The family of Renee Good, the woman killed by immigration agents in January in Minneapolis, filed two federal lawsuits against the agent who shot her and several top officials in the Trump administration on Thursday.
In the lawsuits, Good’s partner, Becca Good, and her brother, Brent Ganger, alleged wrongful death and other violations of federal law, according to a press release issued by their lawyers.
Good was a US citizen and mother of three who, on 7 January, joined her wife in protesting against the deployment of thousands of ICE agents in their city as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy.
The 37-year-old woman was shot and killed in her car by an agent who claimed he acted in self-defense, and the Department of Homeland Security claimed that she had engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism”. Multiple video clips of the encounter, however, show that Good was steering her vehicle away from the agent as she tried to drive away.
Related: ‘Unimaginable loss’: Renee Good family urges ’empathy’ in call for justice
Her death and that of Alex Pretti, an American nurse who was also shot and killed by an immigration agent during Minneapolis protests two weeks later, sparked outrage and a wave of anger across the country.
Shortly after Good’s killing, Todd Blanche, then the deputy US attorney general, said he saw no grounds for opening a civil rights investigation. Days later, the justice department opened an investigation into the relationship between Becca Good, the deceased’s partner, and protest groups. At least 10 prosecutors resigned following the fatal shootings.
Now these lawsuits have become some of the first major civil litigation actions filed against Trump’s deportation campaign in Minnesota.
In one of them, the attorneys for Good’s wife and brother allege wrongful death and seek to recover – receive damages – for the “immense suffering Renee endured in the final moments of her life and for the profound and permanent losses that her death has inflicted upon her family”.
“The complaint also seeks to recover for Becca Good, who was standing feet from the couple’s vehicle when Ross fired three rounds into it, and she watched her partner die,” the complaint says.
“Peaceful assembly, speech and even dissent are protected rights. However, the government has distorted the exercise of these rights as violence against our republic and acted with extreme and unconstitutional force, causing egregious harm. Many of these illegal uses of force resulted in death – including the death of an American mother of three, Renee Good … Today’s legal actions demand accountability for countless violations of the law, the constitution and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own rules governing the use of force,” the lawsuit says.
The other lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights by senior federal officials and federal immigration enforcement agents, and names Jonathan Ross, the immigration officer who shot Good, the former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of hardline US immigration policies, Stephen Miller, and former US border patrol officer Gregory Bovino, among others, for their “roles in Renee Good’s death”.
Backlash against Trump’s anti-immigration campaign following the deaths in January led the president to withdraw agents from Minnesota, and there has been no other deployment of that kind to a major US city since then. However, investigations such as the one by the Guardian are showing that ICE is arresting more people than ever, while the administration shifted its tactics from “siege” to “soft feet”.
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