Renee Good’s brother Brent Ganger and her partner Rebecca Good filed two lawsuits alleging her wrongful death and conspiracy to violate civil rights when she was killed on the morning of Jan. 7 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross.
“The day of accountability has arrived for our own U.S. government and its governmental agencies, ICE and CBP,” Antonio Romanucci of the law firm Romanucci and Blandin said at a news conference this morning.
He called the lawsuits “historic” and added that they “mark the beginning of a legal process that will uncover the truth behind this unlawful use of deadly force and the nefarious conspiracies behind the invasion of American cities by American law enforcement officers.”
One of the lawsuits, filed against the “United States of America,” alleges Good’s wrongful death under a Minnesota statute predicated on battery, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.
The lawsuit is filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) which allows individuals to sue the U.S. government in federal court for personal injury, death or property damage. Attorney Sarah Raisch said during the news conference that “it is a different and cumbersome process when seeking accountability and justice.”
It also says that Ganger brings this suit “to recover for the immense suffering Renee endured in the final moments of her life;” and from Rebecca Good “to recover for the severe emotional distress, and its attendant physical manifestations, that the agents’ conduct has inflicted upon her.”
The lawsuit details the events that led to her fatal shooting that morning and claims that the agents’ actions violated the Fourth Amendment and the Department of Homeland Security’s own mandatory policies.
Lauren Bonds, a civil rights attorney and executive director of the nonprofit National Police Accountability Project told Sahan Journal that even though FTCA claims are very commonly filed, this lawsuit for the wrongful death caused by an ICE agent is a “frontrunner for other cases that we might see coming out of the surges, particularly where there was a death or a serious injury involved.”
Another lawsuit is filed against Ross, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, political operative Corey Lewandowski, border czar Tom Homan, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Todd Lyons, former Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino, and 10 other federal agents identified as “John Doe.”
It alleges several counts including conspiracy to deprive people of Somali descent and Hispanic people equal protections under the law, and that Ross used excessive force. It also lists several claims under Minnesota tort law, including wrongful death, battery, assault and false imprisonment.
The second lawsuit goes beyond the events of the day Good was killed, and alleges that Operation Metro Surge and the top federal officials — like Miller and Noem — that orchestrated it and the federal agents that enforced it — like Ross — targeted Somali and Hispanic people. It says that the operation was “a direct product of the President’s unmistakable animus toward people of Somali origin.”
“Each conspirator willfully participated in Operation Surge knowing what it was designed to accomplish, and knowing that it in fact was causing en masse violations of the rights of Somali and Hispanic Minnesotans,” the lawsuit reads.
During Thursday’s news conference, attorneys representing Good’s family said the second suit is based on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.
Romanucci said the act was “put in force to stop the exact thing that we are saying happened here: masked, unidentifiable men, women, denying equal protection and rights against ordinary citizens.”
Good was observing ICE activity the day she was killed, the lawsuit says, and alleges that Ross’ actions were “the predictable and intended product of the operation that put him on Portland Avenue.” In addition to targeting Somali and Hispanic Minnesotans, the lawsuit says another part of Operation Metro Surge was “to silence, by intimidation, arrest, and violence, the neighbors and allies of those targeted communities who observed, documented, and warned of that campaign.”
Liliana Zaragoza, a faculty member and director of the Racial Justice Law Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the lawsuit that goes into detail about how Operation Metro Surge impacted Somali and Latino Minnesotans could be helpful if those community members wish to bring forward their own claims against the government.
“I do wonder if this is perhaps in an effort for posterity, right, to document what happened, to document the context in which Renee Good was killed,” she said.
The second lawsuit goes on to allege the three shots from Ross that struck Good were “objectively unreasonable” under the Fourth Amendment. The lawsuit says Good was unarmed, calm, and was driving slowly away from him and the other agents when Ross fired his weapon.
It also says that the other federal agents at the scene of Good’s killing are liable because they stood by and failed to render aid to her after she was shot. Agents also prevented a bystander who identified himself as a physician from providing medical care.
“Each thereby participated in the operation’s pattern of race-based stops and seizures and in the specific acts that killed her,” the lawsuit says.
Bonds called the lawsuits “unique” and “cutting-edge” in their allegations. She said filing two separate lawsuits — one that names the U.S. government at large and the other specifies individuals — could be a strategy to circumvent the legal barriers that exist to bringing an FTCA case against the government and offer a more direct shot at getting to the individuals’ underlying conduct.
It may also be, she said, that it is important for Good’s family that “the individuals that made this happen have a personal stake in the case, are named in the case, and are potentially financially liable for what happened to their loved one.”
She added that she will be looking to see which judge is assigned to the case as that will be a determining factor for its course, and how the government will defend itself against these claims “because those are going to be very similar for the remaining cases that [are] brought against this administration.”
This is a developing story; check back for updates.
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