Federal Prosecutors Tried to Investigate Renee Good’s Killing — The Trump Administration Blocked Them

In the hours after 37-year-old Minnesota mother of three Renée Good was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent on January 7, senior career prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota began what should have been a routine investigation into an officer’s use of deadly force.

They never got to finish it — because the Trump administration intervened to stop it.

Federal agents in Minneapolis had a signed warrant and were preparing to document bullet holes, blood spatter, and other evidence from Ms. Good’s vehicle when they were ordered to stand down.The directive came from the highest levels of the Justice Department and the F.B.I., which worried that an independent investigation might contradict President Trump’s public narrative blaming Ms. Good for her death. 

ICE agent Jonathan Ross was the federal officer who fired the shots that killed Ms. Good. Ross has not been charged in connection with Ms. Good’s death, and the Justice

Department has publicly said it will not pursue criminal charges against him. 

The Shooting of Renee Good

On the morning of January 7, Good was in her parked SUV on a Minneapolis street when federal agents approached during an immigration operation. Video released by multiple outlets shows her vehicle backing up and beginning to turn before ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired three shots, striking her.

Renee Good was rushed to a hospital, where she later died. A county medical examiner has ruled her death a homicide.

Ross was placed on leave following the shooting. Yet federal prosecutors and the Justice Department have refused to open a civil rights or criminal investigation into whether Ross’s use of force was lawful or unconstitutional, saying there is “no basis” for such a probe — even though dozens of veteran prosecutors believed one was warranted.

Shutting Down the Investigation

Under long-standing practice, shootings by law enforcement officers — especially deadly ones — prompt civil rights investigations by federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. But in this case, those efforts were halted in their tracks.

Instead of letting investigators examine the killing on its own merits, Justice Department leaders suggested rewriting the legal basis for a warrant so that attention would shift from the agent’s conduct to alleged criminality by Ms. Good — or even to her partner, who was present that morning. Career prosecutors called the proposed strategy both legally dubious and politically motivated.

When prosecutors resisted, several top lawyers in the Minnesota U.S. attorney’s office resigned in protest — including Joseph H. Thompson, one of the officials leading the initial investigative effort.

Their departures have left the office badly understaffed and unable to carry out major prosecutions even as it faces hundreds of immigration-related cases.

Behind the scenes, seniors officials have taken aggressive steps to prevent an independent investigation that could expose more about what happened — and about Ross’s conduct.

That decision has sparked widespread outrage in Minnesota and beyond. Legislators, community groups, and Ms. Good’s family have demanded transparency and accountability for her killing, while protests and hearings have drawn national attention.

But with the federal government refusing to pursue charges and blocking state and local access to evidence, the agent who killed a U.S. citizen in broad daylight may never face criminal accountability.