Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, according to people with knowledge of their decision.
Joseph H. Thompson, who was second in command at the U.S. attorney’s office and oversaw a sprawling fraud investigation that has roiled Minnesota’s political landscape, was among those who quit on Tuesday, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.
Mr. Thompson’s resignation came after senior Justice Department officials pressed for a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent on Wednesday.
Mr. Thompson, 47, a career prosecutor, objected to that approach, as well as to the Justice Department’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful, the people familiar with his decision said.
The other senior career prosecutors who resigned include Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez. Mr. Jacobs had been Mr. Thompson’s deputy overseeing the fraud investigation, which began in 2022. Mr. Calhoun-Lopez was the chief of the violent and major crimes unit.
Mr. Thompson, Mr. Jacobs, Ms. Williams and Mr. Calhoun-Lopez declined to discuss the reasons they resigned. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The fraud cases, which involve schemes to defraud safety net programs managed by state agencies, were the chief reason the Trump administration launched an immigration crackdown in the state. The vast majority of defendants charged in the cases are of Somali origin.
Tuesday’s resignations followed tumultuous days at the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota as prosecutors struggled to manage the outrage over Ms. Good’s killing, which set off angry protests in Minnesota and across the nation.
After Ms. Good was shot, the Justice Department decided to forgo a civil rights investigation that would establish whether the ICE officer’s use of deadly force was justified. That decision led several career prosecutors at the department’s civil rights division in Washington to resign in protest, MS Now reported on Monday.
Instead, the Justice Department launched an investigation to examine ties between Ms. Good and her wife, Becca, and several groups that have been monitoring and protesting the conduct of immigration agents in recent weeks. Shortly after Wednesday’s fatal shooting, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, referred to Ms. Good as a “domestic terrorist.”
Becca Good said in a statement last week that she and her wife had “stopped to support our neighbors” when they got into a tense confrontation with ICE agents that led to the shooting. “We had whistles,” Becca Good wrote. “They had guns.”
Mr. Thomson strenuously objected to the decision not to investigate the shooting as a civil rights matter, and was outraged by the demand to launch a criminal investigation into Becca Good, according to the people familiar with the developments, who were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Mr. Thompson had originally set out to investigate the shooting in partnership with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a state agency that reviews police shootings. Senior Justice Department officials overruled the decision to cooperate with the state agency.
Drew Evans, the superintendent of the bureau, called Mr. Thompson’s departure a major setback for the effort to root out fraud in the state and for public safety.
“We’re losing a true public servant,” said Mr. Evans. “We really need professional prosecutors.”
“The absence of a credible and comprehensive investigation into Ms. Good’s killing stands to “undermine trust in our public safety agencies,” Mr. Evans added.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy.
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