The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an officer of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has morphed from a local tragedy into a national political battle, further inflaming divisions over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the role of federal agents in Democratic‑led cities.
What began as a chaotic encounter has evolved into a dispute over transparency, jurisdiction and who controls the narrative of the incident.
Sen. Tina Smith, Minnesota Democrat, accused the administration Sunday of trying to hide the facts by excluding state and local officials from the investigation.
She said President Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are “attempting to cover up what happened here in the Twin Cities.”
The extensively videotaped shooting Wednesday has become the latest flash point in the intensifying debate over federal immigration enforcement in cities that oppose the administration’s policies.
The footage, recorded from several angles, has become a Rorschach test for a deeply divided country.
Supporters of the administration say the video shows Ms. Good acting as a radicalized activist who nearly mowed down an ICE agent with her vehicle after interfering with a law enforcement operation.
Critics argue that the footage depicts an officer gunning down a woman who posed no real threat.
The New York Post added another layer over the weekend by reporting that Ms. Good became involved with ICE Watch, a loose network of activists who disrupt immigration raids in sanctuary cities.
At the same time, a video surfaced from the ICE officer’s perspective, suggesting that the couple in the car were goading the officers and daring them to spark a confrontation.
“You want to come at us? You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy,” Ms. Good’s wife, Rebecca Brown Good, says moments before the deadly interaction.
As the officer walks toward the front of the vehicle, Ms. Good briefly reverses and begins to pull forward while her wife says, “Drive, baby, drive,” and tries to open the passenger door.
Before the vehicle moves forward, an ICE officer approaches the stopped SUV and attempts to open the driver’s side door.
The camera angle then veers away from the SUV — when the Department of Homeland Security says the vehicle struck the officer in front of it — and gunshots can be heard.
In Minneapolis, federal immigration officers proceeded with what the Homeland Security Department is calling its largest enforcement operation ever. Activists continued to try to obstruct them Sunday.
Protesters screamed at armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles, local reports said.
Amid some pushing, several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home. They later took away a man in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis City Council member.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in various training programs to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 presidential election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN.
The political fallout intensified on Sunday’s talk shows, where both sides sparred over who should lead the investigation and what the footage actually reveals.
Much of the attention centered on the FBI’s handling of the case.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and local leaders, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, said federal officials had excluded them, raising doubts about the impartiality of the investigation.
“It should be a neutral, unbiased investigation,” Mr. Frey said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I shouldn’t be the one conducting the investigation, nor should Kristi Noem. But you should have an entity that is able to do it with some common sense and operating in reality.”
The city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota are sanctuary jurisdictions that severely limit, and in some ways outright refuse, cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Indeed, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons blamed sanctuary cities for the whole furor. He told Fox News that the Homeland Security Department’s mass immigration sweeps in Minnesota and elsewhere wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminal illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The White House border czar Tom Homan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he trusts the FBI to conduct a thorough review.
“They’re professionals. So let them do the investigation,” he said.
Ms. Noem, meanwhile, argued that federal authorities are wary of involving Gov. Tim Walz, Mr. Frey and other local officials because of their resistance to immigration enforcement and their rhetoric toward ICE, which Mr. Walz called “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.”
“They have inflamed the public,” Ms. Noem said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I would encourage them to grow up, get some maturity, act like people who are responsible, who want people to be safe and the right thing to be done.
“When you use the kind of language that you use against law enforcement officers, they lose their credibility,” she said.
She defended her label of Ms. Good as a “domestic terrorist” immediately after the deadly encounter. “Everything that I have said has been proven to be factual and the truth,” she said.
Mr. Homan took a more cautious line. He said he would wait for investigators to determine whether Ms. Good met that definition.
He accused Democrats and activists who oppose the administration’s immigration agenda of years of ignoring the border crisis, undermining federal enforcement efforts and vilifying ICE officers.
“Let’s not forget who set the stage on this,” Mr. Homan said. “So all these people on the Democratic side, and all these liberal people want to scream and yell about our law enforcement activities, they didn’t say a word when there was an open border, they didn’t say a word when half a million children were smuggled into this country.”
He added, “They were complicit.”
Ms. Smith said she wasn’t buying the administration’s explanation. She said she had seen nothing to suggest that Ms. Good “in any way” posed a threat.
“But again, this is why we need to have a fair and unbiased investigation, so we can gather all of the evidence and all of the information, and we can know exactly what’s happening,” she said. “What I think is going on is the administration does not want that to happen, and that looks to me like a cover-up.”
• Mary McCue Bell contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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