The Jan. 7 shooting death of Renee Good has become a political Rorschach test. A Quinnipiac poll released on Tuesday finds that a majority of American voters, 53%, believe ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot Good on a Minneapolis street last Wednesday, was not justified in doing so. Thirty-five percent believe the shooting was justified, while 12% have no opinion. But the poll results vary widely when the respondents’ political affiliations are examined. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans believe the shooting was justified, while 28% of independents and only four percent of Democrats hold the same opinion.
These poll results are unsurprising. As news of the shooting broke, political lines were quickly drawn, and conclusions were quickly reached, with both sides resorting to hyperbole that was carried unquestioningly by news outlets on both sides of the political divide. As in its Minneapolis antecedent, the George Floyd case, there is a danger that the investigation into Renee Good’s unfortunate death will be driven more by politics than by facts and the law.
I admit my general bias in favor of law enforcement. I’ve been a police officer for more than 40 years and writing for various conservative outlets for more than 25. Much of that writing has been devoted to defending police officers who, in my view, had been unfairly vilified in the media after controversial uses of force. But my defense of these officers has never been reflexive. I do my best to present arguments based on long experience and an understanding of the applicable law, and on occasion, I have been very critical of officers who I believed had transgressed (see here, here, and here, for example).
But in the matter of the Renee Good shooting, as I wrote here on Jan. 7 and again on Jan. 13, I have formed the opinion that the killing of Renee Good was, though profoundly unfortunate, within the law as it currently exists.
I am, of course, aware of the division of opinion on the matter, even among some prosecutors of my acquaintance, and I have read articles, listened to podcasts, and watched YouTube videos presented by people who are every bit as convinced Jonathan Ross is criminally culpable for killing Good as I am that he is not.
I was directed to one such video, presented by attorney Harry Litman, titled “5 FLASHPOINTS that Could CHANGE EVERYTHING in ICE Shooting CASE.” Litman has had a long and distinguished legal career, including serving as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, so I was eager to hear his point of view on the case and was open to the possibility he could change my mind.
He didn’t.
Litman’s five “flashpoints” are as follows:
- At the time ICE agents moved to extract Renee Good from her Honda Pilot, there had been “no indication… of any kind of serious crime or felony on her part, which is what would be required to actually make the arrest.” He goes on to say that “nothing [Good] has done before the engagement by officers suggests any basis for thinking on the part of the officers that she poses a threat of death or imminent serious bodily injury.”
- Litman says “Ross saunters casually” as he approaches Good’s car with “seemingly not a care in the world.” Ross then took up a position at the side of the Pilot, suggesting to Litman that Ross did not “see himself as being in imminent fear of death or serious bodily injury.”
- As Ross is circling the Pilot he is holding his cellphone in his right hand as he films his encounter with Good and her partner, but he transfers the phone to his left hand, indicating to Litman that he is “preparing for the use of deadly force at a time when there’s not even any suggestion that he’s in any kind of danger.”
- When Ross unholstered his weapon, there was still no perceivable threat to him, and he fired “simultaneous with Good putting the car into gear and driving off to the left, the direction of traffic.” (Litman misspoke here. Good drove off to the right.)
- Litman’s opinion is that the Pilot did not hit Ross, but he acknowledges that evidence of him being struck would be compelling to a jury. “It’s kind of a game-changer, in my view . . . If the car has hit him or grazed him, that’s going to be a huge fact to the jury.”
Addressing the five points in order:
I’m aware of no one who has asserted Good had committed a felony or presented a danger to the agents in the minutes leading up to the shooting. What she had done was commit the misdemeanor crime of impeding the agents in carrying out their duties. The fact that she was less than fully successful in doing so, as some cars, including Ross’s, were able to pass her as she sat perpendicular to traffic and honked her horn, is immaterial. The agents were within the law in attempting to detain her.
As to Ross’s casual demeanor in circling the Pilot, why wouldn’t it be so? This is, of course, conjecture on my part, but when Ross exited his car and began filming, he had no reason to believe he was dealing with anything but some annoying but otherwise harmless people who, for mysterious reasons, make it their mission to prevent the arrest and deportation of criminal illegal aliens. Continuing my conjecture, I believe that as Good was making her flippant remarks, and as her more truculent partner was making hers, Ross was filming them for the purpose of identifying them for some future investigation and prosecution. Whoever may have made the decision for the other two agents to exit their truck and detain Good, I don’t believe it was Ross.
Litman, and many others condemning the shooting, make the point that Ross put himself in danger – if any such existed – by taking a position at the front of the Pilot, something that police officers are trained not to do. But again, Ross was not confronted with someone fleeing the scene of some crime and running to a waiting car, in which case it would have been reckless to be where he was. As Good put the car in reverse and backed up, Ross may even have perceived this as a step toward compliance by moving her car out of the traffic lane. It was only when she put the car in drive that Ross realized, as I put it in my previous column, that things had very suddenly gone from “ho-hum” to “oh s**t!”
Regarding Litman’s third “flashpoint,” he finds it significant and incriminating that Ross moved his phone from his right hand to his left. I find it meaningless. All cops are trained to keep their gun hands free whenever possible, a habit I practice to this day, even in the most innocuous of settings. I suspect Ross simply recalled this bit of training and made the transition.
Moving to Litman’s fourth point: Without Ross’s account, it’s impossible to know exactly when he perceived a threat and decided to draw his weapon, but from watching the videos, especially the one shot from the left-rear of the Pilot, it is clear that as the other two agents approach the Pilot, the atmosphere of encounter was changing for the worse.
Regarding Litman’s final point, I agree that if Ross was, in fact, hit by the Pilot, it would present a significant challenge for any prosecution. Litman doesn’t believe he was hit, but CBS News reported that he sustained “internal bleeding,” which sounds ominous but leaves us to wonder why he was released from the hospital so quickly. But even minor bruising, which technically fits the definition of “internal bleeding,” would indicate contact from the car. People on the left may discount CBS as a reliable source under the stewardship of Bari Weiss, but I very much doubt a claim of injury would be made if there were no doctors’ accounts and medical records to substantiate it.
And note that in his presentation, Litman refers to an examination of the shooting by “former FBI agent” Asha Rangappa, who shares Litman’s opinion on the matter. Litman appeared on her podcast on Thursday to discuss the case, and on Jan. 10, she wrote about it on her own Substack page.
Rangappa’s LinkedIn page reveals an impressive list of academic and legal achievements, but her law enforcement experience is minimal. She was with the FBI for only three years, four months of which were spent in training at the Quantico, Va., academy. As a special agent, she worked in the Bureau’s New York field office in counterintelligence investigations. It’s very unlikely she was ever involved in a shooting, the use of force, or even a situation where either was a possibility.
She acknowledged on her podcast that she “leans left,” but even a cursory look at her Bluesky page invites use of a verb somewhat more emphatic than “lean.” She’s a very intelligent and accomplished woman, but in talking about the Renee Good shooting, she’s speaking far beyond her expertise and from a place that’s hostile to the Trump administration and its efforts to deport illegal aliens. Take this into account in evaluating her conclusions.
There is one aspect of the Renee Good shooting in which I am in full agreement with Litman. He laments the fact that the Department of Justice has ruled out a civil rights investigation into the matter. Of course, such an investigation is called for, and the fact that so many in the administration, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Vice President JD Vance, and even President Donald Trump himself, so quickly pronounced the shooting as justified will only taint the outcome if Jonathan Ross is cleared of wrongdoing. And, again, I believe he should be, but such vehement prejudgment is unseemly, especially at such an early stage, and it will only stoke suspicions that a heavy thumb has been placed on the scales of justice. The 12% who had no opinion on the Good shooting in the Quinnipiac poll cited above will not be persuaded if they suspect a rigged investigation.
I do not, however, share Litman’s opinion that the FBI and other federal agencies should cooperate with a Minnesota state investigation. There is no reason to believe Jonathan Ross would be treated any more fairly than was Derek Chauvin, whose trial was a farce and whose continued imprisonment is a stain on Minnesota’s entire justice system. This is all the more reason the federal investigation into the Good shooting should be as exhaustive and transparent as possible. Anything less would be a disservice to Jonathan Ross and to Renee Good.
Let the truth be told and let the outcome be driven by the facts and the law, not by politics.
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