News Beat
FBI officer who tried to investigate ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Good resigns: report
The FBI officer who tried to investigate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot Renee Good has resigned, according to a new report.
Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was shot multiple times by ICE agent Jonathan Ross while behind the wheel of her car earlier this month in Minneapolis. Good’s death and other immigration officer-involved shootings prompted mass protests against President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts.
Tracee Mergen, a supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, attempted a civil rights inquiry into Ross, but has now resigned amid pressure from leadership in Washington, D.C., to drop the case, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Independent reached out to the FBI’s National Press Office and Minneapolis field office, but both declined to comment on personnel matters.
The Trump administration has defended Ross. Trump previously claimed on social media that Good “viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.”
“The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis,” the president said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called the Trump administration’s self-defense claims “bulls***.” He said he believed “this was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying.”
At the same time that the FBI brass is reportedly trying to stop an investigation into the Good shooting, the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to at least five top Democratic Minnesota officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Frey, as the agency appears to investigate whether state and local officials conspired to impede federal agents from immigration enforcement.
“This Justice Department investigation, sparked by calls for accountability in the face of violence, chaos, and the killing of Renee Good, does not seek justice. Walz said in a statement Tuesday. “It is a partisan distraction.”
Frey wrote on X Tuesday, “When the federal gov weaponizes its power to intimidate local leaders for doing their jobs, every American should be concerned.”
Several top prosecutors in Minnesota resigned last week because of the Justice Department’s unwillingness to probe Ross, and also its demand to investigate Good’s widow, Becca, The New York Times previously reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Becca said that she and Good had stopped to support their neighbors during an ICE operation on January 7, the day her wife was fatally shot.
“We had whistles,” Becca said, per MPR News. “They had guns.”
