Donald Trump’s administration labeled a 37-year-old woman who was fatally shot by a federal officer a “violent rioter” who committed an act of “domestic terrorism” in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s deadly confrontation before any investigation determined what happened and why.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and administration officials have vigorously defended her agency’s response, insisting that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fired three shots at Renee Good while she was behind the wheel of her car was “surrounded and assaulted” by protesters.
Noem appeared alongside ICE officials in New York City one day after an officer fatally shot Good through her driver side window, igniting protests and outrage from elected officials across the country. The officer was later identified as Jonathan Ross.
“This is an experienced officer who followed his training, and we will continue to let the investigation unfold into the individual and continue to follow the procedures and policies that happen in these use of force cases,” she told reporters grilling her over the shooting.
Video footage and witness descriptions of Wednesday’s scene do not appear to show any imminent threat or “assault” that provoked the officers who surrounded Good’s vehicle.
Video from the scene shows masked ICE officers approaching a Honda Pilot in the middle of a residential street.
The officer who later fired his weapon can be seen using his phone to film a person who appears to also be filming him. Meanwhile, another car can be seen speeding around the front of Good’s Honda and continuing down the street.
The ICE officer then walks to the front of the car.
A pickup truck pulls up, and two officers exit and approach Good, who is sitting in the driver’s seat of the Honda. An officer can be heard saying “get out of the f****** car” while an agent puts a hand on the opening of the driver’s side window and pulls on the outside handle.
At the same time, Good’s car backs up slightly, then pulls forward and begins to veer to the right. As her car moves forward, turning slightly to get around another SUV to her right, the agent who moved to the front of her car can now be seen still holding up a phone.
As her car pulls forward, the agent at the front of the car moves out of the way and fires the first of three shots. Video footage then shows Ross firing two more shots from the side of the vehicle.
Good’s car accelerates and crashes into a parked car further down the street.
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Noem told reporters Thursday that “these individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in.”
“They were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law, and when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not,” she said speaking from a press conference in New York City.
According to her ex-husband, Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school and was driving home with her partner when they arrived on the street.
Caitlin Callenson, an eyewitness who recorded video of the incident, said she saw ICE officers trying to “zoom their car out of the snowbank but were just stuck.”
Other ICE vehicles arrived, leading neighbors to believe that an enforcement action was underway, she told Minnesota Public Radio. Good drove her car perpendicular to the lanes of traffic on the street, though by that point, ICE vehicle stuck in snow had been freed, according to Callendson.
Officers gave her "conflicting orders” to move her car and get out of it, she said.
“Some of them were leaving, and they just went around her, but ICE gave her orders to leave, while at the same time, another ICE person said, ‘Get out of the car,’ and he reached for her door handle,” she told the outlet. “And then there was an ICE agent in front of her vehicle. So it was difficult for her to leave, as she’d been ordered to do.”
Noem, however, said Good was shot because she performed “an act of domestic terrorism.”
“The officer was hit by the vehicle,” Noem said during Thursday’s press conference. “She hit him. He went to the hospital. A doctor did treat him. He has been released, but he’s gonna spend some time with his family.”
Her comments follow Trump’s claim on Truth Social that Good “viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” adding “it is hard to believe he is alive.”
The lethal confrontation follows Homeland Security’s ramped up immigration enforcement operations in the Twin Cities, with thousands of federal officers surging to the state for what the agency called its “largest operation ever.”
The Trump administration’s blitz in Minnesota is the latest in a mass deportation campaign targeting Democratic-led cities across the country, including heavily armed and armored Customs and Border Patrol officers storming through Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Charlotte, North Carolina, among others, which were met with fierce resistance from residents and local officials.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Homeland Security’s statement defending the officer’s actions “bull****.”
“To ICE, get the f*** out of Minneapolis,” Frey said Tuesday.
“What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said. “They want us to respond in a way that creates a military occupation in our city. Let’s not let them.”
Minnesota authorities said the FBI was taking over the investigation and blocking them from the evidence.
It is unclear whether Ross was wearing a body-worn camera, or if Homeland Security intends to release video evidence and footage from his phone.
Local officials “do not have any jurisdiction in this investigation,” Noem said Thursday.
Minneapolis is home to roughly 80,000 people of Somali ancestry, the vast majority of whom are legal residents or American citizens. But the president — who routinely uses racist and derogatory language to describe Somali immigrants — has seized on a series of fraud cases involving government programs where most of the defendants have roots in the East African country.
Recent allegations from a 23-year-old influencer have dovetailed with the president’s anti-immigration agenda and his years-long attempts to undermine Democratic elected officials in the state, including former vice presidential candidate and current governor Tim Walz.
“Now that Minnesota has been taken out of the investigation, it feels very difficult that we will get a fair outcome,” Walz said Thursday. “And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment. They have stood and told you things that are verifiably false.”
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