Officials in Minneapolis on Friday accused federal authorities of “hiding the facts” over the killing of a US citizen by an officer with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, and demanded the inclusion of state investigators in the FBI inquiry.
Jacob Frey, the Minnesota city’s Democratic mayor, criticized the Trump administration’s response to the shooting, speaking at a press conference two days after the death of Renee Nicole Good in her car in a confrontation with federal officers amid protests and community scrutiny during an immigration crackdown.
Donald Trump, JD Vance and Kristi Noem, the secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, all swiftly accused Good of engaging in “domestic terrorism”, without providing evidence and before the official investigation was fully under way.
The shooting and the remarks from Washington DC had prompted furious responses from Frey and the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, and other local figures, including at least one prominent Republican.
“This is not a time to hide from the facts,” Frey said on Friday, referring to the FBI’s seizure of full control of the investigation, and exclusion of officials from the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension, adding: “If you’ve got nothing to hide from, then don’t hide from it.
“They’re calling the victim a domestic terrorist. They’re calling the actions of the agent involved as some form of defensive posture. We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation.”
He added: “And even if they haven’t, there is the appearance that there is some conclusion drawn from the very beginning. If not hide from the facts, why not embrace them? Our ask is to embrace the truth. Our ask is to include the bureau of criminal apprehension in this process, because we in Minneapolis want a fair investigation.”
Frey spoke as residents of Minnesota were asked by Walz to observe a “day of unity” on Friday, including a moment of silence for Good, following a second night of peaceful protests in Minneapolis and elsewhere against the harsh anti-immigration push from the Trump administration.
City crews on Friday morning were clearing impromptu barriers left by demonstrators and reopened streets near the scene of the shooting, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported, but a large gathering in the city on Thursday night in petrifying cold temperatures passed calmly, other than some minor scuffles.
Well-wishers continued to place tributes. The vivid reds, yellows and greens of bunches of flowers popped against the layers of snow and ice on the ground, as did rainbow flags placed to mark Good’s relationship with her wife, also brightly colored balloons and a simple wooden cross placed next to a tree.
Vigils and demonstrations took place in several other cities, too, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon.
“Minnesotans have met this moment. Thousands of people have peacefully made their voices heard. Minnesota: thank you. We saw powerful peace. We have every reason to believe that peace will hold,” Walz said in a statement.
Walz said he had directed the state’s national guard troops to be ready “should they be needed” to “keep the peace, ensure public safety, and allow for peaceful demonstrations”.
The situation in the city had become very tense on Wednesday and Thursday as locals feared a repeat of the backlash against the authorities that spilled out of control in parts in 2020 after a police officer murdered George Floyd about a mile from where Good was killed, on the south side of Minneapolis.
The political fallout from Good’s death, during a large-scale immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis by ICE and other federal agencies, continued on Friday. It came as the New York Times reported that 100 more federal agents were being sent to Minneapolis. And authorities in Portland, Oregon, another city subjected to an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, dealt with the shooting of two people by border patrol agents, identified by the homeland security department as Tren de Aragua gang members, again without the provision to the public of verifying evidence.
The FBI is investigating both incidents, but caused outrage in Minneapolis on Thursday after it took over the investigation and cut Minnesota’s access to evidence.
Vance asserted at a White House briefing that the agent who shot Good enjoyed “absolute immunity” from prosecution. He was later named as Jonathan Ross, a 10-year law enforcement veteran.
Frey countered that assessment on Friday.
“That’s not true in any law school in America, whether it’s Yale or Villanova or anywhere else, that’s not true if you break the law, if you do things that are outside the area of what your job responsibilities require,” Frey said.
Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, had conceded it might be difficult to bring state charges against Ross without federal cooperation. On Friday he and the Hennepin county attorney, Mary Moriarty, initiated their own line of investigation, asking the public to send in any evidence, including video footage, available to them.
Moriarty said the FBI had taken away the car in which Good was shot and the Minnesota authorities did not have access to it and did not know if the federal authorities would share forensic results with them.
“It was going to be a joint investigation based on the conversations we had had with the federal government as well as the FBI. And then that changed. I can’t speak to why,” Moriarty said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
Former federal prosecutor in Minnesota Tom Heffelfinger, a Republican appointee, called the FBI takeover “disgusting”, in a local radio interview, the outlet Axios reported.
“This decision ultimately guarantees there cannot be a fair and complete investigation of this shooting,” Heffelfinger said, according to the reports.
Individual US states “can and do prosecute federal officials” if they commit illegal actions that aren’t authorized by federal law, Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said in an interview with Axios.
Joanna Walters contributed reporting
