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ICE fatal shooting of woman leaves Minneapolis on edge
MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis was on edge on Thursday, a day after a US immigration agent fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in an incident that drew immediate condemnation from city and state officials who blamed President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement surge for sowing chaos in the city's streets.
About 1,000 demonstrators gathered on Thursday morning at a federal building where an immigration court is housed, chanting "shame" and "murder" at armed and masked federal officers, some of whom used tear gas and pepper balls on protesters.
Minnesota and Trump administration officials offered starkly different accounts of the shooting, in which an unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot US citizen Renee Nicole Good in a residential neighborhood.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said on Thursday it had initially agreed with the FBI to conduct a joint investigation into the shooting, but that the federal agency had "reversed course" and taken sole control over the probe. The decision, according to the BCA's superintendent, Drew Evans, means the state bureau will no longer have access to the scene evidence, case materials or interviews.
"As a result, the BCA has reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation," Evans said.
Keith Ellison, the state's Democratic attorney general, told CNN the FBI's decision was "deeply disturbing" and said state authorities could investigate with or without the cooperation of the federal government. He added that the evidence he has seen, including some that has not yet been made public, indicates that state charges are a possibility.
The FBI and the office of US Attorney Daniel Rosen, the chief federal prosecutor in Minneapolis, did not immediately respond to questions about the BCA statement.
The agent was among 2,000 federal officers that the Trump administration had announced it was deploying to the Minneapolis area in what the Department of Homeland Security described as the "largest DHS operation ever."
DHS officials, including Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, defended the shooting as self-defense and accused the woman of trying to ram agents in an act of "domestic terrorism." Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, called that assertion "bullshit" and "garbage" based on bystander videos taken of the incident that appeared to contradict the government's account.
Videos showed two masked officers approaching Good's car, which was stopped at a perpendicular angle on a Minneapolis street. As one officer ordered Good out of the car and grabbed at her door handle, the car briefly reversed and then began driving forward, turning to the right in an apparent attempt to leave the scene.
A third officer, positioned in front of her car on the left, drew his gun and fired three times while jumping back, with the last shots aimed through the driver's window after the car's bumper appeared to have cleared his body.
The video did not appear to show contact and the officer stayed on his feet, though Noem said he was taken to a hospital and released. Trump, a Republican, claimed on social media the woman "ran over the ICE Officer."
Minnesota law allows the use of deadly force by an officer only if an objectively reasonable officer would believe that doing so was necessary to protect the officer or others from immediate death or serious harm. Federal law has a similar standard.
Slain woman had three children
The competing narratives highlighted the political polarization in the US, where Trump's supporters enthusiastically endorse his version of events and opponents contend his assertions are often provably false.
Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who urged the federal government to withdraw its officers, said he had put the state's National Guard on alert. Minneapolis public schools were closed on Thursday and Friday as a precautionary measure.
With classes canceled, 17-year-old Addie Flewelling attended the Minneapolis protest on Thursday to condemn the shooting and show her opposition to the immigration crackdown, including a raid at her high school earlier this week.
“Students were chased off of their place of education," she said. "This is not ok. I’m scared to go to school.”
The Minneapolis City Council, which identified the dead woman as Good, said she was "out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government."
Good had a 15-year-old daughter and two sons aged 12 and 6, according to the Washington Post.
She graduated from Virginia's Old Dominion University in 2020 with a degree in English, the school's president, Brian Hemphill, confirmed in a statement.
"This is yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation," Hemphill said. "May Renee's life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace."
While at ODU, she won an undergraduate poetry prize, according to a 2020 Facebook post by the school’s English department, which described her as hailing from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
"When she is not writing, reading, or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons," the post said.
The Facebook post also said she co-hosted a podcast with her husband, comedian Tim Macklin. He died in 2023 at 36, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, called for an investigation into Good's death, saying it was "deeply disturbing" and "tragic."
Good's mother told the Star Tribune that her daughter was "extremely compassionate," and not the type of person to confront ICE agents.
"She's taken care of people all her life," her mother, Donna Ganger, told the newspaper. "She was loving, forgiving and affectionate."
The Minnesota operation, part of Trump's nationwide crackdown on migrants, was also mounted in response to a politically charged investigation into fraud allegations against some Minnesota nonprofit groups in the Somali community.
At least 56 people have pleaded guilty since federal prosecutors under the previous Democratic administration of Joe Biden started investigating childcare and other social service programs in the Somali community. — Reuters
