The ICE agent who fatally shot unarmed mom Renee Nicole Good has been quietly relocated to a different state and allowed to resume work, according to an exclusive new report by PunchUp.
Senior Department of Homeland Security officials have told the Daily Beast’s new sister investigations outlet—launched earlier this month by this correspondent—that agent Jonathan Ross, 43, has effectively been shielded from ICE’s own accountability process because the FBI investigation into Good’s killing has stalled.
Ross is now performing administrative and investigative duties three months after he shot Good, 37, in the arm, breast, and head as she tried to drive away from an ICE operation on January 7. On his own cellphone video, the agent can be heard muttering “f---ing b---h” as Good’s Honda Pilot crashed into a parked car with her dying inside.
Seventeen days after Good was killed, Border Patrol agents shot dead VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti, 37, during the same Minneapolis operation. The killings triggered global outrage, mass protests across U.S. cities, and a political crisis that swallowed ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, 54, who was replaced by Markwayne Mullin, 48.
With whistleblowers and Senate Democrats alleging the federal probe into Good’s killing was deliberately shut down at the top, Ross was placed on administrative leave for just three days before being quietly moved out of state, PunchUp has learned. No further action has been taken against him.
DHS officials speaking to the outlet also flagged a glaring contradiction in the official record. The Department of Justice had told Fox News Digital that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility was running its own internal review parallel to the FBI investigation, “as with any officer-involved shooting.”
But senior officials told PunchUp that’s not what is happening—and that ICE’s internal affairs division cannot begin its administrative review until the FBI probe concludes, freezing the agency’s accountability process for Ross, potentially indefinitely.
The slow pace has fueled mounting fury inside the agency, with one senior ICE official telling PunchUp the FBI needs to “s--t or get off the pot.”
“It’s just hanging out there,” they said, adding the limbo had prevented ICE from speaking publicly about the killing or attempting to rebuild public confidence.
The FBI investigation has been clouded by controversy from day one, reports PunchUp. On January 23, FBI supervisor Tracee Mergen resigned from the bureau’s Minneapolis field office after she said she was pressured to reclassify her civil rights inquiry into Ross as a probe of an alleged assault on a federal officer by Good herself, CBS first reported.
Whistleblower accounts later obtained by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin described FBI Director Kash Patel as directing agents to reframe warrant language to portray Good as a suspect rather than a victim.
Multiple senior DHS officials told PunchUp that the decision to freeze out Minnesota state investigators from federal evidence and the crime scene was directed by the White House. Career officials believed a joint federal-state review—the standard practice cited in Minnesota’s March 24 lawsuit against the DOJ and DHS—would have produced a more credible outcome but were never consulted.
“We let some states in and not others,” one top official said. “It makes us look like idiots.”
Last Wednesday, outgoing ICE Director Todd Lyons was asked directly by a House subcommittee whether he would apologize to Good’s family for the way she had been publicly characterized. “I welcome the opportunity to speak to the family in private,” Lyons told lawmakers, “but I’m not going to comment on any active investigation.”
Hours later, his resignation was announced, effective May 31.
Jonathan Ross remains on active duty.
A DHS spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the incident “remains under investigation,” adding: “All shootings are initially reviewed by an appropriate law enforcement agency. Following a review of the incident by the appropriate investigative agency, ICE and CBP conduct an independent review of the critical incident.”
A DOJ spokesperson told the Beast there was “an ongoing investigation into the event by DHS-OIG,” and that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI were “providing physical evidence and support to assist their investigation.” They declined to comment on the status of the investigation.
