The federal agent who shot and killed a driver in Minneapolis is an Iraq War veteran who served nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to records obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed Renee Good on Wednesday, has served as a deportation officer with ICE since 2015, records show. He was seriously injured last summer when he was dragged by the vehicle of a fleeing suspect who shot him with a stun gun.
Federal officials have not named the officer who shot Good, a 37-year-old mother who was shot as she tried to drive away from federal agents. But Interior Secretary Kristi Noem said the agent who shot Good was dragged from a vehicle last June, and a department spokesman confirmed Noem was referring to the Bloomington, Minnesota case, in which documents identified the wounded officer as Ross.
Noem and other Trump administration officials defended the agent as an experienced law enforcement professional who followed his training and shot Good after he believed she was trying to run him or other agents over with her vehicle. The video has raised questions about whether the shooting was in self-defense, and the FBI is investigating the deadly use of force. Some protesters are calling for Ross to face criminal charges, and Minnesota authorities want to investigate as well.
Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not immediately successful.
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Experienced military and law enforcement officer
In courtroom testimony last month, Ross said he was deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 with the Indiana National Guard. Ross said he served as a machine gunner on a fire truck as part of a combat patrol team.
He said he returned from Iraq in 2005, went to college and joined the Border Patrol in 2007 near El Paso, Texas. He worked there until 2015, serving as a field intelligence agent collecting and analyzing information on cartels and drug and human smuggling.
Ross said he has served as a Minnesota-based deportation officer since joining ICE in 2015. He is assigned to fugitive operations, which seeks to arrest “higher value targets” in the ICE region that includes Minneapolis, he testified last month. He said he was also a team leader with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“So I develop the targets, create a target package, surveillance, and then develop a plan to execute the arrest warrant,” he said.
Ross said he was also a firearms instructor, active shooter instructor, field intelligence officer and SWAT team member. He said he attended the Border Patrol academy in New Mexico, where he learned to speak Spanish.
Seriously injured last June
Ross was the leader of a team of agents that went to arrest a man who was in the United States illegally in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington on June 17. Agents gathered outside the home of the man, Roberto Munoz-Guatemala, who left in his car, according to court records.
FBI agents activated sirens and emergency lights and instructed him to pull over but he did not. Ross pulled his vehicle diagonally in front of Munoz-Guatemala to force him to stop.
Ross and an FBI agent identified themselves as police and pointed guns at Munoz-Guatemala, who raised his hands. Ross then approached Munoz-Guatemala’s vehicle and ordered him to put it in park.
Ross told the driver to roll his window all the way down and warned that if he didn’t he would break it. Ross used a device known as a “spring-loaded window punch” to break the rear driver’s side window and reached inside the car to open the driver’s door.
Munoz-Guatemela drove while Ross’ arm got caught in the vehicle and accelerated, dragging Ross into the road. Ross fired his Taser, striking Munoz-Guatemala with prongs in the head, face and shoulder.
Munoz-Guatemela was not incapacitated by the Taser, prosecutors said, and kept driving, taking Ross the length of a football field in 12 seconds. Ross was ejected from the vehicle by force after Munoz-Guatemala drove over a curb a second time and back onto the road.
Ross’ right arm was bleeding, and an FBI agent applied a tourniquet. Eventually, he received dozens of stitches in a hospital. Prosecutors said he had “suffered multiple large cuts, and scrapes to his knee, elbow, and face.”
“It was pretty excruciatingly painful,” Ross testified.
Munoz-Guatemela was bleeding from his injuries and had a woman call 911, saying that he had been assaulted and did not know if the person who was trying to stop him was an officer. He was arrested and charged with assault on a federal officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
A jury found Munoz-Guatemala guilty in a trial last month, finding that he “reasonably should have known that Jonathan Ross was a law enforcement officer and not a private citizen who attempted to attack him.”
Federal officials are defending the agent without identifying him
Vice President JD Vance praised the agent’s service to the country Thursday without naming him, saying the ICE official “deserves a debt of gratitude.”
“This is a man who actually did a very important job for the United States of America,” Vance said. “He was attacked. He was attacked. He was hurt because of it.”
DHS assistant Tricia McLaughlin declined to confirm the agent’s identity Thursday, saying doing so would be dangerous to his and his family’s safety. But she noted that he had been selected for ICE’s special response team, which includes a 30-hour trial and additional training on specialized skills such as breaching techniques, perimeter control, hostage rescue and firearms.
“He acted according to his training,” she said. “This officer is a long-time ICE officer who has served his country his entire life.”