When Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good final Wednesday morning in Minneapolis, the 37-year-old mom turned certainly one of at the very least 25 folks killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent capturing since 2015.
In the days after Ross fired at Good a number of instances from the entrance and aspect of Good’s automobile, visible investigations from retailers like The New York Times and The Washington Post have reconstructed the occasion, which unfolded in a matter of seconds, combing via a sequence of movies that emerged from varied angles. These current obvious contradictions between the narrative offered by the White Home and Division of Homeland Safety, which claims Ross acted in self-defense, and what really occurred.
However related contradictions haven’t beforehand led to felony indictments in ICE agent shootings. The truth is, there does not seem to have ever been a felony indictment stemming from an ICE capturing in any respect.
I spent 4 years investigating ICE shootings that occurred from 2015 to 2021, over the course of three presidential administrations. I sued ICE for the logs of all of those shootings—a lawsuit that took two years to be settled—and cross-analyzed them with media studies, lawsuits, over 40 interviews with specialists, capturing victims, households, and attorneys, and 20 different Freedom of Info Act requests for legislation enforcement investigation studies throughout the United States to piece collectively what occurred and what patterns they revealed.
Not counting the Good capturing, ICE agent shootings have concerned shifting autos at the very least 19 instances—which are related to at the very least 10 deaths and 6 accidents. Process forces together with ICE brokers have shot at the very least three different US residents. They’ve shot in public areas with bystanders 22 instances. And in at the very least seven circumstances, the particular person shot by an ICE officer was not the goal of the enforcement motion.
The Identical Protection
The self-defense declare ICE, its brokers, or their attorneys have made after shootings has traditionally been confirmed unattainable to refute. An agent utilizing lethal pressure does so justifiably when it is “objectively cheap and obligatory,” ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez instructed me in an electronic mail in 2024.
“A legislation enforcement officer inserting himself or herself in entrance of a motorized vehicle to forestall a suspect’s potential avenue of escape is a harmful tactic and a possible violation of coverage,” Mike German, a former federal legislation enforcement agent, tells WIRED. “However I do not assume that might be seemingly to influence a prosecutor’s analysis of whether or not the officer has an inexpensive worry at the time he pulled the set off that he was in a life-threatening state of affairs justifying lethal pressure.”
This reasonableness customary is what a metropolis, state, or federal company would assess when deciding whether or not to indict an agent for any felony exercise, and it’s evaluated from the perspective of a legislation enforcement official, not a layperson, German explains.
“Prosecutors and judges have a tendency to be very deferential to legislation enforcement brokers concerned in shootings,” German says. “Sometimes, an agent’s subjective perception that lethal pressure was obligatory to defend themselves, or the security of one other particular person, from critical bodily hurt is sufficient to keep away from felony costs, or conviction if charged.”
Generally suspects have been seen to have weapons, in accordance to the ICE logs I obtained, notably in the course of Homeland Safety Investigations. However thrice, ICE documented a suspect’s physique, described as “fingers/toes/physique,” as a weapon.
And in at the very least a dozen circumstances, I uncovered proof suggesting that the capturing victims have been unarmed.
Federal agent-involved capturing investigations carried out by the Justice Division not often end in felony costs, and the outcomes are not often launched publicly, German says. “The underside line is that these capturing investigations very not often discover the agent in violation of legislation or coverage.”
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