ICE Agent Fatally Shoots U.S. Citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis During Immigration Crackdown

Details

On January 7, 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis during a large-scale federal immigration enforcement operation. Good, a U.S. citizen, was shot at the intersection of Portland Avenue and East 34th Street while in her vehicle. Department of Homeland Security officials characterized the shooting as self-defense against "an act of domestic terrorism," while Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called DHS's account "bullshit" and "propaganda," citing video evidence that contradicts the federal government's narrative. Seventeen days later, Border Patrol agents fatally shot a second U.S. citizen, ICU nurse Alex Pretti, during the same operation. The two killings triggered mass protests, a general strike, and a political crisis that ultimately cost DHS Secretary Kristi Noem her job. Six months later, the pattern the Minneapolis killings came to symbolize continued: in July 2026, an ICE agent in Houston fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican construction worker who was not the target of the operation, with the government again asserting a vehicle-ramming self-defense claim for which no video evidence has emerged.

Background: Operation Metro Surge

On January 6, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security announced what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, deploying more than 2,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. The operation, dubbed "Operation Metro Surge," followed a viral video posted by right-wing influencer Nick Shirley alleging fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota, which prompted increased federal scrutiny of the state.

According to CNN, community members had organized informal networks to monitor ICE activity, including blowing whistles and honking car horns to alert neighbors to the presence of immigration officers. Saint Paul City Council member Molly Coleman described the first day of the operation as "unlike any other day we've experienced." An eyewitness to the shooting told reporters that residents in the neighborhood had "been terrorized by ICE for six weeks."

The Shooting

According to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, officers responded to reports of shots fired around 9:30 a.m. Good was found in her vehicle with gunshot wounds and was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at approximately 10:30 a.m.

Good had dropped off her 6-year-old son at school and was driving home when she encountered ICE agents, according to statements from her family. Her ex-husband stated she "was not an activist" and had simply come upon a group of ICE agents.

Multiple bystander videos captured the incident and have been reviewed by news organizations. The footage shows:

• Good's Honda Pilot SUV stopped sideways in the roadway as ICE agents in vehicles approached
• Eleven vehicles maneuvering around the SUV, including a Chevy Tahoe driven by Agent Ross
• Ross exiting his vehicle already filming Good's SUV—not with a body camera typical of law enforcement, but using a cellphone
• An agent reaching into the driver's side window and attempting to open the door while saying "Get out of the fucking car"
• An eyewitness reported hearing conflicting instructions—one agent telling Good to exit, another telling her to drive away
• Good's vehicle reversing slightly, then beginning to pull forward while turning away from Ross
• Ross, who had positioned himself in front of the vehicle, firing at least three shots—one through the windshield, two through the open driver's side window from the side of the vehicle
• Good's vehicle crashing into a parked car a short distance away
• Ross walking away from the scene apparently uninjured

According to emergency call transcripts obtained by CNN, a 911 caller said ICE agents "just shot a lady" at "point blank range in her car." Another caller reported the woman was shot "'cause she wouldn't open her car door."

A private autopsy commissioned by Good's family and released on January 21 found she suffered three clear gunshot wounds and a grazing fourth. According to the family's attorneys, one shot struck her left forearm and another hit her right breast without piercing major organs—neither immediately life-threatening—while a third bullet entered the left side of her head near the temple and exited the right side. Lead attorney Antonio Romanucci said the video evidence "is clear, particularly when viewed through the standards of reasonable policing and totality of circumstances." The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office had not released its own findings to the family at that time.

O'Hara stated there was "nothing to indicate that this woman was the target of any law enforcement investigation."

NYT Video Analysis

On January 15, The New York Times published a detailed video analysis synchronizing the agent's cellphone footage with other angles of the shooting. The analysis contradicts administration claims that Good "ran over" Agent Ross.

The Times synchronized multiple camera angles to examine the critical six seconds of the confrontation:

• Ross moved directly in front of Good's SUV as it was reversing and rotating toward him, initiating a three-point turn to leave. The Times noted: "Law enforcement officers are trained to avoid doing this because it puts them in danger and often leads to the use of force against drivers."
• Good looked down, shifted into drive, and began turning to the right—away from the agent.
• As the SUV rolled forward, Ross unholstered his firearm while another agent was yelling orders and reaching into Good's vehicle.
• The Times analysis found Ross was "at least a few feet away" from the SUV and "does not appear to move out of the way."

Regarding the moment the administration claims shows Ross being "run over," the Times analysis states:

"This moment is when Agent Ross fires. We see the other agent pull back from the SUV. Both of them stumble, apparently slipping on the ice. This is also the moment many have said looks like Agent Ross getting run over. And it does when watched at full speed. But looking more closely, we can see in multiple angles that there's a visible gap between the vehicle and his legs, indicating his feet are positioned outside the SUV's path."

The analysis shows Ross maintained his footing throughout: "The agent's left hand is still against the vehicle and gripping his phone. We see as he fires, it's recording the clouds and the trees overhead. It's not because the agent is knocked to the ground. The other angle shows he's still standing, continuing to maintain his grip on his phone and his gun."

The Times found "a clear and growing gap between his body and the SUV as he fires a second shot and a third." The analysis concludes: "None of the bullets have the effect of stopping the SUV, but they kill Renee Good."

According to the Times' audio analysis of Ross's cellphone video, his reaction after firing was: "Fucking bitch. What the fuck? You just fucking. What the fuck did you do?"

The Times summarized: "More videos are likely to emerge, but the visual evidence shows no indication that the agent who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, had been run over."

Disputed Injury Claims

On January 14, CBS News reported: "BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition."

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Ross's injury to CBS, though the report noted "it was unclear how extensive the bleeding was." U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino told CBS that Ross "has had several threats against his life" and is "in a safe location" recovering from injuries.

However, this claim appears to conflict with the video evidence analyzed by The New York Times, which shows Ross remaining upright throughout the encounter and walking away from the scene. The Times analysis found "a visible gap between the vehicle and his legs" and that Ross was "still standing, continuing to maintain his grip on his phone and his gun" as he fired. Multiple videos show Ross walking around the scene afterward, apparently uninjured.

Secretary Noem stated on the evening of the shooting that Ross "had been treated at a local hospital and released" the same day—a timeline that would be unusual for significant internal bleeding requiring medical attention.

The Shooter: Jonathan Ross

Court records and news reports reveal the following about Ross:

• Age: 43
• Military service: Deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 with the Indiana National Guard, serving as a machine gunner on a gun truck
• Law enforcement career: Joined U.S. Border Patrol in 2007 near El Paso, Texas; transferred to ICE in 2015 as a deportation officer based in Minnesota
• Additional roles: Firearms instructor, active shooter instructor, field intelligence officer, member of ICE's special response team, and team leader with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force

According to testimony from a recent trial, Ross had been seriously injured in June 2025 when he was dragged approximately 300 feet by the vehicle of a fleeing suspect during an arrest attempt. He received 33 stitches across multiple wounds and testified the experience caused "excruciating pain." The suspect in that incident, Roberto Carlos Munoz-Guatemala, was convicted of assaulting a federal officer in December 2025.

Federal Government's Account

Within hours of Good's death, the administration established its narrative.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement on X characterizing the incident as an "act of domestic terrorism":

"ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, speaking from Texas, stated:

"It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was our ICE officers were out on an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him."

At a press conference in Minneapolis later that evening, Noem claimed the agent had been struck by Good's vehicle and was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released. She also claimed Good had been "stalking and impeding ICE all day" prior to the shooting.

President Trump posted on Truth Social defending the officer and attacking Good:

"I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital."

Multiple news outlets noted that the claim about the officer "recovering in the hospital" contradicted video footage showing the agent walking around the scene after firing the shots.

Vice President JD Vance called the incident "classic terrorism" and described Good as part of "a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job." When pressed on Good's intent, Vance later conceded: "Look, I don't know what's in a person's heart or in a person's head."

According to Politico, even some administration supporters expressed concern that the aggressive approach "risks undermining public confidence in the ongoing investigation."

Tom Homan Breaks with Noem

White House Border Czar Tom Homan, in an interview with CBS Evening News, declined to endorse DHS Secretary Noem's immediate characterization of the shooting:

"The investigation has just started. I'm not gonna make a judgment call on one video when there's a hundred videos out there. I wasn't on the scene, I'm not an officer that may have bodycam video. It'd be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation. Let the investigation play out and hold people accountable based on the investigation."

When CBS host Tony Dokoupil asked how DHS could conclude so swiftly that it was "an act of domestic terrorism," Homan responded: "That's a question for Homeland Security. I'm the border czar."

State and Local Officials' Response

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey forcefully rejected the federal government's characterization:

"They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed."

Frey demanded that ICE "get the fuck out of Minneapolis."

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz urged residents not to accept the federal government's account:

"I've seen the video. Don't believe this propaganda machine."

Walz characterized the shooting as "so, so preventable" and "so unnecessary," calling it "the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict. It's governing by reality TV and today that recklessness cost someone their life." He issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard for potential deployment and urged residents: "Do not take the bait. Do not allow them to deploy federal troops into here. Do not allow them to invoke the insurrection act. Do not allow them to declare martial law."

Walz proclaimed January 9, 2026, to be "Renee Good Day."

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told NPR that he disagreed with Noem's characterization: "She was a compassionate neighbor trying to be a legal observer on behalf of her immigrant neighbors. That's what she was doing at the moment of her death. And she was a poet. She was a mom. She was a daughter. And I am deeply saddened by what happened to her and her family."

DOJ Use of Force Policy

The Department of Justice's official use of force policy states that law enforcement officers "may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person."

The policy specifically addresses vehicles:

"Firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle."

New York Times columnist David French, a conservative who served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, wrote:

"The Minnesota videos show that it was never necessary for the officer to open fire. If a first shot is taken only after an officer is out of the path of the vehicle, that shot is not necessary to save his life."

French noted that the DOJ policy itself prioritizes avoidance over shooting:

"In fact, dodging a vehicle rather than attempting to stop it with gunfire is the preferred course of action for federal law enforcement. Bullets, after all, do not stop cars. They kill drivers and render the car rudderless, not immobile, which is exactly what happened here."

French emphasized that while a shooting being "unnecessary or immoral does not mean it is criminal," the administration's immediate labeling of Good as a "domestic terrorist" was "absurdly" false based on the video evidence.

Federal Investigation Controversy

The FBI blocked Minnesota state investigators from accessing evidence in the case, preventing the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from participating in the investigation. Drew Evans, head of the BCA, said federal authorities had "cut them out."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced there was "currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation" into the shooting. On Fox News Sunday, Blanche stated the DOJ would not open a criminal investigation into Ross, claiming "everybody can watch the videos and see that [Ross] got attacked with a car that was trying to take his life," and adding the department doesn't "just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself." Instead, the DOJ launched an investigation into potential ties between Good and her widow, Becca Good, and Minneapolis activist groups.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told staff the Civil Rights Division would not be investigating the shooting. According to Wikipedia's account, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel N. Rosen sent an internal email instructing prosecutors to "say nothing" to law enforcement and the media about Good's killing, directing that only his designees could speak to investigators.

FBI Director Patel and the Reframed Warrant

On January 23, The New York Times reported that Tracee Mergen, a supervisor in the FBI's Minneapolis field office, had resigned after bureau leadership pressured her to abandon a civil rights inquiry into Ross. Mergen had opened the inquiry as standard procedure for such a shooting.

According to a letter Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin sent to the DOJ's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, FBI Director Kash Patel and other senior officials ended the civil rights investigation because they worried it would contradict Trump's claim that Good "violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer." The senators cited credible whistleblower information indicating that members of the FBI's Forensic Response Section, called to Minneapolis to document Good's vehicle and reconstruct the shooting, were told to stand down after arriving because Patel wanted the warrant not to reference Good as the victim but instead to portray her as the subject of an investigation into assaulting a federal officer. The whistleblower described weeks passing while the forensic team waited for a second warrant, and multiple failed attempts to obtain one targeting Good's cell phone on a charge of conspiracy to assault a federal officer.

A federal judge rejected the altered warrant because Good is deceased, rendering the assault charge against her moot. As reporting noted, it is extremely rare for judges to reject federal search warrant requests, given the low evidentiary standard required.

Mass Prosecutor Resignations

This approach led to mass resignations:

Six prosecutors in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office resigned on January 13:
- Joseph H. Thompson, former acting U.S. Attorney and lead prosecutor in the Feeding Our Future fraud case
- Harry Jacobs, Thompson's deputy in the fraud investigation
- Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, chief of the violent and major crimes unit
- Melinda Williams, former chief of the office of criminal prosecution
- Ruth Schneider
- Tom Hollenhurst

Five senior prosecutors in the DOJ Civil Rights Division's criminal section resigned on January 12, including the section's chief, principal deputy chief, deputy chief, and acting deputy chief.

In total, more than thirteen attorneys at the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney's Office—including the chiefs of the criminal division, civil division, and violent and major crimes unit—resigned, along with several Civil Rights Division prosecutors at Main Justice. The prosecutors resigned, according to The New York Times, over "the Justice Department's push to investigate the widow of [Renee Good] and the department's reluctance to investigate the shooter."

Governor Walz called Thompson's resignation "a huge loss for our state" and "the latest sign that President Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the Department of Justice."

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara told The New York Times: "When you lose the leader responsible for making the fraud cases, it tells you this isn't really about prosecuting fraud."

Former federal prosecutor Doug Kelley, who served in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office from 1978 to 1985, told KARE 11 the scope of the resignations was unprecedented: "There's never been this many people in this many leadership positions to all resign at one time."

Congressional Response

Democrats condemned the shooting:

• Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called for ICE to leave, stating: "ICE's actions today were unconscionable and reprehensible. I am beyond outraged that their reckless, callous actions led to the killing of a legal observer in Minneapolis. This is not law enforcement. It is state violence."
• Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) posted on X: "A US citizen has apparently been shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis. ICE should leave now for everyone's safety."
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated: "[DHS] Secretary Kristi Noem is a stone-cold liar and has zero credibility. The masked ICE agent who pulled the trigger should be criminally investigated to the full extent of the law for acting with depraved indifference to human life."
• Senator Dick Durbin called for a "full investigation," saying "video of the incident starkly contradicts DHS's narrative, and the fact that DHS has jumped to characterize this shooting in 'self-defense' is rushed, at best, and a lie, at worst."
• Former Vice President Kamala Harris called the incident "shocking" and said the video "makes it clear that the Trump administration's explanation of this shooting is pure gaslighting."

Public Opinion

Multiple polls conducted after the shooting found that Americans largely disagreed with the administration's characterization of events:

Poll	Finding
Quinnipiac University (Jan. 8-12)	53% said shooting was not justified; 35% said justified
CNN (Jan. 9-12)	56% said shooting was inappropriate use of force; 26% said appropriate
Yahoo News/YouGov (Jan. 8-12)	52% said shooting was not justified; 27% said justified
YouGov	53% said Ross should face criminal charges

According to CNN, only 24% of Americans agreed with the administration's characterization of Good as committing "domestic terrorism." The Yahoo News/YouGov poll found 82% of U.S. voters had seen video of the shooting.

Notably, even Republicans were not unified: the Yahoo poll found that among Republicans, only 56% said the shooting was justified, while 17% said it was not and 26% were unsure.

The CNN poll found 62% of Americans had "just some" or "no trust at all" in the federal government to carry out a fair investigation—including 47% who said they had no trust at all. Just 17% said they trust the government "a great deal" to investigate the shooting.

The CNN poll also found 51% of Americans said ICE enforcement actions were making cities less safe, with only 31% saying they were making cities safer.

The Victim: Renee Nicole Good

Good was identified by her mother, Donna Ganger, as a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident. According to family and public records:

• Good was a U.S. citizen from Colorado Springs, Colorado, living in Minneapolis with her partner, just blocks from where she was killed
• She graduated from Old Dominion University with an English degree in 2020
• She was a mother of three children, including a 6-year-old son from her second marriage to Timmy Ray Macklin Jr., who died in 2023
• She was a poet who won the Academy of American Poets Old Dominion University College Poetry Prize in 2020
• Local officials described her as a "legal observer" who was "out caring for her neighbors"
• Her ex-husband said she "was not an activist" and had simply encountered ICE agents while driving home from dropping her son at school

Ganger told the Star Tribune her daughter was "one of the kindest people I've ever known": "She was extremely compassionate. She's taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being."

Old Dominion University President Brian Hemphill called her killing "yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation."

The Minneapolis City Council released a statement signed by 11 members:

"This morning an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a member of our community. Renee was a resident of our city who was out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government. Anyone who kills someone in our city deserves to be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

An online fundraiser for Good's family raised more than $1.5 million in donations before being closed on January 9.

The Second Killing: Alex Pretti

Seventeen days after Good's death, the same operation produced a second fatality. On January 24, 2026, Border Patrol officers fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, near the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in the Whittier neighborhood, less than two miles from where Good was killed. It marked the third shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis in less than a month.

Bystander video reviewed by Reuters, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press shows Pretti filming agents and directing traffic before he stepped between an agent and a woman the agent had pushed to the ground, putting his arm around her. He was then pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by several federal agents, with roughly six surrounding him when he was shot. A CNN analysis of the video appeared to show an officer removing a gun from Pretti's holster and turning away before the first shot was fired. Police Chief O'Hara confirmed Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a Minnesota carry permit and no criminal record.

DHS claimed Pretti "approached" Border Patrol officers with a 9mm handgun and "violently resisted" when officers tried to disarm him, and Noem again called the killing "domestic terrorism." Officials declined to say whether Pretti ever brandished the weapon, which was not visible in bystander footage. Walz called the federal account "nonsense" and "lies." ProPublica later identified the two agents as Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Raymundo Gutierrez, 35. Deputy Attorney General Blanche himself later agreed that Pretti's actions were "a far cry from the legal definition of domestic terrorism."

Pretti's colleagues at VA facilities across the country held vigils. The American Federation of Government Employees said he "dedicated his life to serving American veterans." CNN later reported that the VA opened investigations into multiple staffers who attended vigils and spoke to the press. As with Good, the FBI formally notified Minnesota officials it would not grant them access to evidence, and the state filed suit to obtain it.

Political Fallout: Bovino Removed, Noem Ousted

The twin killings provoked sustained protests, a general strike in Minnesota on January 23, and bipartisan backlash. Within days of the Pretti shooting, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino was stripped of his "commander-at-large" title and his social-media access was suspended; he returned to California and subsequently retired from government service. The White House sent border czar Tom Homan to take over enforcement in Minneapolis and report directly to Trump, and Noem was removed from leading operations in the state.

On March 5, 2026, Trump fired Noem as Homeland Security secretary—the first Cabinet secretary to leave his second-term administration—and named Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, a former professional MMA fighter and staunch Trump ally, as her replacement, effective March 31. While Trump publicly cited Noem's "spectacular results" and moved her to a "Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas" role, her ouster followed two days of contentious congressional hearings; CNBC reported the termination was driven largely by her testimony that Trump had personally approved a $220 million taxpayer-funded DHS ad campaign. As Axios noted, Noem had "drew bipartisan fury after accusing Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti and mother Renee Nicole Good of being domestic terrorists." Mullin himself had defended both shootings, saying Ross "didn't have an option" but to "engage" Good.

Ross Quietly Reassigned, FBI Probe Stalls

In April 2026, reporting revealed that agent Ross had been placed on administrative leave for only three days before being quietly moved out of Minnesota and returned to active duty. According to an investigation by PunchUp, reported by The Daily Beast, senior DHS officials said Ross had effectively been shielded from ICE's own accountability process because the FBI investigation had stalled. He was performing administrative and investigative duties roughly three months after the shooting, with no further action taken against him.

DHS officials told the outlet that ICE's internal-affairs division could not begin its administrative review until the FBI probe concluded—freezing the agency's accountability process potentially indefinitely—even though the DOJ had told Fox News Digital that ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility was running a parallel internal review "as with any officer-involved shooting." One senior ICE official said the FBI needed to "shit or get off the pot," and another complained that selectively excluding state investigators "makes us look like idiots." The decision to freeze Minnesota investigators out of the evidence and crime scene was, multiple DHS officials said, directed by the White House.

After reports that Ross had resurfaced working as an ICE agent in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul demanded to know where he was stationed. Representative Ro Khanna said the agent "needs to be arrested, and he needs to be prosecuted. He needs to be put on trial," while Jeffries and Schumer renewed calls for a criminal investigation.

A DHS spokesperson told The Daily Beast the incident "remains under investigation," and a DOJ spokesperson said there was "an ongoing investigation into the event by DHS-OIG," with the U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI "providing physical evidence and support." Both declined to detail the investigation's status.

On April 17, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons announced his resignation, effective May 31. The announcement came hours after Lyons, pressed by a House subcommittee on whether he would apologize to Good's family for how she had been characterized, declined: "I welcome the opportunity to speak to the family in private. But I'm not going to comment on any active investigation."

Subsequent Events

The shootings sparked sustained protests in Minneapolis and other cities. On January 16, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy U.S. troops to Minneapolis, though he later said he didn't think there was "any reason right now to use it."

Federal authorities opened an investigation into Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement on social media: "A reminder to all those in Minnesota: No one is above the law."

On January 12, Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to end the aggressive federal immigration tactics. Illinois and Chicago officials filed a separate 103-page lawsuit calling the immigration surge an "organized bombardment" that had created "a climate of fear." On March 24, Minnesota filed suit against the DOJ and DHS to obtain access to federal evidence in both the Good and Pretti killings, with local prosecutors pledging to bring charges if warranted.

The Broader Pattern of ICE Shootings

Good's killing came to symbolize a wider pattern of shootings by federal immigration agents. By July 2026, The New York Times reported that more than 20 people had been shot at by immigration agents since September 2025—nearly all of them in their cars, some fatally—and observed that "in many immigration enforcement shootings, videos have later surfaced that contradict agents' accounts," citing the two Minneapolis killings among them. At least eleven people were fatally shot in incidents involving ICE or Border Patrol agents between January 2025 and mid-July 2026, including the July 7, 2026 killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a Houston traffic stop—a Mexican construction worker who, The New York Times confirmed, was not the target of the operation, and whose case closely tracked the template used after Good's death: a disputed claim that he "weaponized his vehicle," agents without body cameras, and an FBI inquiry framed around an alleged assault on the officer rather than the killing.

The full roster of these killings—and the distinction between enforcement shootings of people who were not attacking agents (about seven, three of them U.S. citizens) and the smaller number of "aggressor" and off-duty cases folded into the widely cited "11" figure—is documented in a dedicated entry, Fatal Shootings by ICE and Border Patrol Agents. Deaths in ICE custody, a separate and larger category, are tracked in the mass-deportation entry.

Additional Context

Conservative former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin, who was deeply critical of the Justice Department's January 6 investigation, told NBC News it was "awful" for the Trump administration to label Good as a "domestic terrorist," even though he sees the shooting itself as likely justifiable: "We don't have to agree politically to say that a mother not being able to raise her child is bad."

Former DOJ domestic terrorism counsel Tom Brzozowski told CBS Minnesota that the "domestic terrorism" label was "premature," noting: "Terrorism is not just a word to be thrown around willy-nilly. It drives priorities, taskings, analytical bandwidth, investigative posture."

Neither Noem nor Vance has publicly identified any named group, legal case, investigative finding, or evidence to demonstrate a left-wing extremist network opposing immigration enforcement or Good's involvement in one.

The shooting occurred approximately one mile from where George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020.

Federal Government Turns Over Evidence (July 2026)

On July 13, 2026, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that federal prosecutors had finally turned over key evidence long sought by Minnesota investigators in their ongoing probes into the killings of both Renee Good and Alex Pretti—more than six months after the shootings. The materials handed over by the office of U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen included previously withheld hard drives containing statements, police body-camera video, and other materials, along with Good's badly damaged SUV. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension took custody of the evidence.

"The wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence," Moriarty said. "Any time the government is responsible in whatever way of taking the life of a community member we need to have a full and thorough investigation." Lawyers for Good's family called the transfer "an important and meaningful step towards justice and accountability," and the BCA said "great strides have been made" toward ensuring a "thorough and complete review" of the shootings.

But a lawyer for Pretti's family, Steve Schleicher, said Rosen's office would not confirm any cooperation agreement between state and federal agencies during a meeting that afternoon. "No family should be required to beg federal authorities to do their job," Schleicher said. "Without a public commitment by federal authorities to cooperate with the state, it is difficult—if not, impossible—to pursue justice that holds the individuals accountable for Alex's death." Spokespersons for Rosen's office, ICE, and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Moriarty declined to say what prompted the turnover, but documents filed in the state's lawsuit suggest the breakthrough came after federal officials sought evidence Minnesota investigators had gathered in a separate case—the prosecution of ICE agent Christian Castro. Castro, 52, was charged with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the January 14, 2026 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, whom prosecutors say Castro shot in the thigh after firing through the front door of a Minneapolis home while in pursuit of another man. State and local prosecutors said they would share their evidence in the Castro case only if the federal government reciprocated on the Good and Pretti shootings. "We are willing to share evidence with you if the exchange is reciprocal," BCA Superintendent Drew Evans wrote in a legal filing. Moriarty and Attorney General Keith Ellison later amended their lawsuit to add details about the government's refusal to share evidence, and days later said in a court filing that the FBI, U.S. Attorney's Office, and state officials had "recently re-engaged in discussions about the prospect of mutual information sharing."

Ellison said he remained "deeply troubled" that it took more than half a year for the materials to be handed over: "It should never have taken this long. I hope that this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government." Moriarty said she was not yet prepared to drop the state's lawsuit against the Trump administration, which seeks access to evidence in all three Minneapolis shootings.

The turnover did little to interrupt the broader pattern. That same day, an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian man, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, during a vehicle stop in Biddeford, Maine—the second fatal ICE shooting in less than a week, and one whose government account shifted on inspection (detailed, with the full roster, in Fatal Shootings by ICE and Border Patrol Agents). Meanwhile, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare complained that federal officials were still withholding critical information in the Houston investigation into the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, saying his office did not even know the identities of the ICE officers involved nearly a week later. "The federal government has not invited us in," Teare said. "The federal government is not collaborating with us with this investigation."

Status (as of July 13, 2026)

Six months after the shooting, no charges have been filed against Jonathan Ross, who as of the most recent reporting (late April 2026) remains on active duty after being reassigned out of state. The FBI investigation has stalled and ICE's internal review remains frozen pending its conclusion. On July 13, 2026, however, federal prosecutors turned over the evidence they had long withheld—including hard drives of statements and body-camera video and Good's damaged SUV—to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which now has custody of the materials in both the Good and Pretti investigations; state prosecutors have pledged to bring charges if the evidence warrants. The DOJ's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility have been asked to examine who ordered the civil rights probe shut down and why. Two U.S. citizens are dead, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE's acting director have departed, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino has retired, and an FBI supervisor and more than a dozen federal prosecutors have resigned. The episode remains the subject of multiple lawsuits and congressional oversight efforts, with the question of accountability for either killing still unresolved.

Meanwhile, the pattern of shootings this case brought to national attention has continued: by mid-July 2026 at least eleven people had been fatally shot in incidents involving ICE or Border Patrol agents, several of them—like the July 2026 Houston and Biddeford killings—following the same template of a disputed vehicle self-defense claim, absent body-camera footage, and an FBI inquiry framed around an assault on the officer. These are catalogued in Fatal Shootings by ICE and Border Patrol Agents.