Chapter 1: What happened on January 7th that sparked nationwide protests?
When 37-year-old Renee Nicole Goode was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7th, Americans across the country took notice. The video of her shooting went viral and almost instantaneously, two different versions of what really happened took hold. In one version, the ICE agent was righteously defending his own life with the shooting.
In the other, a federal officer had criminally shot and killed an innocent woman. Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor.
Chapter 2: What are the differing narratives surrounding Renee Good's shooting?
Today is Friday, January 16th, 2026. Since that fateful day, protests have erupted across the nation. And what some are saying is parallel to the outrage felt across the nation when George Floyd was killed. In fact, the shooting happened not so far from where Floyd was killed six years ago. Has a tide turned for how Americans feel about about immigration enforcement.
Here to help us dig into all of it is USA Today breaking news reporter Christopher Kahn. Chris, thanks so much for being here.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Let's first take a step back and recap what happened on January 7th, the day Renee Nicole Goode was killed.
Yeah, so on the morning of January 7th, Renee Nicole Gidd was with her wife and dog. They say driving on their way home from dropping off their child at school. When they say they came across federal agents in their neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis engaging in operations there, that's when they began observing what was going on and filming.
And at some point there, that's when videos, the ones that you had mentioned that had gone viral, start to show that federal agents had approached Renee in her SUV. One can be seen walking up to her saying expletives, telling her to get out of the car. And that's when she began backing up. before pulling her car forward while turning her wheel seemingly away from agents.
And one ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, who is standing in videos near the front of the SUV when it's moving, shot and killed Renee. So the widely seen footage of that deadly encounter has... sharply divided the country.
DHS officials have said that Jonathan Ross acted properly and that Goode was engaging in domestic terrorism, while top Democrats have called for Ross's arrest and have accused him of illegally shooting a U.S. citizen. And I'll also note that there's new polls that find that most Americans have found the shooting to be unjustified.
The days that followed have been marked by chaotic clashes between federal agents and protesters. In fact, there was a second shooting just two days ago on January 14th that has intensified demonstrations. What happened there, Chris?
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Chapter 3: How did the shooting of Renee Good compare to George Floyd's case?
What authority would that give the president?
Yeah, so the Insurrection Act gives the president authority to deploy U.S. troops domestically. And the way the law is written, that's supposed to be used to suppress rebellions, civil unrest, or used when federal laws are being obstructed. And so the law has been revoked about 30 times since the late 1700s. The most recent time it was invoked was in 1992 during the riots in Los Angeles.
And Trump has a history of musing about invoking the Insurrection Act. He has since he's returned to office last year. And he's also spoke about using it in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
The Department of Homeland Security has sent about 3,000 federal agents into the Minneapolis area, dwarfing the local police presence. How have state and local officials in Minnesota, including Governor Tim Walz, responded?
Yeah, so state and local officials from Tim Waltz to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry have repeatedly called for ICE to leave the area. They call what's happening a federal invasion, accuse agents of trouncing on people's rights and unlawful seizures. The state actually filed a lawsuit this week seeking to halt the immigration operations in Minnesota. A judge
declined to issue an immediate restraining order that would stop the ongoing enforcement. But the Department of Homeland Security has until Monday to respond to the lawsuit. So we'll see what happens there and whether or not see what the judge decides as far as the ongoing enforcement.
Earlier this week, six federal prosecutors resigned following pressure by the Justice Department to investigate Renee Nicole Good's widow. Why and how has that impacted the political climate surrounding the shooting?
Yeah, so while there's unrest in the streets in Minneapolis and Minnesota more broadly, there's turmoil within the prosecutor's office there. As you mentioned, reports say that six prosecutors have resigned after they had faced pressure to investigate Good's wife.
There was also disagreement around the DOJ's decision not to investigate Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot Good in her SUV, as well as the handling of the incident. And this all comes as the state is facing a lot of pressure regarding a fraud scandal in Minnesota. And one of those prosecutors who resigned was Joe Thompson. He was the acting U.S.
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Chapter 4: What were the immediate reactions and protests following the shooting?
attorney for Minnesota. He had been appointed by Trump, and he had led the probe that uncovered a lot of fraud within 14 state-run Medicaid programs.
It's been nearly six years since the death of George Floyd, and our colleagues have written about how people in Minneapolis are feeling re-traumatized by this incident. What's happening on the ground, and what are people saying?
Yeah. So as you mentioned, the shooting of Good happened less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed in 2020. And as you remember, in that case as well, it was a video of that incident that had shocked the nation, sparked large scale protests in cities across the country. And there was a kind of a national reckoning with police brutality and use of force.
And so we have another deadly law enforcement interaction happening. That's, again, shocked people, fueled this upswell of activism and protests there. So you have a lot of people who've, you know, lived to that time and are currently protesting now or not.
And thinking back, and this kind of has re-traumatized them, has kind of brought them back into that headspace maybe that they were in, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. So we're seeing, of course, these large protests in Minneapolis.
They've not been, at least so far, to the scale of the ones in the wake of George Floyd, at least as far as the unrest and scenes of vandalism and things like that. They've been kind of, activists there have talked about it being much more controlled. So you'll have these large protests maybe outside a federal building in Minneapolis, but then there'll be also protests
demonstrators or what they call legal advisors following ICE and DHS agents around the city, blowing whistles, honking horns to notify people in the area that ICE is there, also recording on their phones and cataloging what's happened. So you have kind of roving demonstrations, you know, along with the more stationary ones.
Compared to 2020, USA Today is reporting that protests today are more disciplined and deliberate. Even as the anger and exhaustion remain, what lessons did activists and protest organizers say they learned from the George Floyd uprising? And how is that shaping how they respond now?
So many Minnesota residents say that, you know, while they feel exhausted, they still feel that they must go out and protest, decry what's happening.
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