Minnesota officials want to find out the truth about Renee Good’s death. The federal government won’t let them.
Editor’s note, January 24, 12 pm ET: Federal agents shot a person in Minneapolis on Saturday morning, according to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The shooting appeared to be captured on video, which shows federal agents wrestling someone to the ground and shooting them multiple times. This story was originally published on January 24 at 8 am.
Today, Explained will now be publishing video episodes every Saturday in audio and video, featuring compelling interviews with key figures in politics and culture — subscribe to Vox’s YouTube channel to get them or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
MINNEAPOLIS — President Donald Trump is not budging. On his tariffs. On his controversial deployment of federal immigration agents. On his willingness to use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. On his war against blue cities.
In the weeks after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, administration officials have doubled down on comments that laid blame with the victim and stonewalled local officials trying to investigate the shooting. This week, the Justice Department opened criminal investigations into several Minnesota Democrats, issuing subpoenas that allege they have impeded federal immigration priorities.
The result is a community on edge. Five years after the killing of George Floyd made Minneapolis the center of a global movement for racial justice and police reform, the eyes of the country have returned to the Twin Cities. And while the foremost question may be, “Just how far is Donald Trump willing to go?” the pressure campaign from the president has also challenged the state’s Democratic elected officials, including state Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Ellison, a former Congress member and DNC vice chair, has served as attorney general since 2019 — and he’s also a rumored candidate for the state’s Democratic nomination for governor. In an extended interview, I asked Ellison about his future in state politics, the playbook for pushing back on Trump, whether state Democrats were slow to investigate claims of social services fraud, and whether the solution for ICE is to abolish it.
Here’s what most struck me in our conversation.
The federal government is actively blocking investigation of Renee Good’s death
Ellison stressed an important point: The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division declined to open an investigation into the ICE officer who shot and killed protester Renee Good. They didn’t review evidence and decided not to pursue charges.
“Look, what happened that day has been reviewed by millions and millions of Americans because it was recorded on phones,” US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an interview with Fox News. “The Department of Justice, our civil rights unit, we don’t just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody putting his life in danger.”
Meanwhile, the FBI has seized critical evidence from the scene — bullet casings, as well as Good’s car, which could show the bullet trajectory — and won’t share any of it with state and local prosecutors who want to pursue the case. According to Ellison, the federal government is sitting on evidence that could help determine what happened, and they’re keeping it from the people trying to get answers for Good’s family.
Minneapolis officials aren’t obstructing ICE
One of the Trump administration’s core arguments is that Minneapolis is a “sanctuary city” where local officials actively block ICE from doing their jobs. Ellison was adamant: that’s just not true, and the distinction matters.
Minneapolis has what’s called a “separation ordinance.” Ellison says that while state and local law enforcement do not block ICE from accessing jails, as some other cities do, the ordinance means that city workers are under no statutory obligation to do it. Ellison argued that going beyond that would expose the state to legal liability.
For example, ICE can collect people with immigration detainers, Ellison said. What Minnesota won’t do is hold someone beyond what a court has ordered based on their criminal charges. For example, if a judge says someone charged with a DUI should be released, the state releases them. If ICE wants to pick them up for immigration violations, they’re free to do so — but Minnesota isn’t going to detain them on immigration charges.
Ellison compared the politics of the situation to summer 2020, when Republicans successfully branded Democrats as supportive of the activist movement to “defund the police” even when most Democratic officials never embraced that slogan.
Ellison says Minnesota Democrats weren’t slow on fraud investigations
This week on Truth Social, Trump argued that Minnesota Democrats need to be asked about documented cases of social services fraud in the Somali American community. Trump further alleged that Minnesota Democrats had not properly investigated those cases under state Democratic leadership, which was one of his pretexts for sending in federal agents.
In our interview, Ellison vehemently denied that Democrats slow-walked fraud cases among politically supportive communities. He said Trump and the White House were unjustly targeting an entire community for the criminal actions of a few. When I mentioned the “Feeding Our Future” scandal, where a Minneapolis nonprofit conspired with a Somali restaurant to take in more than $200 million in federal money, the attorney general was indignant.
“This ICE surge is about fraud, but [Trump] is sending armed men with guns, wearing masks,” Ellison said. “He’s not sending accountants. He’s not sending forensic financial investigators. He’s sending aggressive men with guns. So you gotta get the impression that we’re not really talking about fraud.”
Trump is serious about the Insurrection Act – and is using Minnesota as a test case
Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act is to be taken seriously. Ellison said he and other state officials have been war-gaming responses since early 2024, preparing legal challenges to what would be an extraordinary assertion of federal power.
Ellison also laid out just exactly what the Insurrection Act would mean in Minneapolis: active-duty federal troops patrolling the streets of an American city, ostensibly to support ICE operations.
Ellison argued Trump is living out his campaign promise for retribution against political enemies. “I am your retribution” isn’t just a campaign slogan — it’s a governing philosophy. And Minnesota, with its large Somali population, its progressive politics, its history of protest after George Floyd, makes the perfect target to send a message about what happens when you resist this administration.