Renee Good’s family filed two federal lawsuits Thursday against the U.S. government and the officials behind the immigration crackdown that ended with an ICE agent shooting her to death in Minneapolis in January.
The Renee Good lawsuit filings come nearly ten months after the January 7 shooting. Good, a 37 year old mother of three, was killed during Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration sweep that sent thousands of agents into Minneapolis. The family is represented by Romanucci & Blandin, the Chicago firm that represented George Floyd’s family.
The first lawsuit is against the United States itself, under the Federal Tort Claims Act. That law lets people sue the federal government for money when its employees cause harm or death on the job. This suit claims wrongful death and says federal officers used excessive and deadly force against Good.
The second lawsuit names people. It targets White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, border czar Tom Homan, and Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fired the fatal shots, along with other federal agents. It accuses them of wrongful death, conspiracy and interfering with civil rights. The complaint describes the Minneapolis operation as a coordinated effort by senior federal officials to target Minnesotans of Somali and Hispanic descent, and calls it a domestic deployment of three to four thousand masked agents in military gear sent to intimidate the public.
According to the lawsuits, Good had stopped her Honda Pilot on Portland Avenue and honked her horn to warn neighbors that federal agents were in the area. Her partner, Becca Good, got out to record on her phone while Renee stayed in the driver’s seat. The complaint says Ross stepped toward the SUV and fired through the windshield, then fired twice more through the open driver’s side window as the vehicle turned away from him. The lawsuit says no agent gave her medical aid.
Federal officials have told a different story from the start. They claimed Ross fired in self defense because Good tried to ram him with her car, and they called her actions an act of domestic terrorism. Trump called Becca Good a paid agitator.
Becca Good spoke publicly for the first time at Thursday’s press conference. She described Renee as pure love and said life without her is like living without the sun. “We were all robbed,” she said. She also said she does not hate the people who took Renee from them.
Renee’s brother, Brent Ganger, said she was not blocking traffic and was waving cars through in the moments before the shooting. Attorney Antonio Romanucci said the family filed the Renee Good lawsuit to show officials that they have not forgotten. “The day of accountability has arrived,” the legal team said in a statement. Both lawsuits seek damages, and the family wants a jury trial. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
