MINNEAPOLIS — The lives of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good and ICE agent Jonathan Ross intersected on Jan. 7 as car horns blared, sirens wailed and whistles shrieked.

It was a brief encounter, just 40 seconds on the slippery streets of south Minneapolis in the first week of the new year. Cellphones recorded it from nearly every angle.

As Good sat in the driver’s seat of her car, her wife was standing nearby. Their dog was in the backseat. Toys for their 6-year-old child were strewn about the car – stuffed animals hanging above the glove box, a dinosaur book and drawing pad on the passenger seat floor.

Ross, who lives in Minnesota and is assigned to the St. Paul field office, was back in action just six months after he was dragged 300 feet by a car as he tried to arrest a Mexican citizen in Bloomington. Images of the encounter show blood covering Ross’ body and clothes. There are dozens of stitches curling down his arm.

As Ross circled Good’s car on Portland Avenue, he held his own phone to record what was happening. Good smiled at him. “That’s fine dude,” Good said to Ross, looking up into his face, which was partially obscured by a balaclava. “I’m not mad at you.”

What happened next on that Wednesday morning has once again turned the eyes of the world on Minneapolis. Local politicians have claimed the killing is a direct result of President Donald Trump vindictively targeting the state with immigration enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blasted local police for not stopping protesters from “harassing and inciting violence on law enforcement officers.” And in the wake of a shocking killing, there’s been a surge of ICE enforcement in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reconstructed the moments leading up to the shooting and its immediate aftermath through eyewitness interviews and reviewed multiple videos of the encounter and message logs from protesters.

It shows how the split-second decisions by Good to drive forward and Ross to pull out his gun turned deadly and ignited a nationwide debate over use of force by ICE agents that shows no signs of abating.

A neighborhood on alert

The morning began with warnings.

Residents throughout the Twin Cities have been sharing information about potential ICE activity for months as the Trump administration works to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants. The activity is aimed to document and disrupt ICE agents from arresting and detaining immigrants. It’s coordinated largely through chats and phone calls on the private message app, Signal.

Residents and activists have recorded the movements of ICE agents, blown whistles to alert others of the federal presence, filmed license plates and locked arms to block arrests. That civil protest heightened after the Trump administration announced on Jan. 6 that an additional 2,000 federal agents would deploy to the Twin Cities.

A friend of Good’s said she was trained to protest ICE presence in the city. Another friend said Good likely followed activity on the private message app, Signal.

Ashley Horan, who lives across the street from an elementary school in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood, had been receiving warnings about federal immigration activity since sunrise.

The neighborhood had reason to be on alert. A 2021 study conducted by the University of Minnesota found that it was one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Minneapolis, with a prominent Latino demographic. It’s also the same neighborhood where George Floyd was murdered in 2020.

“Around 7:30 or 8 o’clock, I started getting messages saying there was escalated ICE presence in the neighborhood,” Horan said.

Shortly after 9 a.m., Signal chats lit up with what observers described as an active detention outside Green Central Elementary. It was referred to in early messages as an “active kidnapping,” a term activists often use to describe arrests. The school was three blocks away from where Good would park her car.

Some messages suggested a parent had been taken near the school, though Horan said she does not know whether that detail was accurate. The Star Tribune was not able to verify these claims.

By around 9:30 a.m., whistles were already sounding.

From her home office, positioned between Green Central and Portland Avenue, Horan watched unmarked vehicles move quickly through residential streets.

“I started seeing cars flying by — unmarked vehicles going very fast,” she said.

She left her meeting, got in her car and followed.

The street before the shots

Portland Avenue is one of the most heavily trafficked residential streets in south Minneapolis, stretching 12 miles through the Twin Cities from the Minnesota River to the Mississippi River.

Where Ross came upon Good’s parked car, Portland Avenue operates as a one-way street, northbound.

There had already been a consistent ICE presence on the block where Ross and Good’s lives collided, said Alaina Kozma, who lives on Portland Avenue near where the shooting took place. “I have seen caravans of ICE going by,” Kozma said as she watched federal officers process the scene the day of the shooting. “I would estimate, four to five times over the last three weeks.”

Several witnesses said Good was already on Portland Avenue as more people arrived, her SUV positioned perpendicularly across part of the street. Good and her wife lived two blocks away. In a statement provided to Minnesota Public Radio on Jan. 9, Renee Good’s wife, Becca Good, said, “We stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.”

Video footage shows Ross park his SUV a few feet from Good’s car and climb out. He records the video as he walks around the vehicle, making sure to film the license plate.

Other activists and residents were on the street, and several recorded the encounter. Good appears amicable in the driver’s seat, extending her arm out of the window and waving other vehicles past her car.

As Ross moves around the vehicle, he doesn’t say much, but Becca Good confronts him.

She tells the officer that he doesn’t need to worry, they won’t change out their license plate for another one, which has been a criticized tactic of ICE agents operating in the Twin Cities. She says she is a U.S. citizen and a veteran and asks Ross if he “wants to come at us.”

Ross stays quiet the entire time. Circling the car and recording.

“I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy,” Becca Good says.

As that is happening, two ICE agents park their truck several feet from Renee Good’s driver’s side door. The agents exit their vehicle and walk toward Good’s car.

Footage captures the agents shouting commands and expletives as they advance.

“Get out of the car. Get out of the car,” one agent can be heard yelling.

An agent pulls on the door handle and then reaches his hand through the window. Good first puts the car in reverse, backs up briefly and then puts the car in drive. Her tires spin slightly on the ice. She turns her wheels and moves forward. Becca Good attempts to open the passenger door, but it’s locked.

You can hear Becca say to Renee, “Drive baby, drive.”

Ross keeps his cellphone in his left hand and pulls out his gun with his right.

Gunfire and chaos

Trevor Heitkamb, 31, who lives on Portland Avenue, was outside his home smoking a cigarette when he heard the gunfire.

“The car was pulling out. The guys were messing with the car,” Heitkamb said of the ICE agents trying to get into Good’s vehicle. “The car pulled forward and they started shooting into it. I saw the crash and I saw the body — the whole thing.”

A Star Tribune analysis of multiple video angles appears to show Ross firing three shots at close range. The first through the front windshield as Ross stood in front of the car.

As Good drives forward, video shows that Ross avoids being seriously hit by the car. He moves backward, but it’s not clear if he steps back or is pushed by the vehicle — or both. Neither video suggests Good “ran him over,” as Trump has said.

The next two shots appear to go through the open driver’s side window as Good’s SUV drives past Ross. After the shots, a voice can be heard saying, “bitch,” punctuated with an expletive.

The SUV careens wildly down the road before crashing into a parked car.

“Everybody was screaming that they just killed her,” said Lynette Reini-Grandell, a nearby resident who heard the shots as she crossed onto the street. “That they just shot her.”

Ross walked towards Good’s car, turned around, walked back, held his hand up horizontally, rolled his index finger in a circular fashion and was heard saying “Call 911.”

Other ICE agents drew their weapons and forced people back from the vehicle.

Several people at the scene said federal agents prevented a person who identified himself as a doctor from administering CPR to Good. Agents, according to videos from the scene, can be heard telling bystanders they had their own medics.

Venus de Mars, who lives nearby, said she arrived moments later and saw CPR being performed behind a snowbank where Good’s car had come to rest.

“They did CPR on her for about a minute,” de Mars said. “Then the ambulances came and they loaded her onto a stretcher.”

As Signal chats erupted that an observer had been shot — including a message timestamped 9:37 a.m. — people poured onto Portland Avenue, first from nearby homes, then from across the neighborhood.

Within minutes of the shooting, ICE agents leave the scene in the unmarked SUV that Ross arrived in. It isn’t clear if Ross was among them. A bystander yells, “Don’t let him leave.”

The block erupts

As the morning went on, the block grew louder and more volatile.

People blew whistles continuously and shouted at ICE agents, chanting, “You killed my neighbor” and “Murderer.”

ICE agents tackled observers who were in their way. They deployed chemical irritants, sometimes directly into people’s faces. Journalists were also hit.

Neighbors and protesters crouched in the snow, pouring milk and water into one another’s eyes, shouting instructions and trying to help as the scene dissolved into confusion and anger.

Good was transported by ambulance to HCMC, where she was pronounced dead, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed.

Hours later, blood remained visible in the snow where her vehicle had come to rest.

Transparency and accountability

Within hours of the shooting, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem were just a few federal officials arguing that the shooting was justified. They also alleged Good had targeted Ross and ran him over in an act of domestic terrorism.

Other city, state and national officials argue that the use of force was unjustified. The say video evidence shows Good trying to leave the scene and not trying to harm anyone.

The dispute will likely continue as state and federal officials conduct separate investigations into a shooting where many have already made conclusions.

While the discussion over procedure and accountability continues, Minneapolis residents are left grappling with an intensifying conflict and violence on their streets.

“My life isn’t going to return to normal anytime soon,” Heitkamb said. “I don’t even know how to process what I saw. I’m going to remember Renee for the rest of my life.”

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(Kyeland Jackson and Louis Krauss of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.)

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