Minnesota’s top prosecutors will conduct their own review of Renee Nicole Good’s killing by an ICE agent after the state’s criminal investigative bureau said the FBI had cut it out of the investigation.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced the review Friday at a news conference. They said the effort would ensure state authorities have access to investigative materials, such as video and witness statements, if the case merits state-level charges.
“I want to be very clear about this, this is not because we have concerns about the FBI investigation,” Moriarty said. “Based on a previous experience with FBI processes, we are concerned that the evidence obtained in an investigation that has only been conducted at the federal level will not be shared with our office for review.”
On Friday evening, several hundred people gathered in downtown Minneapolis and threw snow, ice and rocks at police officers and vehicles, Minneapolis Police Department Sgt. Garrett Parten told The Washington Post in an email. Some protesters forced entry into a hotel before dispersal orders were issued, police added, with at least 30 people detained, cited and released. Video posted on social media showed protesters blowing whistles and banging drums on the street outside the hotel, where they believed ICE agents were staying.
More than 1,000 protests against ICE are expected across the country this weekend, according to progressive group Indivisible, one of the organizers.
The decision to review Good’s killing came a day after the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the FBI was revoking its access to the case file, scene evidence and witness interviews.
Asked by reporters Friday whether the FBI should be sharing those materials with state officials, President Donald Trump said, “Normally I would, but they’re crooked.” Trump did not offer details, but Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) has been criticized for not acting earlier to stop alleged welfare fraud in his state.
The decision not to share evidence with Minnesota authorities marks a break from past high-profile investigations in which local, state and federal officials worked together, including after then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in 2020.
Vice President JD Vance on Thursday called Good’s killing “a federal issue” because it involved a federal agent engaging in federal law enforcement activity. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vance said from the White House.
State authorities pushed back Friday on arguments that the shooting was outside their jurisdiction.
“To be sure, there are complex legal issues when a federal law enforcement officer is involved, but the law is clear we do have jurisdiction,” Moriarty said. “We cannot make any decision, however, if there is not evidence submitted to our office.”
The Wednesday shooting of Good, a 37-year-old motherwhose wife said they had “stopped to support our neighbors” when she was fatally shot on a residential street, escalated in a matter of seconds. “We had whistles. They had guns,” Good’s wife, Rebecca Good, said in a statement.
A video released Friday appears to show the moments immediately before the shooting from the perspective of one of the ICE officers. The video shows Good say to an ICE officer through the open driver’s-side window, “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you,” as he circles her vehicle while recording with a phone camera in his left hand.
The video abruptly ends seconds later as Good’s maroon Honda Pilot reverses and then moves forward. The video does not show whether the vehicle struck the officer. It records what sounds like shots being fired.
Other videos from witnesses that day show Good’s car parked across the road as ICE vehicles approach, and officers begin demanding she get out of her car. A frame-by-frame analysis by The Post determined Good’s vehicle moved toward the ICE officer as he stood in front of it, but the officer was able to move out of the way and fire at least two of three shots from the side of the vehicle as it veered past him.
Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, said Friday at the news conference that “there is no conclusion that anyone could reach in good faith at this time because there’s too much evidence still to be evaluated.”
Prosecutors in Hennepin County, where the shooting took place, and Ellison’s staff are asking witnesses to submit evidence for their offices to review and preserve.
“Let the people who are evaluating and gathering the evidence make that decision,” he said. “But if you have information bearing on the outcome of this matter in any way, please share it.”
Much of the evidence from the scene of the shooting is in federal custody, Moriarty said Friday, including the vehicle that Good was driving when she was shot. Right now, she added, state investigators don’t have access to the car or the forensic evaluations conducted on it.
Because there was initially an agreement to do a joint investigation with the FBI, agents of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension had gathered some evidence. “They’re currently typing up those reports. They will certainly share those with us,” Moriarty said.
The Minneapolis shooting came a day before Border Patrol agents shot and injured two people in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday. The shots struck a man in the arm and a woman in the chest, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said Friday, but both were in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery. He said his agency was working with their federal partners to investigate the shooting.
At a gathering of state and Minneapolis lawmakers Friday morning in City Hall, officials chided the Trump administration for their rhetoric in the aftermath of the killing. Vance blamed Good for her own death, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said Good’s actions amounted to “an act of domestic terrorism.”
Noem’s comments, and the FBI’s apparent move to block state investigators from the probe into the shooting, show the administration has “already come to a conclusion” about what it wants the inquiry to find, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Friday.
“From the very beginning, 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 from the Minneapolis City Hall rotunda. “We know they’ve already determined much of the investigation.”
Ben Brasch, Andrew Jeong and Victoria Craw contributed to this report.
The post Minnesota to review ICE shooting after FBI blocks state agents from case appeared first on Washington Post.
