“Outside of the norm”

Last week, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota reportedly resigned from the U.S. Department of Justice. They quit, according to The New York Times, because the Trump administration refused to open a civil rights investigation into the officer who shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good earlier this month.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed Good during an immigration enforcement operation on Jan. 7. Instead of launching an investigation into the officer’s behavior to determine if he followed appropriate use-of-force procedures, the DOJ has largely focused its probe on the activities of Good and other individuals close to her, the Times reported. In the hours after the shooting, several top Trump administration officials publicly stated that the ICE agent who shot Good was justified in his actions.

Such a rapid approval of a federal agent’s actions in a disputed use-of-force incident is highly unusual, according to experts I spoke to. Use-of-force investigations often take significant amounts of time, and the details of the Jan. 7 shooting—unlike some other cases—are fraught with controversy.

“It is far too early for an investigation into a shooting incident like this to have already wrapped up. If that’s the case, it’s so far outside of the norm that I’m in a struggle for an adjective,” said Ian Adams, a former police officer who teaches at the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina.

In a statement to WORLD, the Justice Department said ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, part of the Department of Homeland Security, was investigating the incident. The statement also cited Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said, “There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in remarks at a news conference the day of the shooting, stated that the officer, later identified as Jonathan Ross, was acting in self-defense. She accused Good of engaging in an act of domestic terrorism by weaponizing her vehicle against the officer, whom officials said suffered internal bleeding as a result of the incident. Vice President J.D. Vance, just hours after the shooting, suggested on social media that Good was responsible for her death because she tried to run over a member of law enforcement. The next day, Vance issued another, lengthy social media post doubling down on his position.

Investigations into officer-involved shootings generally take months or years, regardless of where in the country the shooting took place, said Adams. While it’s not unreasonable to investigate the victim of an officer-involved shooting, it is unusual for the victim to become the primary subject of the investigation, he said. According to Adams, investigations center on one question: Did the police officer use either violent or deadly force in an objectively reasonable manner?

“Standard practice in these things is to acknowledge the complexity and the time that it’s going to take to do a careful investigation,” he explained. “It is highly, highly, highly unusual to see an executive of an agency, or an agency itself … [make] reasonableness determinations that fast.”

Understanding use-of-force rules

In at least three cases, the Supreme Court has articulated and refined how authorities should analyze police use-of-force cases. In 1985’s Tennessee v. Garner, the court ruled that officers could not use deadly force to prevent a suspect from fleeing the scene unless he clearly posed a threat to the surrounding community. In the court’s 1989 decision in Graham v. Connor, the court held that a police officer’s use of force must be “objectively reasonable”—meaning that another police officer, viewing the circumstances objectively, must find the officer’s actions reasonable. And in Barnes v. Felix, decided last May, the court said that the “totality of circumstances” should be taken into account, including how individuals were behaving before shots were fired.

According to Department of Homeland Security guidelines, the department requires its agents to follow this Supreme Court precedent by using force in an objectively reasonable manner and not firing on fleeing suspects unless they are considered dangerous.

The guidelines require that agents actively de-escalate a situation before engaging in the use of force. They prohibit agents from intentionally placing themselves in a position where they will need to use deadly force. More specifically, the guidelines prohibit firing weapons into moving vehicles unless the vehicles are being used as weapons against law enforcement. The department also says it will investigate instances in which one of its agents uses deadly force.

A second Minneapolis shooting

A week after Good’s death, another Minneapolis incident showed how the use of potentially lethal force could be considered presumptively justified. An ICE agent conducted a traffic stop with the intention of arresting an alleged illegal immigrant from Venezuela who had entered the United States during the Biden administration, according to DHS. The individual fled the traffic stop in a vehicle, crashed it into a parked car, and then fled on foot. The agent gave chase and ultimately apprehended the person in front of an apartment building.

While the agent was detaining the suspect, two other individuals came out of the apartment building and allegedly began attacking the agent with a shovel and a broom handle. The original suspect then escaped the agent’s grasp, grabbed a broom handle, and attacked the agent himself, according to DHS. While trying to flee, the agent grabbed his firearm and shot the original suspect in the leg. The three individuals then fled inside the apartment but were later apprehended.

Both the agent and the suspected immigrant went to the hospital with injuries, DHS said.

Justin Nix teaches at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He explained that, if DHS’ account of the incident is accurate, it would be a clear example of appropriate police use of force.

“If we just take the statement at face value, it certainly does seem to tell the story of a justified shooting,” Nix said. Fearing for one’s life is considered a justification for use of deadly force. “[The] officer was pursuing someone that they were trying to detain, and ultimately ended up being assaulted by additional individuals … Three on one, using household objects as weapons. The officer, I’m sure, would have felt overwhelmed and fearful.”

In most instances where an officer kills someone, the deceased individual had either a gun, some other weapon, or an object that could be used as a weapon and was either able to attack the officer or was trying to do so, Nix said.

“There are data points that tell us, more often than not, the model fatal police shooting is going to be legally justified,” Nix said.

But some scenarios raise questions. “You know, 10% to maybe 20% of shootings … there’s more room for disagreement about, ‘Well, is this truly objectively reasonable? Was the officer right to feel fearful?’”

In the Renee Good incident, was it necessary for Ross to shoot Good to save his life? That’s the sort of question that might be raised by investigators in such a case.

“It does seem like he sort of places himself in the path of the vehicle,” Nix said. “And the officer just as easily, I think, could have sidestepped or gotten out of the path of the vehicle.”

Investigative norms

Use-of-force investigations to determine the appropriateness of an officer’s actions take time and legwork. Every police-involved shooting sets off at least two separate investigations: one criminal and one administrative, according to Ian Adams.

“They differ in who does those investigations, the scope of those investigations, and who ultimately makes decisions at the end of that investigative process,” Adams said. “They … don’t interact or can’t interact because of constitutional protection that is afforded every criminal defendant in our country.”

Who conducts the criminal investigations into officer-involved shootings varies from agency to agency, according to the Justice Department. Sometimes, police departments have their own staffers run the criminal investigation into the shooting. Sometimes another police agency will conduct the probe.

“The investigation and analysis involved in shootings is quite technical and analytical and requires a lot of evidence, a lot of evidence collection. That’s normally what these investigative teams are doing, and they’re trying to get the evidentiary record together to provide to some sort of decision-maker,” Adams said. Depending on whether it’s an administrative or criminal investigation, that decision-maker could be either a prosecutor or an agency chief executive.

But it’s extremely uncommon for top agency officials to issue statements clearing the officer just hours after a shooting, as in the Good case, Adams said.

“To the degree that the department made some sort of internal decision that this was justified within hours of the shooting, boggles the mind,” Adams said. “It is extremely out of the norm and unprofessional—and that’s my restrained version.”

—This story has been updated to include a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.