A legal expert has weighed in on whether the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis could face criminal charges.
Tensions over ICE’s presence in Minneapolis had been mounting, and protests broke out this week following recent raids. Friction had been building in the city for several weeks before the fatal shooting occurred.
According to CBC, roughly 2,000 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and ICE officers were scheduled to carry out operations in Minneapolis and nearby St. Paul.
On January 7, Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer while sitting in her car during one of these raids. Video footage shows a burgundy SUV surrounded by ICE officers.
Gunfire erupted moments later, leaving the vehicle crashed into a light pole and parked cars, with bullet holes visible in the driver’s side windshield.
The exact sequence of events leading to the shooting remains unclear.
Authorities claim Good tried to “weaponize” her vehicle to run over an officer, prompting the officer to fire in self-defense.
JD Vance’s new words about the killing
Even the U.S. Vice President placed blame on the woman who was killed. In a tweet responding to another post, he wrote:
”First of all, she’s not waving the officers through and has no right to do so even if she were. She is waving another car through, before the officers approach her car.
Second, the officers are not randomly searching her, they are approaching her vehicle because she is violating the law: namely, she is obstructing a lawful enforcement operation. You’re not allowed to walk up to or drive up to people who are enforcing the law to make it harder for them to do their jobs.
Third, this defense attorney is drawing a meaningless distinction between an ICE officer and a “real police officer.” Again, you’re not allowed to interrupt a lawful enforcement operation, which is exactly what this woman was doing.
Fourth, the officer didn’t discharge his weapon to prevent her from fleeing. When he discharged his weapon, she had pointed the vehicle at him and pressed the gas. He discharged his weapon in self defense, and other angles of the video show the woman *clearly* hit the officer with her car while accelerating.
The gaslighting is off the charts and I’m having none of it. This guy was doing his job. She tried to stop him from doing his job. When he approached her car, she tried to hit him.
A tragedy? Absolutely. But a tragedy that falls on this woman and all of the radicals who teach people that immigration is the one type of law that rioters are allowed to interfere with.”
Survived by her six-year-old son
However, many have questioned this version, and circulating video footage only shows fragments of the incident.
City officials and witnesses, however, sharply disagreed with the federal narrative. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called it “bulls***,” saying, “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets and in this case quite literally killing people.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also criticized the federal response, calling it “governing by reality TV” and urging a full, fair investigation.
Good, a U.S. citizen, is survived by her six-year-old son.
On social media, she described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado; experiencing Minneapolis, MN.”
Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune, “She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being. She was probably terrified.”
Tributes have poured in following her death.
Will the ICE officer face charges?
Questions have also arisen over whether the ICE officer acted lawfully and if criminal charges could follow. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, believes prosecution is unlikely.
“Undoubtedly, if it is reasonable to construe the woman’s action as a deliberate attempt to mow down an ICE agent with a speeding vehicle, the use of force was justified,” McCarthy wrote in National Review.
“But even if the woman was mainly trying to get away (which is what it looks like to me), she was engaged in an actionable assault on a federal officer, a felony under Section 111 of the federal penal code.”
McCarthy added, “It is settled Fourth Amendment law that a police officer may use deadly force against a fleeing suspect if he has a good-faith belief that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has stepped back from investigating the deadly ICE-related shooting in Minneapolis after the FBI assumed control of the case, Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem voiced similar support for the officer, saying at a news conference, “Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation, and took actions to defend himself and defend his fellow law enforcement officers.”
On the ongoing investigation, Noem added, “I do believe the officer used his training in this situation and we’ll let the FBI continue the investigation to get it resolved.”
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