The investigation into the killing of a U.S. citizen by an ICE agent in Minneapolis this week is being complicated by clashes between federal and local officials, with the FBI taking control over the objections of Governor Tim Walz.
State authorities questioned whether a federal probe could be trusted, especially given comments by Trump administration officials that seemed to exonerate the officer. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said that after it was invited to participate in the probe of Wednesday’s shooting, federal officials later decided the state wouldn’t get access to evidence or interviews.
Without that material, the BCA said it wouldn’t be able to be part of the probe.
“Now that Minnesota has been taken out of the investigation, it feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome,” Walz said at a press conference Thursday.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in New York that Minnesota doesn’t have jurisdiction over the investigation. She portrayed Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was killed by an ICE agent on Wednesday, as a domestic terrorist — and said the officer who shot her was acting in line with established protocols.
“This is an experienced officer who followed his training, and we will continue to let the investigation unfold,” Noem said. “These individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in. They were impeding our law-enforcement operations, which is against the law.”
She said the agent who shot Good was treated at a hospital and released, and was now spending time with his family. The Minnesota Star Tribune identified him as Jonathan Ross and reported that he was previously injured during an arrest in June in which he was dragged by a vehicle, citing court records and a person familiar with the matter.
A short time later, Vice President JD Vance defended the decision to cut out Minnesota officials from the investigation.
“The precedent here is very simple,” he told reporters in Washington. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue.”
He added that the agent who fired the deadly shot “is protected by absolute immunity” because he was doing his job. Vance said it would be understandable that the agent was “a little bit sensitive” about being struck by a vehicle after suffering an injury during an operation last year that resulted in 33 stitches to his leg.
“I can believe that her death is a tragedy, while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making,” Vance said.
Comments like that have drawn criticism from people who say it sounds like a federal official is declaring the shooting justified despite it being very early in the investigation process.
As ICE said that immigration enforcement efforts were continuing in the Twin Cities, protests flared Thursday, with tense standoffs between demonstrators and federal agents. The Minneapolis public school system canceled classes for the rest of the week.
Starkly opposed views about what happened Wednesday reflected bitter divisions within the US over President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and the way they’ve been conducted, with many progressives portraying what happened as clearly unjustified even as a chorus of conservatives argued the opposite. Both sides cited the same videos that showed the encounter from different angles.
Trump on Wednesday accused the woman of running over the ICE officer. But New York Times reporters who were in the Oval Office for an interview showed a slow-motion surveillance video of the shooting to Trump and pointed out that it didn’t appear to show that, the paper said. As the video ended, Trump replied, “it’s a terrible scene,” adding “I hate to see it,” the newspaper reported.
In the Twin Cities on Thursday, several dozen demonstrators were outnumbered by federal agents as the two sides lined up outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, a site near the airport that ICE has used as a staging ground. CNN showed at least a few people being hauled away by officers. Several agents and protesters were wearing gas masks; CNN reported agents used pepper balls earlier.
Greg Bovino, a Border Patrol commander who has become the public face of many operations, was on site at the protest.
Federal agents began arriving in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area in early December under what ICE called “Operation Metro Surge.” The Trump administration said this week the effort will involve as many as 2,000 federal agents, and it’s already resulted in at least 1,500 arrests.
Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis said armed Border Patrol officers came on school grounds Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffing two staffers and spraying chemical weapons on bystanders, according to a report by Minnesota Public Radio.
The deadly shooting unfolded in a residential area of Minneapolis about three miles south of downtown.
The footage showed a Honda Pilot blocking part of the road as two federal agents approached. As one of them tried to open the door, the SUV backed up slightly. A third agent then appeared in front of the automobile, and he fired at the driver as the car began to turn and move forward. The vehicle briefly continued to move ahead before crashing.
Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, said in an interview with CBS News that he would withhold making a judgment call on the shooting until more information is known.
“Let the investigation play out,” Homan said, according to CBS, “and hold people accountable based on the investigation.”
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