The writer, an FBI agent for 31 years, retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office in 2006. He has a law degree from the University of Nebraska College of Law. He is the author of "FBI Case Files Michigan: Tales of a G-Man."
By Greg Stejskal
L-R: Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Liam Conejo Ramos
Following the shooting of Renee Good on January 7, I wrote a column in which I said that I was hesitant to offer any conclusions until the investigation of the incident was completed, and all the facts are disclosed. I also noted that my reluctance to make conclusions was not shared by the president or members of his administration in their public statements made shortly after the incident. Most of their statements lacked any factual basis and were contradicted by numerous videos of the incident.
The FBI was tasked with doing the investigation of the shooting with the Minnesota authorities which in my experience is standard procedure. Within days of the shooting, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said there would be no federal civil rights investigation of the incident. There would, however, be an investigation as to whether Renee Good or her wife Becca Good had any ties to left-wing organizations. The decision by DOJ to not pursue an investigation of the shooting and instead go after Good's spouse resulted in the resignation of six assistant U.S. attorneys in Minneapolis and an FBI supervisor.
DHS Sec. Kristi Noem
Minnesota state authorities will have difficulty conducting a thorough investigation if they don’t have access to the evidence in possession of the FBI. Despite statements to contrary by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and others, Minnesota authorities do have jurisdiction, and the ICE agent who was the shooter does not have “complete” immunity. He does have “qualified immunity” which raises the standard of proof.
The state must prove that the shooter used objectively unreasonable force and acted willfully — that he knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway, showing criminal intent or malice. In this case, the shooter may have supplied evidence of malice by referring to the victim as a “fucking bitch” immediately after the shooting.
Investigations of these types of incidents aren’t done just to determine whether an officer should be prosecuted for a crime. They are also conducted to determine if deadly force was necessary and whether procedures and policy were followed and should there be changes to those procedures or policy.
Because there apparently will be no federal investigation and maybe no state investigation of the Renee Good shooting, I don’t feel constrained about making some observations, not conclusions.
Vulnerable Spot
Shooting of Renee Good
The shooter, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jonathon Ross, had placed himself in a vulnerable spot, at the left front of a running vehicle, when the driver Renee Good was being aggressively confronted by a fellow agent.
Ross was video recording on his phone as he walked around Good’s vehicle. It was also being recorded from different angles by several bystanders. Good was confronted by another agent who reaches into the vehicle through her open window. Good, momentarily puts the car in reverse then turns the wheels to the right and drives forward.
On Ross’s video, Good can be seen turning the steering wheel to the right. The car never makes contact with Ross. As the car begins moving forward, Ross draws his handgun and fires one shot that penetrates the lower driver’s side part of the windshield. As the car passes Ross, he fires two more rounds through the open driver’s side window.
Part of the analysis of whether Ross was justified in shooting into the vehicle was his perception, in the few seconds he had to make that decision: Was it reasonable to believe he or someone else was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, and that deadly force was necessary to eliminate that threat?
The argument could be made that Ross had a reasonable belief that when he fired his gun, he would be struck by the vehicle and that by shooting the driver the threat could be eliminated.
However, once the car misses Ross there doesn’t seem to be a threat to Ross. Yet, Ross fires those two additional rounds through the driver’s window. If Ross is prosecuted, the prosecution would need to prove that Ross fired those two shots with willful or malicious intent. His statements and demeanor following the shooting could be offered as proof of that intent.
The medical examiner’s report has not yet been made public, Renee Good’s family arranged for an autopsy to be done by a reputable pathologist. That report concluded that Good had “three clean gunshot wounds” (These aren’t necessarily in order of when they were fired.): “one to the right chest that did not piece any major organs;” one to the left forearm; “neither of these were immediately life threatening;” a third gunshot wound, entered the left side of Good’s head near the temple and exited near her right temple.
The Fatal Wound
The headshot was apparently the fatal wound. It’s likely that shot was fired through the window of the car, but ballistic and forensic analysis would be necessary prove that.
Within days of the shooting of Renee Good, there was another fatal shooting involving ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents. This shooting too was being recorded from several different angles by bystanders. The victim, Alex Pretti, 37, an American citizen and an ICU nurse with the Veterans Administration, was observing and recording on his phone an ICE/CBP operation.
Very soon after this shooting, Kristi Noam and others made statements claiming that Alex Pretti had approached officers with a gun and acted violently, and that an agent fired “defensive shots.” CBP Commander Greg Bovino elaborated, that Pretti intended to “massacre” agents.
Alex Pretti seconds before being shot
I’m not going to analyze the video recordings as they are publicly available but suffice it to say the videos contradict the statements made by Noam, Bovino and others. Pretti was armed, but he had a valid license to carry the gun, and it was concealed.
On the videos his only interaction with ICE/CBP was to intervene and try help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by an ICE/CBP agent. He was then wrestled to the ground by several agents, and an agent removed Pretti’s gun. Pretti never touched the gun during the confrontation. While he was on his hands and knees, he was shot from behind at least twice by an agent. While lying motionless on the ground, Pretti was shot several more times.
Initially, a DHS statement was made that there would be an investigation handled by DHS as an internal matter. There was no indication that this would be coordinated with Minnesota authorities.
In the days following the Good and Pretti shootings, there has been tremendous backlash in Minnesota and nationally. And it was announced that that there would be a DOJ civil rights investigation of the Pretti shooting.
Greg Bovino Sent Back
Greg Bovino
Greg Bovino the CBP commander of the Minneapolis operation, has been removed and sent back to his post in El Centro, California. Tom Homan who has held various high-ranking roles in ICE and is Trump’s “border czar,” was sent to take command in Minnesota.
Homan has met with local officials and indicated there may be some reduction in force in Minnesota. Homan has also indicated that he favors a more “targeted” approach to deportation arrests and less mass deportation operations.
Targeting “the worse of the worst” indicates that persons being arrested have been identified and have committed serious crimes. He said there had been agreement with Minnesota authorities that ICE would be provided with names of “illegal” aliens that are incarcerated and access to jails and prisons.
Stephen Miller
Some of Homan’s statements would be in direct conflict with Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s stated goal of arresting 3,000 “illegal” aliens a day nationally which totals over a million a year. I suspect there aren’t anywhere near a million “illegal” immigrants that are the worse of the worst.
As we have seen, the kind of mass deportation that Miller and others in the administration envision requires indiscriminate detention/arrest of people based on nothing more than skin color - nothing that would even reach a level of reasonable suspicion. Often those detained are not provided with any due process such as having an attorney. Some immigrants have been arrested and deported even though they have applied for asylum and are following the appropriate procedures.
Minnesota Chief US District Court Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote in an order, demanding for the acting director of ICE to explain why scores of people arrested by immigration agents have been held without an opportunity to challenge their detentions. Attached to that order was a list of 96 court orders that he said ICE had violated in 74 cases.
“This list should give pause to anyone – no matter his or her political beliefs – who cares about the rule of law," the judge wrote.
According to recent polling there is strong disapproval of the mass deportation approach which is engendering large protests not only in Minnesota but nationally. This puts ICE/CBP agents in the untenable position of trying to conduct mass deportation operations without community support. Congress is currently negotiating a funding bill for ICE/CBP operations that would place restrictions on how these operations are conducted.
A Five Year Old
Liam Ramos (Photo: Columbia Heights Public Schools)
Another Minnesota case that has received national attention involved the detention of a father and his five-year-old son, Liam Conejo Ramos. The father, an Ecuadorian, had applied for asylum and was reportedly following the appropriate procedures. The father was bringing his son home from school when he was arrested. The son was taken to his house, but his mother, who was there with another child, refused to open the door as she was afraid, she would be arrested.
Judge's Order
The father and son are being held in a detention facility in Texas. (On Saturday a U.S. District Court Judge ordered Ramos and his father released from custody and returned to Minnesota.)
From the film Schindler's List
The photo Liam Ramos was particularly haunting for me. It reminded me of the scene in “Shindler’s List” where Schindler is watching German soldiers round up the Jews in the Krakow, Poland ghetto, and Schindler sees a little girl in a red coat. The film was in black & white so your attention is drawn to the little girl, and you know what her fate will be.
I’m not suggesting that the mass deportations should be compared to the Holocaust. But those being swept up in the mass deportation are not the worse of the worst. They are often mothers, fathers, children who have come here with their parents. They are trying to realize the freedoms and opportunities we enjoy as citizens.
The way they are being carried out is un-American.
At the same time, the Trump administration is severely limiting legal immigration and refugee programs.
President Reagan
Perhaps it's curious that it was President Ronald Reagan, someone President Trump says he admires, who said this in January 1989:
“If we ever close our door to new Americans, our leadership will be lost…It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. They believe in the American dream. And over and over, they make it come true for themselves, for their children, and for others. They give more than they receive.
"They labor and succeed. And often they are entrepreneurs. But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American. They renew our pride and gratitude in America, the greatest freest nation in the world – the last, best hope of man on earth.”
