The Intercept has identified the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot and killed an observer in a residential neighborhood of Minneapolis on Wednesday as Jonathan Ross, a deportation officer based out of the agency’s field office in St. Paul.
Ross, 43, fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good during a confrontation between protesters and federal agents — ICE and Border Patrol — in the Central neighborhood just after 9:30 a.m.
According to court documents from an unrelated case, Ross has been with the agency since at least 2016. In June, he was injured in a traffic incident while apprehending Roberto Carlos Munoz-Guatemala, an undocumented man later convicted of dragging Ross with his car.
The Minnesota Star Tribune was the first to publicly identify Ross. In a brief article naming Ross, the local Fox affiliate quoted a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirming that the agent involved in the shooting was the same agent dragged by Munoz-Guatemala in June. The New York Post ran a story referencing Ross’s dragging incident, but did not name him.
Video footage from the Munoz-Guatemala incident shows a beige Chevy Tahoe, the same SUV make and model that was on scene, parked close to Good’s dark red SUV before the shooting.
A photo on the Facebook page of a man identified in public records as Ross’s father shows a man carrying an assault weapon captioned “Jon Ross in Iraq.” The man pictured in the photo and others closely resembles images of the agent at the scene of Wednesday’s shooting. Ross previously lived near Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base in New Mexico and on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas.
A man who picked up a phone number linked in public records to Ross’s father hung up the phone when asked about his son Thursday.
No one answered at an address listed for Ross outside Minneapolis, and no vehicles were present at the home.
The Department of Homeland Security, its field office in St. Paul, and ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment. DHS justified the shooting on Wednesday by claiming that the agent feared for his life, saying Good was engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism.”
“This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference. “The ICE officer, fearing for his life and the other officers around him and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots; he used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues.” President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social that video from the scene showed the agent being run over.
The Intercept obtained footage of the shooting on Wednesday, however, which contradicts the government’s narrative. The video shows the officer telling Good, “Get out of the fucking car,” before shooting into her car three times, then walking away apparently uninjured.
In a phone interview with The Intercept on Thursday morning from the site of the shooting, Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for the immigrant rights group Unidos Minnesota, said locals were eager to learn the identity of the shooter.
“The community is really wanting answers,” said Argueta, adding that he hoped authorities would investigate and prosecute the person responsible. “The Board of Criminal Apprehension, which is the state-level investigator, will need certain evidence to be released and provided by the FBI.”
Accountability could prove difficult to come by. Minnesota officials told multiple outlets that they are unable to access evidence and that the FBI is refusing to work with them on the investigation into the fatal shooting.
A spokesperson for the city of Minneapolis called the decision to exclude local law enforcement “deeply disappointing” in a statement sent to The Intercept. “We are concerned that the investigation is proceeding without state partners, and we are calling for a clear and transparent process that includes state investigating agencies,” said spokesperson Jess Olmstead.
Local leaders, meanwhile, have called “bullshit” on the self-defense argument from the Trump administration and urged ICE to leave Minneapolis. “The Trump admin will tell you ICE is here for safety,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey during a CNN interview. “That is a lie. They are creating chaos and danger while tearing families apart.”
In one video from the scene of Good’s killing, a woman can be heard saying, “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do,” adding, “They shot her in the head.”
Another video shows ICE agents blocking a physician from assisting Good on the scene. “I’m a physician,” says the doctor. “I don’t care,” responds one of the agents, before another officer tells him that they have emergency services coming and medics on the scene.
The shooting occurred after the Department of Homeland Security initiated a massive surge in federal agents to the Twin Cities after a heavily criticized, misleading video targeting Somali Americans, created by a far-right influencer with ties to the GOP, went viral.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called for a “comprehensive investigation” into the shooting. “This is not law enforcement. It is state violence,” Omar wrote in a statement. “It is simply indefensible, and ICE must be held accountable. That must include a full, comprehensive investigation and legal action against the agency.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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