WASHINGTON — Federal officials are investigating the widow of Renee Nicole Good to determine whether she may have impeded a federal officer moments before he shot and killed her wife in Minneapolis, according to two people familiar with the investigation who spoke to NBC News.
The federal investigation into the shooting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross is focusing more on Becca Good, including what officials said were her possible ties to activist groups, and less on Ross’ actions when he fired into Renee Good’s vehicle during an immigration operation last week, the people said.
The fatal encounter has touched off protests in Minneapolis and calls for accountability for immigration officers, whose tactics have resulted in at least 10 other shootings since September.
Antonio Romanucci, Becca Good’s lawyer, said in a statement Saturday that “there has been no contact from the FBI or federal officials indicating Becca Good is the subject of an investigation.”
The Justice Department is also investigating Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey under the theory they conspired to impede federal immigration agents through their public statements, according to a senior law enforcement official and person familiar with the matter.
The Democratic officials have criticized ICE’s enforcement tactics and said in statements the investigation was obviously political. Frey said he would not be intimidated.
“The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her,” Walz said.
The Justice Department did not respond to a message seeking comment on Good and declined to comment on Walz and Frey.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that agents were on the ground in Minneapolis “cracking down on violent rioters and investigating the funding networks supporting the criminal actors with multiple arrests already.”
These investigations follow a December memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi saying a top Justice Department priority was to counter “domestic terrorism,” including by investigating groups with an “anti-fascist platform that justifies violence and any other means necessary to combat perceived ‘fascism.’”
The memo, obtained by NBC News, offered a list of possible statutes under which investigators could seek to charge “culpable actors, such as certain Antifa-aligned extremists” who are inspired by “the types of extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment listed below, with a willingness to use violence against law-abiding citizenry to serve those beliefs.”
The investigation into Becca Good is focused on the first statute listed in Bondi’s memo, a section of the U.S. Code on “assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers,” the people said.
Last week, President Donald Trump described Renee and Becca Good as “professional agitators.” He offered no evidence to support that claim. In the moments after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that what Renee Good had done was “domestic terrorism.”
At the same time, the Justice Department has largely abandoned a previous focus on law enforcement and policing accountability, closing up so-called pattern or practice investigations into departments accused of civil rights violations, including the Minneapolis Police Department after the murder of George Floyd.
The investigation into the shooting has prompted turmoil within the Justice Department, including this week’s departure of six prosecutors in Minneapolis who resigned over concerns about the investigation. One, Joe Thompson, led a fraud investigation that was cited as part of the reason immigration officers were sent to Minneapolis.
David Kelley, a former federal prosecutor in Minnesota but not one of the six who quit, said the resignations were the “darkest day for federal law enforcement in my 51 years of practicing law.”
“When dedicated public servants who have spent their lives prosecuting cases find it necessary to resign because they’re asked to do things that are contrary to their conscience, that is a very sad day for justice in Minnesota,” Kelley told NBC News.
In video from the fatal encounter, cars can be heard honking, sirens wail and protesters are blowing whistles. Ross is seen walking around the front of the car to face Renee Good. “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you,” Good is heard telling Ross. Another officer near the SUV tells Good, a mother of three and an American citizen, to get out of the car.
In the footage, Ross turns to face the front of the SUV as Becca Good, appears to say, “Drive.” Good turns the steering wheel to her right, away from the officer, as she begins to drive. In Ross’ cellphone footage, he can then be heard shouting what sounds like “whoa” and firing. Multiple shots can be heard in the video. A male voice is later heard saying: “f—–g bitch.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week there was “currently no basis” for a criminal Civil Rights Division investigation into Ross. Federal officials have noted that internal investigations are underway within the Department of Homeland Security, but Minneapolis officials are concerned about the seriousness of such a probe, particularly because Noem has already said the officer was following his training.
“This vehicle was used to hit this officer,” Noem said a day after the shooting. “It was used as a weapon, and the officer feels as though his life was in jeopardy. It was used to perpetuate a violent act, and this officer took action to protect himself and to protect his fellow law enforcement officers.”
Sam Trepel, a former Civil Rights Division attorney who is now the rule of law program director at States United Democracy Center, said that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division would normally have played a role that could help ease community tensions through a fulsome investigation into the ICE officer’s actions.
“You need to do a real, credible investigation,” she said. “I think the Civil Rights Division has had a very long history, dating back even before the division was created, of doing this work, and the idea that they’re not out there protecting the rule of law is scary and painful.”
The Justice Department’s former domestic terrorism czar, Thomas Brzozowski, told NBC News said it was “super dangerous” for the DOJ to be using the term “domestic terrorism” “in a manner that is untethered from its statutory framework.”
But under the Bondi memo and other authorities, Brzozowski said, authorities would have carte blanche to launch “a fairly sprawling investigation of those that were connected to the victim and her spouse, which would extend to individuals that perhaps provided training on how to engage in protest activity along those lines.”
The FBI’s domestic terrorism unit — decimated by the Trump administration following its role investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol — would normally have to sign off on a broader domestic terrorism probe, according to a former FBI agent who worked on domestic terrorism investigations.
Local officials have said the FBI cut them out of the investigation into the shooting.
High school students protest against ICE outside the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul on Jan. 14. (Octavio Jones / AFP – Getty Images)
(Octavio Jones)
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said she hopes to collect enough evidence herself to make her own decision whether the officer should face criminal charges.
Moriarty, a former public defender who is in the last year of her term and is not running for re-election, said in an interview that she has the legal authority to work parallel to the federal effort. She has already set up an online portal for the public to submit videos and other evidence, and wants the Minneapolis Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which briefly responded to the shooting scene, to provide her with a report on what it learned.
The goal, she said, is to provide a sense of accountability and transparency that is missing so far in the federal investigation.
“We want community members to feel as though there is documentation and perhaps accountability,” Moriarty said.
Kyle Seraphin, a conservative former FBI special agent who was deeply critical of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, said it was “awful” for the Trump administration to label Good as a “domestic terrorist,” even though he sees the shooting itself as likely justifiable. Good, Seraphin said, was a human being with a grieving family.
“We don’t have to agree politically to say that a mother not being able to raise her child is bad,” Seraphin told NBC News.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
