MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota authorities said Thursday that the FBI was taking over the investigation into an immigration officer’s deadly shooting of a woman in Minneapolis, freezing them out of the inquiry and blocking them from accessing evidence.
Because of the federal move, “it feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said. “And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment,” he added.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday, setting off protests in Minneapolis that continued into Thursday. Trump administration officials have defended the shooting as appropriate, with Vice President JD Vance on Thursday praising the ICE officer, criticizing Good and calling her death “a tragedy of her own making.”
Authorities initially said the investigation into what happened would be conducted by the Minneapolis Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), a state agency, and the FBI. The Minneapolis Police Department described them both as “leading the investigation.”
On Thursday morning, however, the BCA said in a statement that it had been told by the FBI that the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis “had reversed course: the investigation would now be led solely by the FBI, and the BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.”
As a result, the BCA said, the agency “reluctantly” pulled out of the investigation.
Trump administration officials, including President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, have defended the Minneapolis shooting, saying the ICE officer, who has not been publicly identified, feared for his life and was acting in self-defense when Good threatened him with her car.
Good “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over,” Noem said Wednesday evening.
Speaking Thursday morning, Noem said the investigation into the shooting was continuing but repeated her defenses of the ICE officer, calling him “an experienced officer who followed his training.”
Video from the scene raises doubts about some parts of the administration’s defense of the shooting. Footage showed that while the vehicle moved toward the ICE agent while he stood in front of it, the agent was able to move aside and fire at least two of his three shots from the side of the vehicle, a Washington Post analysis found.
Emily Heller, who witnessed the shooting, also told The Post that the ICE agents appeared to give conflicting instructions to Good, indicating they wanted her to move her car before advancing on the vehicle.
Video from Heller’s phone, which she shared with The Post, showed a neighbor who identified himself as a doctor trying to approach Good’s car to provide aid, only to be rebuffed by officers, one of whom said: “Give us a second. We have medics” en route.
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s use-of-force policy, as posted on its website, the agency’s officers should use force “only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist.”
Many law enforcement agencies prohibit officers from shooting into moving vehicles. The Homeland Security document said that officers are prohibited from firing at the operator of a moving vehicle unless using deadly force is justified by the broader use-of-force standard. It also said that officers should get medical assistance “as soon as practicable” for anyone who appears injured.
The posted policy was updated in 2023. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the policy has been changed since then.
The decision by federal officials to unilaterally take over the investigation marks a break from past instances when local, state and federal authorities worked together on high-profile inquiries. After Derek Chauvin, a police officer in Minneapolis, murdered George Floyd in 2020, igniting widespread racial justice protests, the FBI and BCA carried out a joint investigation.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), who prosecuted Chauvin, called the unilateral FBI probe “deeply disturbing.”
“My question is: What are you afraid of?” Ellison said on CNN. “Maybe they don’t care. They’ve demonstrated a degree of cavalier conduct that is extraordinary and unprecedented.”
The FBI declined to comment on the BCA’s statement regarding the investigation. The U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis and the Justice Department’s headquarters in D.C. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move comes as Trump and officials within his administration have repeatedly taken sharp aim at Minnesota, its leaders and residents alike. Republicans have recently focused on cases of alleged social services fraud in Minnesota, while Trump has vehemently lashed out at the state’s large Somali immigrant population.
When Noem was asked Thursday at a news conference about state authorities being kept from the investigation, she said they “do not have any jurisdiction in this situation” and pivoted to attacking them.
“They’re allowing this situation to be volatile, they’re not doing their work, they haven’t for years, and maybe they should get to work a little bit on the unprecedented fraud that we’re seeing in Minnesota,” she said. “Minnesota is a train wreck. It’s corrupt.”
The move to sideline the BCA drew rebukes from local and state authorities. In a statement, the city of Minneapolis called the decision “deeply disappointing” and asked “for a clear and transparent process that includes state investigating agencies.”
Walz, speaking at a news conference Thursday, said: “Minnesota must be part of this investigation.”
The BCA said Thursday that it was ready to rejoin the investigation if the FBI reversed course. Barring that, however, the agency said it expected state officials would eventually gain access to the FBI’s investigative records.
“We expect the FBI to conduct a thorough and complete investigation and that the full investigative file will be shared with the appropriate prosecutorial authorities at both the state and federal levels,” the agency said in its statement.
Vance dismissed state officials’ anger at being kept out of the investigation, calling the ICE officer “a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue.”
Speaking at the White House, Vance claimed without evidence that Good, a poet and mother of three, had been “brainwashed” and “a victim of left-wing ideology.” He accused her of “trying to obstruct a legitimate law enforcement officer” and called the incident “an attack on federal law enforcement.”
The deadly shooting in Minneapolis this week came after confrontations between federal immigration agents and demonstrators across the country since Trump’s second term began.
While many federal officials and some Republicans in Congress defended the ICE agent’s actions, Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, struck a more cautious note in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday.
“It’d be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation,” Homan said. “Let the investigation play out and hold people accountable based on the investigation.”
Local, state and national Democrats pushed back on the Trump administration’s defense of the shooting, which Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said “was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying.”
After protests stretched overnight, hundreds of demonstrators angered by Good’s death gathered Thursday morning outside a government office building to heckle and scream at federal officers as they drove in and out of the parking lot.
“No more Minnesota nice; we don’t want your fascist ICE,” they chanted.
A line of officers stationed at the parking lot entrances admonished those filling the roadway to step back. Officers deployed tear gas at one point and arrested at least a few people.
Protesters held signs that said “ICE out” and chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, ICE has got to go.”
One man wore a sandwich board with Smokey Bear’s face that said, “Only you can prevent fascist liars.” A woman handed out snacks, and a man passed out whistles so people could alert others if they see ICE agents in their neighborhood.
“It feels like we are reliving the George Floyd moment,” said Teresa Thomas, 58, who gave out the snacks.
Several protesters in yellow vests stretched across the roadway, slowing federal officers as they drove into work. Another group stood along the median, shouting at them as they turned into the parking lot. Others stood farther back along the sidewalk. One woman filmed cars as federal officers came into work, and she recited their license plate numbers into her phone. Another filmed them with one hand and flipped them off with the other.
Berman reported from Washington. Mariana Alfaro, David Nakamura, Justine McDaniel, Derek Hawkins, Maegan Vazquez, Amy B Wang, Caroline O’Donovan, Maria Sacchetti, Jonathan Baran, Aaron C. Davis, Annie Gowen, Jeremy Roebuck and Perry Stein contributed to this report.
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