By JESSE BEDAYN

A new video shows more of what happened before a federal immigration officer shot and killed a woman during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis, adding context to a shooting that has sparked national debate on whether the officer acted in self-defense or recklessly.

Related Articles

Court says Trump administration illegally blocked $7.6B in clean energy grants to Democratic states

Minnesota and the Twin Cities sue the federal government to stop the immigration crackdown

Bringing charges against the Fed: What we do (and don’t) know

Sen. Kelly sues the Pentagon over attempts to punish him, declaring it unconstitutional

Judge is asked for emergency hearing after MN lawmakers blocked from ICE facility in Minneapolis

The video, which is 3 1/2 minutes long and was filmed by a bystander, was posted Sunday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on X. It shows federal officers and vehicles on a snowy street as a car horn blares on and off, with the sounds of whistles adding to the cacophony.

The camera swings to the left, showing a red SUV sitting perpendicular and blocking part of the road, the woman inside, Renee Good, pressing the horn repeatedly. After over a minute, Good pulled the SUV back slightly, unblocking part of the road and appears to wave at cars to pass. Two vehicles drive past her down the street.

Good’s wife is seen outside the red SUV, but the video doesn’t clearly show where she was in the proceeding minutes. Then, after a blare from sirens, a dark truck with a small flashing light pulls to a stop a few feet from Good’s SUV. Two officers exit the truck and walk toward Good’s car just before the video goes dark.

Bystander videos released last week, shot from multiple angles, show what happened next.

A video filmed by the officer who fired at Good shows one officer ask Good to get out of the car and another tries to open her door. The officer who is filming circles around to the front of the vehicle.

Good reverses briefly, which places the officer who is filming in front of the driver’s side of the vehicle. Good then turns the steering wheel toward the passenger side as the officer on the driver’s side says again, “get out of the car.” Almost simultaneously, her wife, standing on the passenger side and trying to open the door, shouts, “drive, baby, drive!”

The video veers up toward the sky and gunshots are heard.

Other footage of the shooting shows the officer who fired holstering his gun, then a few seconds of silence before Good’s SUV crashes into a parked car.

A woman who appears to be Good’s wife runs toward the crash, as the officer who fired walks in the same direction. Bystanders begin screaming.

By MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it canceled $7.6 billion in clean energy grants for projects in states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Related Articles

Minnesota and the Twin Cities sue the federal government to stop the immigration crackdown

Bringing charges against the Fed: What we do (and don’t) know

Sen. Kelly sues the Pentagon over attempts to punish him, declaring it unconstitutional

Judge is asked for emergency hearing after MN lawmakers blocked from ICE facility in Minneapolis

Offshore wind developer prevails in court as Trump says the US ‘will not approve any windmills’

The grants supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, including battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and efforts to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

The Energy Department said the projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable. Russell Vought, the White House budget director, said on social media that “the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled.”

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said the administration’s action violated the Constitution’s equal protection requirements.

“Defendants freely admit that they made grant-termination decisions primarily — if not exclusively — based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024,” Mehta wrote in a 17-page opinion. The administration offered no explanation for how their purposeful targeting of grant recipients based on their electoral support — or lack of it — for Trump “rationally advances their stated government interest,” the judge added.

The ruling was the second legal setback for the administration’s rollback of clean energy program in a matter of hours. A federal judge ruled Monday that work on a major offshore wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut can resume, handing the industry at least a temporary victory as Trump seeks to shut it down.

A spokesman for the Energy Department said officials disagree with the judge’s decision on clean energy grants.

Officials “stand by our review process, which evaluated these awards individually and determined they did not meet the standards necessary to justify the continued spending of taxpayer dollars,” spokesman Ben Dietderich said. “The American people deserve a government that is accountable and responsible in managing taxpayer funds.”

Projects were canceled in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. All 16 targeted states supported Harris.

The cuts include up to $1.2 billion for California’s hydrogen hub that is aimed at accelerating hydrogen technology and production, and up to $1 billion for a hydrogen project in the Pacific Northwest. A Texas hydrogen project and a three-state project in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania were spared, according to clean-energy supporters who obtained a list of the DOE targets.

The city of St. Paul and a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit after they lost grants.

Trump said in an interview with One America News, a conservative outlet, last fall that his administration could cut projects that Democrats want. “I’m allowed to cut things that never should have been approved in the first place and I will probably do that,” Trump said in the Oct. 1 interview.

Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the groups that filed the suit, said the court ruling “recognized that the Trump Department of Energy vindictively canceled projects for clean affordable energy that just happened to be in states disfavored by the Trump administration, in violation of the bedrock Constitutional guarantee that all people in all states have equal protection under the law.”

The administration’s actions violated the Constitution, foundational American values and “imposed high costs on the American people who rely on clean affordable energy for their pocketbooks and for healthier lives,” Patton said.

Anne Evens, CEO of Elevate Energy, one of the groups that lost funding, said the court ruling would help keep clean energy affordable and create jobs.

“Affordable energy should be a reality for everyone, and the restoration of these grants is an important step toward making that possible,” she said.

A Minneapolis man has been sentenced to four years in prison for shooting a gun at other motorists in two separate road rage incidents in St. Paul, including one that involved another vehicle with children inside.

James Allen Ameer Smith (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

James Allen Ameer Smith, 24, received his sentence Friday in Ramsey County District Court in connection with the 2024 incidents.

Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of drive-by shooting, and the prosecution agreed to seek no more than 50 months in prison as part of a plea agreement. Four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon were dismissed at sentencing. Smith also received credit for 407 days he served in custody.

Smith has an open case in Dakota County that alleges he waved a gun at an Eagan motorist the day before he was arrested in the St. Paul shootings.

According to the criminal complaints:

A man reported that Oct. 12, 2024, while in his Jeep with two children, his vehicle was struck by a bullet on Summit Avenue near Lexington Parkway.

He said the driver of a black sedan was tailgating his Jeep and that when he tapped his brakes, the sedan accelerated and passed him, driving in the oncoming traffic lane. Then the sedan’s driver suddenly came to a near stop near the Governor’s Residence on Summit. The Jeep driver passed the sedan, but then that driver again went into the oncoming traffic lane to pass the Jeep.

As they neared Dale Street, the sedan braked hard and came to a stop. Again, the Jeep passed the sedan. As it did, the car’s driver fired a gun and a bullet struck the Jeep. The Jeep driver sped away.

No one was injured by his two children — ages 6 and 9 — were in the vehicle when it was hit.

Investigators found a bullet hole in the front passenger door of the Jeep and saw where the bullet had grazed and made contact with the center console. Surveillance video near the Governor’s Residence captured part of the incident.

Just over a month later, on Nov. 14, another driver, a 33-year-old man, reported a road rage incident to St. Paul police, saying he had been shot at by another driver and that his car had been hit by a bullet.

The man said he was driving south on Snelling Avenue near Selby Avenue when a man driving a black Nissan began tailgating him. The driver “brake checked the Nissan to get the other car to back off,” according to the complaint.

When the driver turned east onto Selby, the Nissan driver pulled up beside him, rolled down his window, fired a gun and then sped away. The driver followed the Nissan while calling 911 and reporting the Nissan’s license plate number.

Officers saw a bullet hole in the front driver’s side fender.

Related Articles

Keith Ellison, mayors Kaohly Her, Jacob Frey file legal action against ICE

U.S. Bank Center mortgage acquired by St. Paul Downtown Development Corporation

Burnsville man, 23, charged with attacking 74-year-old woman on park trail

Mahtomedi man gets probation for sexually assaulting teen, who was promised drugs

MN Supreme Court reopens Keith Ellison’s wage theft case against Madison Equities

Smith was arrested two weeks later in St. Louis Park. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing an empty gun holster.

While serving a search warrant, officers found a spent bullet casing on the driver’s side floor, three live rounds of ammunition in the center console, a live round of ammunition on the floor behind the driver’s seat and a loaded Glock handgun beneath the front passenger’s seat.

Smith told authorities he didn’t recall a road rage incident with a Jeep but, “If they are saying it’s my car then I guess it happened.”

He further said,  “I hate driving — all it has caused me is problems — tickets at least for speeding.”

When Smith was told the driver of the Jeep was shot at, he asked, “Is he OK?” When told that there were children in the Jeep, Smith also asked if they were OK.

Citing warrantless arrests, detentions of U.S. citizens based on race and accent, and the “unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul Monday to announce s joint legal action against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and related agencies.

“This has to stop. It just has to stop. We allege the obvious targeting of Minnesota for its diversity … and our democracy … is a violation of the Constitution,” said Ellison, pointing out that the targeting of churches, schools, hospitals, funeral homes and other sensitive locations violates federal administrative procedure.

“This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota,” Ellison said. “This surge has made us less safe.”

To Ellison’s statement that federal agents have caused the state “serious harm,” the White House’s “Rapid Response” account posted on X: “What caused Minnesota tremendous harm was the theft of billions of taxpayer dollars at the hands of Somalis, Keith. If you had done your job, they wouldn’t be there.”

Temporary restraining order also sought

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, alleges violations of the First and Tenth Amendments, the Equal Sovereignty Principle, and the federal Administrative Procedure Act.

“Operation Metro Surge” has drawn federal immigration enforcement agents from multiple agencies within Homeland Security to the Twin Cities in what federal officials have described as the largest DHS operation in national history.

Speaking at Minneapolis City Hall on Monday afternoon, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said in additional to the federal lawsuit, the two cities have asked for a temporary restraining order to curb U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities.

“These are not normal times,” said Frey, noting the city’s police are logging heavy overtime as confrontations escalate between ICE agents and observers. “What we are seeing right now is not normal immigration enforcement. … At times there are as many as 50 agents arresting one person.”

The mayors said some small businesses have lost as much as 50% to 80% of revenue and some schools have closed.

“They’re targeting us based on what we look and sound like,” Her said. “Our residents are scared, and as local officials, we have a responsibility to act.”

Weeks of heightened federal activity

The lawsuit follows weeks of heightened federal activity in and around the Twin Cities, which escalated with a planned 30-day surge of ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents that began around Jan. 4.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem personally accompanied agents on arrests shared on the department’s social media channels, and reports estimate some 2,000 or more agents will be deployed for a combination of immigration enforcement and fraud investigation.

Many of those stopped, questioned or detained appear to have no serious criminal history, Eilison said.

The attorney general and other critics have called the surge political payback because Minnesota did not vote for Trump or certify Trump as the winner in the 2024 election, or because Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, joined the failed Kamala Harris presidential ticket as a candidate for vice president.

Fatal shooting

Protesters and constitutional observers also have demanded accountability after what they’ve described as heavy-handed or blatantly illegal tactics, including the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman, who exchanged words with an ICE agent from her car before being shot in the face while attempting to drive away last Wednesday morning.

Noem and others in the Trump administration quickly labeled Good a domestic terrorist and said she was attempting to run over the agent, but Frey and other officials called that take baseless.

Ellison on Monday said Minnesota’s non-citizen immigrant population without legal status stands at 1.5%, far below that of Republican states such as Florida, Utah and Texas, but those states have not been subject to surging immigration enforcement.

“If the goal were simply to look for people who were undocumented, Minnesota and Minneapolis is not where you would go,” Frey said.

Reaction from state legislative leadership

The Minnesota House GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and Floor Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said the lawsuit was a waste of resources.

“Instead of working with the federal government to target and arrest criminal illegal immigrants, they are wasting state resources on a lawsuit that seeks to override the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration law,” they said in a statement. “Minnesotans deserve leaders that allow the removal of violent criminals — not ones that demand they remain in our communities.”

Related Articles

4-year prison term for Minneapolis man who shot at vehicles during separate St. Paul road rage incidents

ICE in St. Paul: Man roughly detained at gas station, Border Patrol chief jeered in Midway Target

Crowd yells ‘cowards!’ after federal agents crash into a car and fire tear gas in Minneapolis

Plans call for Science Museum’s Pine Needles land to be put in conservation easement

SPPS: Online classes for students, board calls for ICE to leave

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, however, said she “strongly support(s) the action” to get federal agents out of the state.

“This surge of ICE agents has sown chaos in the streets, with countless violations of civil liberties and a dangerous disruption of daily life as Minnesotans know it,” Murphy said in a statement. “Schools and businesses have closed, and many Minnesotans have been forced to avoid unlawful detention. No one is safer because of this, and our neighbor Renee Good is dead … ICE can’t leave our state soon enough.”

To read a copy of the lawsuit go to ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2026.