Minneapolis elected officials on Friday called for an independent investigation of the killing of a woman by immigration agents on the city’s South Side after federal law enforcement blocked state agencies from access to case evidence.
“Our ask here is really simple. Our ask here is to embrace the truth,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a press conference. “We in Minneapolis want a fair investigation.”
Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Wednesday morning on Portland Avenue near E. 34th Street. She was 37.
Shortly after Frey and other local officials held a press conference Friday morning, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a joint effort to collect evidence to support the investigation into Good’s killing.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday in the immediate aftermath of the shooting that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) would be investigating Good’s killing alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). But federal officials reversed course, and are no longer cooperating with the state or sharing evidence in the case, a move Walz said Thursday limits trust that there will be a fair investigation.
The move will make it difficult for the state to conduct a thorough investigation of the killing, which limits the potential to bring state charges in the case, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said Thursday.
The shooter, first identified by the Star Tribune, is ICE agent Jonathan Ross, an agency veteran based in Minnesota.
The BCA routinely investigates law enforcement shootings in Minnesota, and created the Force Investigations Unit for that purpose after George Floyd’s 2020 murder by then Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin blocks from where Good was slain.
“Are we going to design a process that is legitimate or not?” State Rep. Aisha Gomez, DFL-Minneapolis, asked Friday. “We call on the FBI to share the evidence with the Force Investigations Unit at the BCA and have this be a legitimate and trusted investigation.”
Local officials said the need for an independent investigation is even more urgent following comments by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claiming that Good attempted to weaponize her vehicle against ICE agents.
“They’re calling the victim a domestic terrorist, they’re calling the actions of the agent involved as some form of defensive posture,” Frey said. “We know that they have already determined much of the investigation, and even if they haven’t there is the appearance that there is some conclusion drawn at the very beginning.”
Frey said Vance’s assertion Thursday that the ICE agent, Ross, is protected by “absolute immunity” was bizarre. He also denounced claims by Trump and Noem that Ross was injured.
“The ICE agent walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door. He was not injured,” Frey said. “Give me a break, no, he was not ran over. He walked out of there with a hop in his step.”
Council Member Jason Chavez, whose ward borders the intersection where Good was killed, said the city is in mourning and communities are being driven into hiding by ICE’s surge in the Twin Cities. Videos of the incident contradict the narrative driven by Trump administration officials, he said.
“It is important and critical to our community to have a sense of trust in this process by having an independent investigation,” Chavez said. “… I am here on behalf of my entire community echoing the calls to arrest, to prosecute and fire this ICE agent who murdered Renee Good and to hold those accountable complicit in this crime.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants, said residents are being forced underground out of fear. People in his ward have been arrested by ICE at bus stops and walking out to their vehicles. He called for residents to help immigrant neighbors get to work, move their cars during snow emergencies and take out the trash, all scenarios that he said have resulted in ICE arresting people.
“I ask Minneapolis and Minnesota to rise up, to do everything in their power to defend our immigrant neighbors, to continue to observe the illegal actions by ICE, to blow the whistle when you see immigration enforcement in your neighborhood,” Chavez said.
The stated goal of ICE flooding cities across the country to make America safer isn’t the reality, Frey said. The flood of immigration agents in the Twin Cities resulted in Good’s killing, and is creating chaos and decimating businesses across the region.
“They are clearly driving crime up,” Frey said.
Correction: The name of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson has been updated in this story.
