On the morning of Jan. 7, at the height of Operation Metro Surge, an ICE protester in her car was shot dead by a federal agent on a snowy, cold south Minneapolis street. It was the first death of a U.S. citizen by immigration enforcement.
Abby Simons, The Minnesota Star Tribune’s public safety team leader, was monitoring social media when word began to spread that someone had been shot in Minneapolis. Reporter Andy Mannix received a tip indicating someone had been shot by ICE.
Simons switched to a livestream of a citizen journalist, who had been patrolling the Twin Cities since the start of the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. She saw an area cordoned off with crime scene tape and federal agents confronted by angry residents. Simons sent a team to the scene, then filed a brief dispatch to our live blog that what appeared to be a major incident was unfolding in the area.
Less than 40 minutes after the woman was shot, the news was on our site. Over the next hour we had another 15 posts, including reporting that U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino was at the scene. We shared videos of protesters, dispatches from reporters who had viewed the shooting on bystanders’ phones and photos of agents unleashing chemical irritants on the growing crowd.
In the hours and days that followed, as national media descended on our state, our deep sourcing became key, allowing us to break important news and poignantly cover the ensuing vigils and protests, even as the Trump administration defended the shooting. Trump, on Truth Social, claimed Good “viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.”
A few hours after the incident, reporter Jeff Day received a tip identifying the woman shot as Renee Good. Day and reporter Paul Walsh confirmed her identity with family. Walsh reached Good’s mother, who told him she had just been told the news by law enforcement. We were the first to report her identity.
Also that day, reporter Liz Sawyer received a tip that ICE agent Jonathan Ross was the person who killed Good. At about the same time, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who defended her agent’s actions, said he had previously been dragged by a motorist. Working with Mannix and our federal courts reporter, they determined that there was a federal charge related to the previous dragging incident and confirmed his identity through court documents and sources.
On Jan. 8, one day after the shooting, we were the first outlet to identify Ross and remain among the few to independently confirm his identity, even as the federal government continues to refuse to name him.
Within days, even as federal officials continued to say the agent was acting in self-defense against an act of “domestic terrorism,” we published a deep analysis of the incident using multiple videos from the scene, including Ross’ own.
