The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good Wednesday in Minneapolis was previously dragged by a car during an ICE operation last June, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
“On June 17th in a suburb outside of Minneapolis, this exact same officer was making a lawful arrest of a child pedophile, a child sex offender, when he reached his arm into the subject’s vehicle and that subject started closing the window, he drove off and dragged that officer for 50 yards,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said the agent “clung on to his life” and received “33 stitches and abrasions all over his body.”
“You can see when you’re making these kinds of split-second decisions, when you have the individual in question who’s since deceased, that happened just yesterday. This individual, she was stalking agents all day long, impeding our law enforcement and then when she’s coming after the officer with a vehicle, you can see why he would be in fear of his life and of the law enforcement officers around him lives,” McLaughlin alleged.
On Friday, new video emerged that was taken from from the cellphone of the ICE officer who fatally shot Good, identified as Jonathan Ross.
The video, obtained by the website Alpha News and verified by Reuters, shows a different angle of the moments that led up to the shooting.
In the video, Good is seen telling the person filming that “I’m not mad at you” before trying to drive away. Gunshots are heard seconds after the vehicle starts to move and the phone filming the incident is dropped.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has not publicly identified the officer, but she also spoke of the earlier incident last June, which was captured on video.
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“This is an experienced officer who followed his training and we will continue to let the investigation unfold into the individual and continue to follow the procedures and policies that happen in these use-of-force cases,” Noem told reporters Thursday about the shooting of Good.
“But let’s remember the events that surrounded what happened yesterday on that tragic situation was that these individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them. They were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law, and when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not,” Noem alleged.
When questioned about the alleged timeline of the “stalking” and harassment conducted by Good, Noem said there will be “more details coming out as this goes forward in the coming days.”
“It had been ongoing throughout the day,” Noem alleged, without presenting any evidence.
She said that the agent who killed Good went to the hospital after he “was hit by the vehicle.”
“He went to hospital and received treatment, was released and is spending time with his family now,” Noem added.
Homeland Security shared a statement on X about the ICE agent, writing, “The same @ICEgov officer attacked yesterday was dragged in June by a child sexual predator trying to evade an immigration enforcement arrest. He suffered severe injuries and required 33 stitches,” the statement read.
“ICE officers put their lives on the line every day to defend American communities,” DHS added.
U.S. Vice-President JD Vance said Thursday the ICE agent “deserves a debt of gratitude” while speaking about the June incident.
“This is a guy who’s actually done a very, very important job for the United States of America,” Vance told reporters during a White House press briefing. “He’s been assaulted. He’s been attacked. He’s been injured because of it.”
The officer was clearly acting in self-defence, Vance said. He framed Good as “a victim of left-wing ideology” who was spurred by an alleged network of politically motivated groups to interfere with law enforcement.
“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it is a tragedy of her own making,” Vance added.
The June incident involving the ICE agent came seven months before Wednesday’s shooting, where video taken by bystanders shows an officer approaching Good’s car, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. When she begins to pull forward, a different ICE agent standing near the vehicle pulls his weapon and fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range.
The video released Friday shows the perspective of the ICE agents at the centre of the incident.
Trump administration officials referred to Good as a “domestic terrorist,” and said she had attempted to ram federal agents with her car.
“It’s clearly established law that a vehicle driven by a person and used to harm someone is a deadly weapon. Deadly force is perfectly lawful when a weapon faces a threat. So I do believe that this officer used his training in this situation,” Noem said Wednesday.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he had reviewed footage of the incident and accused federal authorities of spinning the shooting as an act of self-defence, an argument he said was “bullsh–t.”
“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying,” he continued. “We’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis.”
After the shooting, the priority then became to get ICE off the scene, whose presence he said caused “chaos” and was “problematic.”
“I have a message for ICE,” Frey continued, “get the f–k out of Minneapolis.”
— With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman and Sean Boynton, and The Associated Press
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