The FBI has taken full control of the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, it emerged on Thursday.
In a statement, the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA) said it was initially called upon to help investigate the shooting before federal officials “reversed course” and said the case would be “solely led by the FBI”. With its access to the case materials, witnesses and evidence revoked, the BCA said it had to “reluctantly” withdraw from the investigation.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem denied that the BCA had been cut out of the investigation and said it was a matter of jurisdiction. “They have not been cut,” she said. “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.”
But Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, told a news conference that “Minnesota must be part of this investigation. It feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome. And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment.”
Indeed, the reversal from federal law enforcement comes as the Trump administration continues to justify Wednesday’s deadly shooting by accusing Good of engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” and claiming that the ICE agent who shot her was acting in “self-defense”, alleging she had tried to run him over.
That narrative is at odds with video footage of the incident, which has been widely shared online. It shows Good reversing her car and letting at least one ICE vehicle pass before an officer tells her to get out of the car; she then tries to turn and drive away. An agent shoots her multiple times, remains on his feet and walks away apparently uninjured as her car crashes into a lamp-post and parked vehicle.
The agent was identified independently by the Guardian as Jonathan E Ross, a Minnesota resident and 10-year veteran of federal law enforcement. Noem continued on Thursday to defend the federal agent – whom she described as “an experienced officer” that was “following his training” – and said he had been treated in hospital after the incident. Both she and the vice-president noted that Ross had been injured in an incident six months ago when an undocumented immigrant resisted arrest in a vehicle.
Vance also defended the shooting, repeatedly claiming, baselessly, that Good was part of a “leftwing network” of people who are trying to “incite violence against our law enforcement officers”.
He told the White House press briefing without evidence that the young mother was “a victim of leftwing ideology” and had been “brainwashed”, and doubled down on the administration’s claim that the officer had acted in self-defense. Good, 37, was “dead because she tried to ram somebody with her car”, Vance said.
The deadly incident, which occurred less than a mile from the spot where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020, escalated tensions that have been building for weeks in Minnesota amid ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations and fraud investigations by the Trump administration.
Authorities in Minneapolis had canceled school classes across the city on Thursday amid safety concerns and rising political tension after the US citizen and mother of three was killed during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation the day before.
Dozens of clergy members from all faith backgrounds gathered with hundreds of people at the site of the shooting in south Minneapolis at noon to show that the city was unified in its response. “Renee Good stood for her neighbors. We now must stand for her,” said JaNaé Bates, a co-executive director of the interfaith group Isaiah.
The crowd chanted “ICE out now” throughout the event, against visible signs of the tragedy: red paint in the snow read “ICE kills”, and writing on the street called for ICE to leave.
But emotions remained high in the city, and across the US, as the basic facts of the incident remain the subject of fierce debate.
Ilhan Omar posted on social media Thursday morning that thousands of people had gathered to honor Good last night, and that “ICE needs to get out of Minneapolis”.
“We will never accept that a single federal agent can be judge, jury and executioner in our streets,” the Minnesota representative said.
Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, also made several appearances on television networks on Wednesday night calling for peaceful protests and doubling down on his comments at a press conference earlier in the day in which he called for ICE “to get the fuck out of Minneapolis”.
“People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized, and now, somebody is dead,” Frey said.
He said the homeland security department was already “trying to spin this as an action of self-defense”, a claim he said was “bullshit”.
Some Republicans seized on Frey’s comments as incendiary, with Nancy Mace, a South Carolina representative, calling for the resignations of the mayor and Walz.
Despite local officials’ calls for federal law enforcement to leave the state, the New York Times reported on Thursday that the Trump administration will deploy more than 100 US Customs and Border Protection agents and officers to Minnesota following the fatal shooting of Good.
The agents will be redirected from operations in Chicago and New Orleans. The deployment is expected to last until Sunday, the newspaper reported, citing documents it obtained.
Noem also stated that ICE operations would continue in Minneapolis, which saw a surge of about 2,000 federal agents this week to target immigrant populations.
• This story was amended on 8 January 2025 to correct the name of the ICE officer who shot Renee Nicole Good, which is Jonathan E Ross, not Jonathan David Ross. Also, an incorrect reference to Ross being a resident of Minneapolis was removed.
