FBI agent who tried to investigate ICE officer in Renee Good shooting resigns

An FBI agent who sought to investigate the federal immigration officer who fatally shot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis this month has resigned from the bureau, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The agent, Tracee Mergen, left her job as a supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office after bureau leadership in Washington pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the immigration officer, Jonathan Ross, according to one of the people. Such inquiries are a common investigative step in similar shootings.

Mergen’s resignation was only the latest shock wave to have emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of the shooting of Renee Good, an unarmed mother who was killed Jan. 7 as she was behind the wheel of her Honda Pilot.

After the incident, several Trump administration officials described Good as a “domestic terrorist,” accusing her of trying to ram Ross with her vehicle. But a video analysis by the New York Times showed no indication that he had been run over.

Senior Justice Department officials have repeatedly said there are no plans to follow the path normally taken in such situations and pursue an investigation into whether Ross, who fired multiple shots at Good, had used excessive force.

Federal investigators have also refused to cooperate with state and local prosecutors in Minnesota, complicating any efforts they might take to open their own investigations into Ross.

Instead of allowing Mergen to work with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis to investigate Ross, the Justice Department has decided to investigate Good and her partner, Becca Good, scrutinizing their possible ties to left-wing protest groups in Minneapolis. That decision prompted at least six senior prosecutors in the office to resign in protest.

In a separate move, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into several elected Democrats in Minnesota in an effort to determine whether they may have conspired to impede the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions in the state. As part of that inquiry, the department issued subpoenas this week to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Mayor Kaohly Her of St. Paul, among others.

Moreover, the Justice Department has started cracking down on protesters who have opposed the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement push in Minnesota.

On Thursday, prosecutors filed conspiracy charges against three people who were involved in interrupting a church service in St. Paul to protest a pastor’s apparent work as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. According to a criminal complaint, the three defendants — Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly — “intimidated, harassed, oppressed and terrorized the parishioners.”