily saved him from meeting his doom. However, the city's police unjustly seized his bail money, leaving Terry and Mike in a state of limbo where they could not hope for justice and not give up on the legal system. in Rebel RidgeIn the final arc, Summer and Terry also investigate the city's judges to learn more about the corrupt activities of the local police.

Besides telling them about Chief Sandy's dark history and his efforts to cover up his past crimes, he also informs them that there are dashcam images of the police arresting Mike. Although he does not go into the details of the content of the footage, he hints that it is problematic enough to get the police officers into trouble. This suggests that Mike's arrest was also infected with misconductProving that the police were primarily responsible for his death.

The judge also reveals that the police department is kicking off any lawsuits to close assets to ensure that every criminal case remains in the city court. This protects the police department because it helps them stay away from the eyes of external legal forces that can identify their corrupt activities and threaten their secret criminal profit-driven operations. Since there are no public defendants in the city's court to contest the bail, all arrested people remain incarcerated for 90 days, which is the retention period for criminal possession.

This suggests that Mike may have been released even before Terry arrived in town to bail him out. However, since each individual is held for 90 days, he had to be transferred to the state facility when the city's prison was under construction. Mike wouldn't be dead if the police had followed proper protocols instead of implementing their own self-fulfilling corrupt system.

The real meaning of Cousin Mike's murder at Rebel Ridge explained

Mike's death exposes the truth about Shelby Springs' police force

Mike's death highlights how multi-layered the corruption is in the Shelby Springs Police Department before Terry Richmond sets out to challenge the entire system. It also emphasizes that the selfish activities of the police department only came to light when Terry and Summer tried to stand against the tide of injustice. for mike, The police unjustly arrested several other persons who also fell victim to the abuses of the system.

Until Mike's death, Terry Richmond refrains from escalating things with the city's law enforcement. However, the fact that negotiation and diplomacy did not help him to free his cousin shows how the police department deserved to face his wrath against Rebel Ridges endless arc. Corruption was so deeply entrenched in the city's law enforcement that only someone like Terry Richmond could spark the change needed to eradicate it.