Grief and Fury: The ICE Shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and the Fight Over What They Mean

Two 37-year-olds, seventeen days apart, on two Minneapolis streets. One was a mother of three driving away from a protest. The other was a nurse who stopped to help a woman who had been pushed down. Nine months on, nobody has been charged — and the argument is no longer about the videos. It is about who is allowed to judge them.

A note on this report. Both deaths are the subject of ongoing state and federal proceedings. The descriptions below attribute contested accounts to the officials and outlets that made them. Neither Jonathan Ross nor the two Customs and Border Protection officers named has been charged with any crime, and all are presumed innocent. Where outlets reached differing conclusions from the same footage, that is stated.

The first thing that happened, in both cases, was a story. Within hours of each shooting, federal officials described an armed threat and a defensive response. Within days, footage from bystanders and from the officers themselves had complicated those descriptions so badly that local officials were calling them fabrications on live television. Within weeks, the people whose job is to investigate such deaths had been told, in effect, to stay outside the tape.

Nine months later, the two cases have become something larger than two shootings. They have become the most direct test yet of a question that until this year was largely theoretical in American life: when a federal officer kills someone on a city street, is there any institution with both the authority and the will to examine it?

The first death: Renée Good, 7 January 2026

At 9:37 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, on Portland Avenue South between East 33rd and 34th Streets in Minneapolis's Central neighbourhood, an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross fired into the vehicle of a 37-year-old woman a few blocks from her own home Wikipedia — Killing of Renée Good.

Renée Nicole Macklin Good was a writer and poet from Colorado Springs who had graduated with an English degree from Old Dominion University in 2020. She was the mother of three children. Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Star Tribune she was "one of the kindest people I've ever known… She's taken care of people all her life." The Minneapolis City Council described her as a resident who was out "caring for her neighbors" when she was killed. Her mother said she was not part of ICE-related protests NBC News.

An autopsy would later record four gunshot wounds: two to the chest, one to the forearm, one to the head.

What the footage showed

Separate video analyses by The New York Times and ABC News concluded that Ross fired the first shot at the SUV's windshield and the second and third rounds through the driver's side window of the departing vehicle, all within under one second. The Times concluded that while a grainy, low-resolution clip from further down the street appeared to show Ross being struck by the car, footage from behind the SUV showed he was not run over: he crossed to the left of the vehicle, opened fire while its wheels were pointed away from him, and kept shooting as she drove past. Her SUV continued until it struck a parked car and a light pole.

What officials said

The Washington Post concluded the videos do not "clearly show whether the agent is struck" — a caution shared by BBC News and Bellingcat. The Star Tribune noted there was no documentation in incident reports that Ross required medical attention at the scene.

The second death: Alex Pretti, 24 January 2026

Seventeen days later, at about 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday, on Nicollet Avenue near 26th Street in the Whittier neighbourhood, Alex Jeffrey Pretti was shot multiple times and killed by two Customs and Border Protection officers Wikipedia — Killing of Alex Pretti.

Pretti was an intensive care nurse at the VA medical centre in Minneapolis, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, and a Minnesota-licensed nurse since 2021. He held a state permit to carry a handgun and had no criminal record. He was standing in the street filming federal agents on his phone and directing traffic when agents knocked down another bystander; footage shows him going to help her up. He was pepper-sprayed, tackled, and shot while pinned to the ground.

His father, Michael Pretti, told the AP: "He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE." His parents' statement the following evening was blunter: "The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting" The 19th.

"Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for." Michael and Susan Pretti, statement released the evening after their son's death

The gun that was not in his hand

This is the factual crux of the Pretti case, and it rests on footage reviewed independently by Reuters, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press. Frame by frame, those reviews show an agent removing a handgun from Pretti's holster and moving away from him roughly one second before another agent fires. In the moments before he was tackled, Pretti was holding a cell phone, not a gun — a conclusion reached separately by Reuters, the BBC, The New York Times, CNN and The Guardian.

The Wall Street Journal's assessment was explicit: "A frame-by-frame review… shows a federal officer pulling a handgun away from Pretti. Less than a second later, an agent fires several rounds." When the first shot was fired, Pretti's weapon had already been removed, he was surrounded by around six agents with both arms pinned, and the shooter was standing behind him Bellingcat.

Two agents fired at least ten rounds within about five seconds, including further shots after Pretti lay motionless. On 2 February, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner classified his death as a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.

DHS's initial account — that Pretti approached officers with a handgun and that an agent fired defensively after attempting to disarm him — was not supported by that footage. Administration officials had also described him, without presented evidence, as a domestic terrorist intent on massacring law enforcement.

The pattern nobody wanted investigated

What turned two shootings into a constitutional argument was not the footage. It was what happened to the machinery that is supposed to examine such footage.

Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County Attorney, was direct when the evidence finally arrived: "The wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence. Any time the government is responsible in whatever way of taking the life of a community member we need to have a full and thorough investigation." Attorney General Keith Ellison said he remained "deeply troubled" that it had taken more than half a year. "It should never have taken this long" AP via ABC7.

Why the FBI's refusal matters

In the American system, a state bureau of criminal investigation normally leads inquiries into a death at the hands of local police. When the officer is federal, the FBI takes the lead and state agencies typically work alongside it. In these cases, that co-operation was withdrawn or never granted: in the Good case reversed after the fact, in the Pretti case refused outright in writing.

"The FBI formally notified the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Feb. 13 that it will not provide the BCA with access to any information or evidence that it has collected in the Jan. 24 shooting death of Alex Pretti." Drew Evans, Superintendent, Minnesota BCA, 16 February 2026

Evans added that the BCA would "welcome a joint investigation" and remained "committed to thorough, independent and transparent investigations of these incidents, even if hampered by a lack of access to key information and evidence" BBC News. Pretti's family said much the same: "A truly joint state and federal investigation would be a welcome development."

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Deputy Attorney General Blanche said the DOJ would not open a criminal investigation into Ross, arguing it was unnecessary because "everybody can watch the videos and see that [Ross] got attacked with a car that was trying to take his life." That is precisely the proposition the Times, ABC and The Guardian's analyses dispute.

It is worth stating the arithmetic of accountability plainly. At least nine people have been killed since the administration's immigration enforcement campaign began, according to the AP's count in July. No one has been charged in connection with any of those deaths. The federal government has suggested state prosecutors do not have jurisdiction over federal officers — a position that, if sustained, would place these killings beyond the reach of the courthouses closest to them.

Where the cases stand now

The lawsuits

On 1 October 2026, ten months after Good's death, her relatives filed two federal lawsuits in the District of Minnesota. The first is brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging that Ross created a dangerous situation by placing himself in front of her vehicle and used excessive and unjustified force. The second names White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, border czar Tom Homan and Ross himself.

Separately, the state of Minnesota, Hennepin County and the BCA are pursuing their suit against the DOJ and DHS over the withholding of evidence — the litigation that, in practice, produced the material now in prosecutors' hands.

The criminal question

Minnesota prosecutors now hold body-camera footage, agent statements, hard drives and the vehicle. Whether that converts into charges is unresolved. The federal civil rights investigation into Pretti's death, announced on 30 January and led by the FBI, has produced no public charging decision. Pretti's parents have continued to press for answers and for the release of evidence BBC News.

The wider record

The two Minneapolis deaths are not isolated entries. In Houston, prosecutors were still complaining in July that they did not know the identities or whereabouts of the ICE officers involved in the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had lived in the United States for decades. In Maine, a man from Colombia was killed in Biddeford in the same week. Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare put it without embellishment: "The federal government has not invited us in."

What the grief produced: a movement, and a warning

The reaction was immediate and enormous. Thousands gathered at the site of Good's killing within hours, including members of the City Council. Protests spread to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, as well as smaller cities including Buffalo, Chapel Hill, Durham and Kansas City. More than 1,000 demonstrations were organised under the banner "ICE Out For Good" for the following weekend, with tens of thousands marching in Minneapolis on 10 January.

• Schools closed. Minneapolis Public Schools cancelled classes and moved to remote learning until 12 February, citing safety concerns and the use of chemical irritants near students.
• A day of remembrance. Governor Walz proclaimed 9 January 2026 "Renée Good Day."
• Institutional pushback. Minnesota's attorney general, with Minneapolis and Saint Paul, sued DHS to halt ICE deployments. State legislators across the country moved to limit co-operation with federal immigration enforcement.
• Cultural response. Musicians recorded songs inspired by the cases, and Dropkick Murphys announced a memorial concert in Minneapolis in honour of both Good and Pretti.
• Political escalation. A Democratic representative introduced articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Noem on 14 January. The following day, the President threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy troops in Minneapolis.

Walz's summary of the operation's legacy was grim: "deep damage, generational trauma… and many unanswered questions."

Why this matters to readers in Britain

Britain has no vote in any of this, and every reason to pay attention — because the two cases are, at bottom, a study in who investigates the state when the state kills.

The United Kingdom's answer is institutional: deaths involving police are referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, a body deliberately outside the force concerned. The American answer in these cases was to route inquiries through agencies inside the same department that employed the officers, then to withhold the resulting material from the state investigators who asked for it. When Kent police shoot someone, the IOPC publishes its findings. When a federal officer killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, five of the Civil Rights Division's most senior prosecutors resigned rather than accept the decision not to look.

That comparison is not rhetorical point-scoring. It matters practically for three reasons. First, precedent sets expectations: if federal officers are effectively insulated from local scrutiny in the United States, the argument for similar insulation will be made in other jurisdictions. Second, the cases have already changed the political landscape heading into the American midterms, and US domestic controversy transmits into UK-facing questions on trade, security co-operation and travel policy. Third, and most simply, the questions being fought over in Minnesota — what a bystander's phone footage is worth, and whether an official account survives it — are questions every democracy now faces.

The question that outlives the verdicts

Strip away the partisanship and what remains in these files is a narrow, technical dispute with enormous consequences: does the footage settle the matter, and if it does, who is empowered to say so?

In the Good case, the answer so far is that a state prosecutor possesses the vehicle, the body cameras and the statements, and no charges have followed. In the Pretti case, the answer so far is that a federal civil rights investigation has been open for nine months without a public charging decision, while the state agency that wanted to help was told in writing that it would receive nothing.

Renée Good wrote poetry; her family remembers her as someone who took care of people. Alex Pretti spent his working life in an intensive care unit, and died in the street after stopping to help a woman get up. Those are the facts least in dispute, and they are the ones that will be read longest after the legal arguments have been filed away.

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