Renee Good was killed by President Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis on January 7th. The administration’s response is as predictable as it is disgusting: lie, smear and escalate. To Trump and to too many of his waning supporters, blue states and blue cities are the enemy within. The harassment and detention of American citizens who, according to the administration, have the wrong-colored skin, the wrong accent or the wrong political beliefs, is acceptable to them. The pretext that operation ‘Metro Surge’ is about immigration enforcement collapses when one looks at what ICE is doing in Minnesota. Non-white citizens live in fear as 3,000 federal agents in masks prowl the streets to pounce on black and brown people. ICE has even exhibited a pattern of detaining Native Americans, which would be ironic if it weren’t so stupidly cruel.
This is not a bug in the system. For white nationalists like Stephen Miller, inducing fear through violence amongst undesirables is as attractive a prospect as the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. If you cop an attitude while being treated like a criminal by the federal government for no good reason (a very American reaction), they’ll simply beat you up, or kill you. Good luck filing a complaint, by the way. They’re wearing masks to hide their identities. In case you’ve been asleep for the past year, it’s past time to wake up and smell the crackdown.
In the face of such naked overreach, what can be done? One way to fight back against federal tyranny is for states to hold federal agents accountable for their illegal actions. Ours is a nation of dual sovereignty. That means that the federal government and every state government has the right to enforce the law within its territory. The FBI has blocked Minnesota prosecutors from participating in their investigation of the shooting. Attorney General Pam Bondi will not pursue justice for Renee Good. She’s too focused on prosecuting Good’s widow and protecting pedophiles. But that can’t stop Minnesota prosecutors from bringing charges. The killing was caught from multiple angles on camera. Show it to a Minnesota grand jury and see what they think. I know what I saw, from multiple angles: a cop who felt disrespected and angry, not afraid for his life. I know what I heard: a federal agent calling a U.S. citizen a “fucking bitch” seconds after shooting her in the head through the side window of her car. That’s not immigration enforcement. That’s murder.
Some who saw the video (and more who have not) may believe that the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, had a reasonable fear for his life under the totality of the circumstances, especially if they tend to trust authority. Thankfully, thousands of years of human social development have refined a mechanism for the peaceful resolution of such a divisive and serious topic in the community. It’s called a trial, and it was developed so that the pressure of community and vigilante justice could credibly be defused with promises of due process. Minnesota and the federal government have a moral and legal responsibility to thoroughly investigate this killing and to not pre-judge it. Of course, the federal government will not investigate this killing. They called Renee Good a domestic terrorist while her body was still warm. The Trump apparatus knew whose side they were on before they had to consider something as secondary as a video of what actually happened. Because truth is subordinate to power. At least, that’s what they believe. Trump’s FBI, Trump’s Department of Justice, they are compromised. They cannot be trusted to perform an actual investigation. MAGA’s molten core picked their side years ago. They believe in the “iron laws” of the world; the combat boot, the hot barrel of a gun pointed at ‘illegal aliens’ (i.e. anyone darker than them) and ‘domestic terrorists’ (i.e. anyone left of them). We’ve seen their ilk before. Justice demands a trial for the killing of Renee Good. We know the U.S. government can’t provide it. So Minnesota must.
Vice President J.D. Vance claims federal agents have absolute immunity. Shame on him for lying, even if he walked it back later. U.S. law indicates that any case against Mr. Ross would be removable to federal court. A Federal District Court judge, likely in Minnesota, would then become the referee between Mr. Ross’s defense team and the Minnesota District Attorney’s prosecution team. Regardless of what the federal government might find convenient, federal agents are not above the law. Furthermore, judicial opinions indicate that a federal agent, even one acting in their official capacity, may still be prosecuted by a state when they “employ means which they cannot honestly consider reasonable [or] otherwise act out of malice or with some criminal intent.”
The video indicates that Ross acted with malice when he killed Ms. Good. But if prosecutors were concerned about proving malice, he could also be charged with crimes such as manslaughter. These other charges might allow prosecutors to secure a conviction by convincing jurors that Ross acted with culpable negligence. This would free them from the higher burden of proving that Ross had a specific intent to murder Ms. Good. Under Vance’s twisted logic, anyone wearing an ICE uniform could shoot a peaceful protester for sport and still be unprosecutable. Thankfully, Vance’s proclamations have no legal force. It’s simply not up to the President, Pam Bondi or Greg Bovino to decide whether this was a justified killing. The dual system of federal and state governments that together comprise the United States makes the criminality of the shooting a proper question for a jury of Mr. Ross’ peers, the residents of Minnesota and Minneapolis. ICE agents beware: the President has no power to pardon state offenses. And there is no statute of limitations for crimes that result in death.
Addendum: As this article was being edited, federal agents killed another U.S. citizen in Minnesota. His name was Alex Pretti. The administration justified this killing by pointing out Alex was concealed-carrying a firearm, implying baselessly that he threatened federal agents. Obviously such an anti Second-Amendment argument coming from the right is hypocritical. Their concern is not logical consistency, but power. Make no mistake: those who defend this are civically compromised. We must by now realize there is no state oppression they won’t defend, so long as it's done by the right gunman. Any person involved in this shooting and the subsequent coverup must be impeached, investigated and criminally charged. This administration clearly erred by underestimating the love and community that Minnesotans share. They could never have predicted their ideological enemies would be willing to risk their own lives to help their neighbors stay safe. They thought liberals and leftists were virtue signaling cowards, who would be broken by the threat of state terror. But Minnesotans aren’t scared. They’re angry. I have no doubt that the People will continue to fight for their inalienable rights, and the rights of their neighbors, with a righteous anger that the likes of Stephen Miller couldn’t begin to comprehend.
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Liam Harney is a second-year student at Cornell Law School. His column "Objection!" discusses contemporary legal and political issues through a critical lens. He spent last summer working at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans and will be spending next summer interning at the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Division in New York City. He can be reached at ldh55@cornell.edu.
