Minnesota Investigators Say They’ve ‘Reluctantly Withdrawn’ from ICE Shooting Case After FBI Denied Them ‘Access to Evidence’
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) says that the FBI is blocking its access to evidence in the shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent, and has now “reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation” as a result.
On Wednesday morning, Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good was shot three times through the windshield of her car by an ICE agent. Good, 37, died from her injuries.
In the aftermath of the shooting, President Donald Trump and other administration officials defended the agent’s actions as self-defense and claimed Good was attempting to run over the agent. Multiple video clips shared by eyewitnesses counteract those claims.
The statement posted on the BCA’s website, from the agency’s Superintendent Drew Evans, read as follows:
On Jan. 7, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) was notified that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel were involved in a shooting in Minneapolis that resulted in a woman’s death. That morning, after consultation with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, it was decided that the BCA Force Investigations Unit would conduct a joint investigation with the FBI. The BCA responded promptly to the scene and began coordinating investigative work in good faith.
Later that afternoon, the FBI informed the BCA that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had reversed course: the investigation would now be led solely by the FBI, and the BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.
Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands. As a result, the BCA has reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation. The BCA Force Investigations Unit was designed to ensure consistency, accountability and public confidence, none of which can be achieved without full cooperation and jurisdictional clarity.
The BCA Force Investigations Unit was created in 2020 by the legislature to provide an independent, consistent and trusted mechanism for investigating use of force incidents involving law enforcement officers. This unit is the result of years of scrutiny, public engagement and bipartisan legislative action following the Deadly Force Encounters Working Group. Minnesotans made it clear that they expect a transparent and thorough process when a peace officer uses deadly force in our state, and the BCA has earned their trust by delivering on that expectation.
We expect the FBI to conduct a thorough and complete investigation and that the full investigative file will be shared with the appropriate prosecutorial authorities at both the state and federal levels.
The BCA remains fully committed to our partnerships to build public trust in use of deadly force investigations. If the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI were to reconsider this approach and express a willingness to resume a joint investigation, the BCA is prepared to reengage in support of our shared goal of public safety in Minnesota.
MS NOW anchor Ana Cabrera interviewed the network’s senior national security reporter David Rohde about the statement from the BCA.
According to Rohde, this was “very, very unusual” for what “initially was going to be a joint investigation” with the state and federal authorities, but now the FBI had “reversed course” and would be handling the investigation on its own.
The assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania and the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk were both joint local and federal investigations, said Rohde, “and that’s how most investigations like this go forward,” because “there are sources and resources that local law enforcement has that the federal government doesn’t.”
The Minnesota BCA officials were saying that “they are not going to be allowed to talk to witnesses,” and “not going to get access to basic, it seems, investigatory material,” continued Rohde, again calling it “very, very unusual.”
“And to be honest,” he added, “given the politically charged environment, that’s just going to cause more suspicion, more partisan division. And I think it’s really bad. One of the positive things about law enforcement investigations are when they are transparent. And that doesn’t appear to be happening here.”
This is a breaking news story and has been updated.
Watch the clip above via MS NOW.
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