The family of Renee Good is taking the federal government to court. On Thursday, her partner Becca Good and her brother Brent Ganger filed two civil lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota over her killing last January.
Good, 37, was shot several times in her car by ICE officer Jonathan Ross during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, known as Operation Metro Surge. Federal officials claimed at the time she had weaponized her vehicle. Video evidence contradicted that.
The first lawsuit, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the United States itself, is essentially a wrongful-death case. It argues Ross violated his agency's own policies and the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force, and also alleges battery, assault, false imprisonment and negligence. It seeks a bench trial — and damages for Becca Good, who witnessed the killing and, the suit says, suffered intense emotional distress.
The second lawsuit goes much further. It alleges a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights and demands a jury trial with punitive damages. The named defendants: Ross, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, border czar Tom Homan, political operative Corey Lewandowski, former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, former Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino — plus ten unidentified federal agents.
The legal weapon is striking: the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The family's lawyers, the firm Romanucci & Blandin, argue Good's death was the "predictable and intended product" of a "carefully planned, coordinated effort" to make Somali and Hispanic Minnesotans "the object of aggression and abduction" — and to silence, by intimidation and violence, the neighbors who documented it.
No criminal charges have been filed against Ross or any agent involved. The lawsuits now force the whole chain of command — from the officer who pulled the trigger to the officials who designed the operation — to answer in court.
The White House isn't backing down. Spokesperson Lauren Bis called the suits "baseless," saying: "We intend to vigorously defend these baseless civil lawsuits."