Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said on Thursday that the Trump administration has cut state investigators out of the probe into an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of SUV driver Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, a view disputed by Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Noem told reporters on Jan. 8 that Minnesota has “not been cut out. … They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.” Vice President JD Vance later offered that state officials should instead be investigating protesters they accuse of harassing and obstructing the federal agents who are operating there.
“The precedent here is very simple,” Vance stated in a press conference at the White House. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue.”
Walz said the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) spent Wednesday trying to secure a role in the case and was told that federal officials would not allow a joint investigation. He said state officials were initially invited into the investigation but that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office later took over the case.
“We have learned that the Trump administration has now denied the state that ability to participate in the investigation,” Walz said. “And I always want to make this as clear as possible to everyone. Minnesota must be part of this investigation.”
Good, 37, was behind the wheel of her SUV Wednesday when she was shot and killed by an ICE officer during an immigration enforcement operation and traffic stop in Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security and Vance have said the officer fired to protect himself against Good’s vehicle in a hostile environment created by protesters who had followed ICE teams.
Noem said officers were trying to free a car stuck in the snow when they were “surrounded and assaulted and blocked in by protesters” who had trailed them “all day,” harassing agents and “impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law.” She called the incident “an act of domestic terrorism” and said the officer is an experienced agent who “followed his training.”
“This vehicle was used to hit this officer. It was used as a weapon, and the officer feels as though his life was in jeopardy,” Noem said, adding that vehicles have been used “almost over 100 times” to ram officers.
At his news conference, Walz framed the dispute as a question of checks and balances and local credibility in a high-profile use-of-force case.
He said the BCA’s force investigations unit was created by the Legislature to provide an independent, consistent review of police shootings and other deadly force incidents.
“These are nonpartisan career professionals that have spent years building the trust of the community,” Walz said, adding that even residents skeptical of law enforcement “have come to see the professionals at the BCA as true arbitrators that can get them justice.”
Minnesotans, he said, “expect transparency through this process where a police officer uses deadly force,” and keeping the state out of the investigation “feels very, very difficult” for anyone hoping for a fair outcome.
Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said in the press conference that federal investigators currently control the key evidence.
“They do have all the evidence in the original investigative notes and reports. We have none of that. They have shared none of that with us.”
Without access to the scene, videos, reports, and agents involved, he said it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” for Minnesota to conduct a thorough investigation or support any potential state charges.
Walz said he has watched video of the shooting but is not making his own legal conclusion.
“I don’t have a predetermined notion,” he said. “Yes, I saw the video. Yes, I saw that. But a thorough investigation will see what happened before that. It will take all factors in, and it will come up with a fair and just conclusion. And we will accept that.”
He praised thousands of Minnesotans who held a vigil and protested peacefully and urged people not to respond with violence. He also warned against confrontations with counterprotesters and called on federal officers to stay out of schools after reports of ICE entering a Minnesota school.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier in the day called for oversight and a full inquiry, saying the incident was an “abomination.”
“There is no evidence that has been presented to justify this killing,” Jeffries said in a statement the previous day.
White House border czar Tom Homan, in a separate interview, declined to “make a judgment call on one video when there’s a hundred videos out there,” calling it “unprofessional” to decide what happened based on a single clip. He said he has not seen ICE agents act outside policy and warned that “comments about murder” are going to “incite … more violence, more threats, and hopefully not more bloodshed” against ICE officers.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during the daily briefing that ICE agents are operating under growing threat, citing a sharp increase in assaults, vehicle rammings and death threats.
Vance, speaking after her, framed the shooting as a confrontation between ICE and “a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.”
He said Good was at the scene “to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” and described the shooting as self-defense.
“The reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car, and that guy acted in self-defense,“ Vance said. ”That is why she lost her life. And that is the tragedy.” He added the ICE officer had been seriously injured in an incident six months ago when he was dragged by a car and needed 33 stitches, and argued that context matters when assessing his response.
Vance also used the appearance to announce a new assistant attorney general position with nationwide jurisdiction over fraud tied to federal programs, saying the official will start by focusing on Minnesota before expanding to other states. He said an interagency task force has issued more than 1,500 subpoenas and brought nearly 100 indictments related to alleged misuse of federal benefits.
Walz, who is pressing for the BCA to be restored to the investigation, appealed for federal officials to “ratchet down the rhetoric,” reduce the federal presence in Minnesota and respect state institutions.
” Walz framed the dispute as a question of checks and balances and local credibility in a high-profile use-of-force case.”
local credibility ???
* Credibility of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after he allowed the Simoleans to steal over
8 Billion dollars from the state assistance programs?
* Credibility of a Minnesota sanctuary state investigating an immigration officer of defending himself?
* Credibility of a Democrat Party that imported 20 Million criminal illegal immigrants and is fighting against their deportation.
He’s smoking some good weed, if he thinks ANYTHING IN HIS STATE has any credibility left.
Shouldn’t he be focusing on FRAUD?
This is typical of Democrats cons, lies and deceptions.
The lying, corrupt, treasonous Democrat Party elite and the Democrat Party supporters are never held responsible or are held accountable for their deliberate, illegal, treasonous, unlawful, destructive, dishonorable, immoral, criminal actions and agendas. Democrats always Lie and blame someone or something else for their own actions and policies to away with their Lies and crimes even if the Democrats are caught “red handed”.
Maybe because there is serious corruption in Minnesota is the reason they weren’t invited to participate in the investigation.
If Waltz wants creditability he should be detaining the criminal illegal aliens for ICE agents to transport! Not egging on democrat party domestic terrorists !!
It’s not the ICE shooting probe that Tampon Tim fears, but the Corruption Probe of the stolen 9 billion in Somalian diverted funds getting probed and the money found to have been diverted to His, Omar’s and the Mayors personal and party bank accounts,,, that had they just permitted their police to surrender the illegally entered criiminals in custody to ICE, may have kept the heat off them that had damned well end in well earned jail sentences a fines for Both The governor and the mayor. In Chicago Mayor Daly always kept control by letting his underlings put the squeeze on the honest businessmen, and diverted cash, but unlike Tampon Tim and the current Mayor, hekept his own personal finances seperate and clean. The louder these dummies scream, the greater the amount of illegal money they have personally enriched themselves with,,,just follow the money. The higher the vocal volume, the greater the amount they have illegally purloined, as night follows day.
Notice almost ALL the news chatter OVER those probes, have disappeared.. ONLY the shooting and riots are talked about.
Tampon Tim, created this disaster, in his state and in all probability is complicite in some way. And it would serve the country best if this loser spent the rest of his life in federal prison, fined into poverty. And any other politician from MN that are involved.