Minnesota clashes with federal investigators over fatal ICE shooting review

Minnesota prosecutors have now obtained key evidence in the investigations into the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, ending months in which federal agencies withheld material from state investigators. The shift came after a prolonged dispute that left the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension unable to keep participating in reviews of shootings involving federal agents.

The breakdown began on January 7, 2026, when the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office first agreed to a joint investigation, then later that day reversed course and told the BCA it would no longer have access to case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews. The BCA withdrew because it could not meet Minnesota’s standards for a full use-of-force investigation without complete access to evidence, witnesses and reports. Gov. Tim Walz condemned the federal handling of the case on January 8 and urged Washington to let Minnesota investigators work the case on Minnesota soil.

Operation Metro Surge brought roughly 2,000 federal agents into Minnesota during the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement crackdown. The BCA Force Investigations Unit, created in 2020 after the Deadly Force Encounters Working Group, was designed to give Minnesota a consistent, independent mechanism for investigating deadly force incidents. Federal agencies cut off the very access that unit was built to secure.

Good, 37, was shot and killed in south Minneapolis on January 7 at about 9:45 a.m. on Portland Avenue near East 34th Street. The ICE agent was Jonathan Ross. The lack of cooperation made it difficult, if not impossible, for state prosecutors to pursue charges or conduct an independent review of the shooting.

The standoff widened in April, when a Minnesota judge ordered federal agencies to turn over unredacted evidence in the Good case in separate litigation. Federal officials had turned over some evidence by May 6, and by July 13 prosecutors had obtained key evidence in both the Good and Pretti investigations.