The family of anti-ICE activist Renee Good, who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, filed two separate lawsuits against current and former Trump administration officials, claiming she was wrongfully killed and that excessive force was used in the incident.
The January shooting took place during a historic immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” during which thousands of federal agents were deployed to arrest illegal immigrants. The situation quickly grew tense as ICE Watch groups, which track and follow immigration agents, began attempting to disrupt raids.
“The campaign produced two dead Americans, a third person shot, a fourth dead in Texas detention, and more than $200 million in economic damage to a single city,” one of the lawsuits stated. “Renee was one of those casualties. She was killed on a public street, while doing what thousands of her neighbors were doing that winter: watching masked, armed men terrorizing her community and refusing to look away.”
Good, 37, had just dropped her 6-year-old son at school the morning of the shooting before she stopped her car after spotting ICE agents nearby “and honked her horn to alert her neighbors,” according to the lawsuit.
Good’s partner, Rebecca, got out of the car and began filming the agents, the lawsuit stated. ICE agents “drove around their stopped car without incident” before the shooting occurred.
The lawsuit also named ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who is accused of firing the fatal shot. Ross allegedly exited his vehicle and began filming as he circled Good’s vehicle.
“That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at any of you,” Renee said to the officer, according to the lawsuit.
Two other ICE agents pulled up on the other side of Good’s car as she “waved them around and told them to ‘just go around.'” The officers exited their truck, while one shouted, “Out of the car. Get out of the f*cking car.”
One agent tried to open Good’s car door before she turned her wheels away and began moving forward, the lawsuit alleged. Ross allegedly moved out of the car’s path before leaning “forward toward the vehicle,” pulling out his gun and firing a round at the bottom left side of Good’s windshield.
Good’s car continued to turn away from Ross, who fired two more shots into the open driver’s side window.
Good was struck in the left temple. Her car then “careened down” the street before crashing into a parked vehicle.
Ross then blurted out the words “f*cking b*tch,” according to the lawsuit.
Rebecca ran to Good’s aid, finding her partner bloodied from a gunshot wound to the head.
The lawsuit alleges that not a single agent came to Good’s aid and that they turned away a bystander who identified himself as a doctor.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security also did not immediately provide a comment.
One of the lawsuits named Ross, Trump advisor Stephen Miller, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, then-senior advisor to Noem Corey Lewandowski, White House border czar Tom Homan, former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, former Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, and 10 anonymous federal agents as defendants.
The lawsuit accused Trump administration officials of blaming Good for her death, citing several public statements.
Hours after the shooting, Noem called Good’s actions “an act of domestic terrorism” intended to “kill or cause bodily harm to agents.” She said the ICE officer fired the shot after “fearing for his life” and those around him.
Noem said the agents were trying to push a vehicle that was stuck in the snow before they were encircled by a “mob of agitators” who were “impeding law enforcement operations.”
She said officers approached Good, “who was blocking officers in with her vehicle” and “had been stalking and impeding their work.”
The agents “repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop obstructing law enforcement, but she refused to obey their commands,” Noem said, adding that Good “proceeded to weaponize her vehicle” and “attempted to run” over an officer.
Noem said the agent was hospitalized for a short period after the shooting.
Good’s death set off a firestorm of anti-ICE protests in the area as more activists attempted to track federal immigration agents and alert the community to their presence.
Just over two weeks after Good’s death, a Customs and Border Protection officer fatally shot Alex Pretti, an anti-ICE activist, in Minneapolis after engaging in a confrontation.
.png)
.png)
