Family of US citizen killed by ICE agent sues Trump officials

Renee Good was thirty-seven years old, a mother of three, and a US citizen. On January 7th, she was shot to death by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer named Jonathan Ross during a traffic stop in Minneapolis. The video of her killing spread across the internet. Thousands of people took to the streets. Now, months later, her family has filed two separate lawsuits against the Trump administration, naming some of the most powerful officials in government.

The first lawsuit targets the government itself, claiming negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It alleges that the immigration sweep in which Good died created what the family's lawyer called "an unprecedented environment for state-sponsored violence." The second lawsuit names Ross, the officer who fired the shot, along with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, border czar Tom Homan, and others. This suit accuses them of conspiring to violate civil rights. The family is invoking the Federal Tort Claims Act, which permits citizens to sue the federal government for injuries or deaths caused by the negligence of its employees.

Becca Good, Renee's partner, spoke publicly about the lawsuits for the first time on Thursday. "The whole world had to watch as our entire universe was destroyed," she said at a news conference. She described the impact on their three children. The family's lawyer, Antonio Romanucci, was blunt: "Our government has become a grave and mortal threat to its own citizens." Renee's brother, Brent Ganger, added that since her death, no meaningful change has occurred. "Our family is waiting and we will wait no longer," he said.

The White House dismissed the lawsuits as baseless. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis issued a statement saying the government would "vigorously defend" the cases. She also pivoted to a different argument, saying that deaths of Americans at the hands of undocumented immigrants should receive equal media coverage. President Trump himself had initially blamed Good for her own death, saying hours after the shooting that she "violently, wilfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer." Weeks later, his tone shifted slightly. He called her death a tragedy and acknowledged that agents sometimes make mistakes. He also suggested there were "a couple versions of that tape that are very very bad," implying the video evidence was ambiguous—a claim contradicted by witness accounts that Good had not been attempting to attack officers.

Good's death was not an isolated incident. On January 24th, another Minneapolis resident, Alex Pretti, was killed by immigration agents. The two deaths sparked nationwide protests. Eventually, hundreds of federal agents were withdrawn from the city, and Greg Bovino, the official in charge of the operation, was removed from his post. Yet the family argues that these steps fall short of accountability. According to the Associated Press, at least ten people have been killed in encounters with immigration officers during Trump's second term, which began in January 2025.

Renee's mother, a registered Republican who voted for Trump, testified before Congress this week. "I voted for President Trump under the impression that these agents were here to protect the citizens of the United States," she said. "But far more than being a Republican, I am a Christian. Jesus teaches us to forgive and I have, but what we are asking for is accountability." Her words captured the particular pain of a family whose political alignment did not shield them from the machinery they had supported. The lawsuits now move forward into the courts, where the question of responsibility—and the scope of what happened in Minneapolis—will be tested.