Family of Renee Good sues US government over fatal ICE shooting
The family of Renee Good filed two federal civil lawsuits Thursday against the U.S. government and several top federal officials over Good's fatal shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis earlier this year.
The lawsuits were filed nearly ten months after Good, a Minneapolis mother of three, was in the driver's seat of her Honda Pilot in the middle of a residential street when an ICE agent opened fire. Federal officials say the agent acted in self-defense after Good tried to ram him with her car.
"What happened to her is completely senseless," Good's brother Brent Ganger told reporters after the suit was filed. "The time is absolutely now for accountability. We will not be quiet. We will not go away."
"The day of accountability has arrived for the United States' rogue agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and the unjustified and excessive use of force -- let alone deadly force -- used on people exercising their rights under the Constitution's Bill of Rights," Good's legal team said in a statement.
One of the complaints, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act for wrongful death against the U.S. government, alleges that federal law enforcement officers used excessive and deadly force against Good.
The second complaint was filed against top officials including White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Czar Tom Homan, and ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who fired the fatal shots, as well as other federal agents.
"What happened to us should never happen to any family. No child should grow up without a parent. No one should lose their sister or their daughter," Renee's partner, Becca Good, said following the filing of the suit.
Antonio M. Romanucci, an attorney for the family, said the suits were filed because they have not heard back from the federal government regarding the shooting.
"We have heard nothing, we know nothing, period," Romanucci said, adding that Ross is the person who "deserves an investigation."
"There was only one person who pulled the trigger on Jan. 7, and that's the person who deserves the investigation," he said.
A spokesperson for the White House called the lawsuits filed by Good's family "baseless."
“The Trump administration views the deaths of countless innocent Americans at the hands of criminal illegal aliens as a tragedy that should warrant equal coverage from the mainstream media who choose to ignore these victims of illegal alien crime. We intend to vigorously defend these baseless civil lawsuits," said spokeswoman Lauren Bis.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
The complaint alleges that top officials engaged in a "carefully planned, coordinated effort between senior federal officials and private actors to make two ethnic communities in Minnesota -- Minnesotans of Somali and Hispanic descent and origin -- the object of aggression and abduction."
According to the complaint, Ross fired through Good's windshield and open driver-side window as her SUV was turning away from him. The filing states that Ross stepped toward the car, fired a round through the windshield, and then fired twice more through her open window as the vehicle completed a turn.
"The operation was in essence the domestic deployment of a paramilitary force of three to four thousand masked, armed, camouflaged agents, outfitted in military tactical gear including camouflage, helmets, gas masks, and military-grade weapons, wielding instruments of war to carry out domestic shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate the populace" the complaint states.
