Renee Good’s Family Sues Trump Admin, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller Over Her Killing by ICE Agent

NEED TO KNOW

• Renee Good's family filed a pair of lawsuits against the U.S. government and current and former Trump administration officials

• One is a wrongful death lawsuit, and the other invokes the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to allege "a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights by senior federal officials"

• The mother of three and a U.S. citizen was killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross in January after President Donald Trump ordered thousands of federal agents into the Minneapolis area

Renee Good 's family has filed a pair of lawsuits against the U.S. government and current and former Trump administration officials nearly a year after her death in Minneapolis in January.

The mother of three and U.S. citizen was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7 after President Donald Trump ordered thousands of federal agents into the Minneapolis area as part of his mass immigrant detention agenda.

"Every morning, she is my first thought. I think about how the kids are growing up without their mama, and how I will grow old without the love of my life. I think about how we should have had 40 more years together," Becca Good , Renee's partner, said in a statement on Thursday, Oct. 1. "But I also think about what she would have wanted after all of this."

"As we have tried to navigate our own massive loss, I am also devastated by how many other lives have been destroyed in this darkest of times," Becca continued.

One of the lawsuits alleges that, because Trump and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem initially blamed Renee for her death and accused her of domestic terrorism in the hours after the shooting, Becca "has received continuous threats" and was "unable to live in her home for more than a month, has hired security staff to protect it, and has installed a security system and window film."

The White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE, Noem, and the other named defendants in the lawsuit who have left the Trump administration did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's requests for comment on Thursday.

"Unquestionably, unequivocally, neither Renee nor Becca was the worst of the worst. They were exactly as their name says – Good folks," attorney Antonio M. Romanucci said in a statement. "No one was armed. No one was a domestic terrorist. They had their pet dog in the car. Indeed, Renee told masked agents she wasn't mad at them; her last words clearly reflected her state of mind."

Becca and Brent Ganger, Renee's brother, are plaintiffs in the lawsuits. Ganger represents Renee's estate, including her three young children, her siblings, and her parents , Donna and Tim Ganger.

"I am a registered Republican. I voted for President Trump under the impression that these agents were here to protect the citizens of the United States, innocents like our family and the others here, against terrorists. Certainly not to accuse those of us here of being terrorists and take precious lives," Donna said at a Capitol Hill forum last week. "This is madness."

The wrongful death lawsuit names the U.S. government as its sole defendant.

The second lawsuit alleges Renee's civil rights were violated. It names Ross, Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller , former top DHS official Corey Lewandowski , former Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino , former acting ICE director Todd Lyons , Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan , and "John Doe Federal Agents 1-10 for their respective individual roles in Renee Good's death."

Trump is not named as a defendant, but the lawsuits allege he had a direct role in orchestrating the circumstances that led to Renee's death and the fatal shooting of Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti , another U.S. citizen, just over two weeks later.

Renee, 37, was shot and killed on Jan. 7 by Ross after she and Becca dropped off their 6-year-old child at school . They stopped in their Honda Pilot to watch law enforcement activity that had swarmed Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge .

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In video footage of the incident, Becca could be seen reaching for the passenger door. Renee reversed the car, turned the wheel, and drove forward toward the roadway, with Becca saying, "Drive, baby, drive — drive!"

At that point, Ross fired three shots into her car, killing Renee.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office ruled her death a homicide caused by "multiple gunshot wounds."

"As her car careened out of control down Portland Avenue and crashed into a parked car, Ross cursed, 'fucking b---h,' " the Good family's attorneys alleged in one complaint. "No agent rendered aid. When a bystander offered to help, an agent told him, 'No, back up, now!' When the man said he was a physician, the agent answered, 'I don't care.' "

In the immediate aftermath, senior administration officials accused Renee of attempting to attack the officers with her car and alleged she was a domestic terrorist.

"Domestic acts of terrorism like this will not stand," Noem said hours after the shooting. "I want to remind everybody that the act like we saw today, of using a vehicle to try to kill an officer and his colleagues and the other people around him is something that… everyone in this country, should be able to rally around and say that it is wrong."

The second lawsuit alleges that Noem, Lewandowski, Miller, and other key figures who have planned and enacted Trump's mass deportation and immigrant detention agenda participated in "a carefully planned, coordinated effort" to make Minnesota's Somali and Hispanic communities "the object of aggression and abduction, and to silence, by intimidation, arrest, and violence, the neighbors and allies of those targeted communities."

"Those in the highest rungs of power authorized armed, masked men to terrorize Minnesotans on the basis of their perceived race or national origin," attorney Benjamin A. Berkman said in a statement. "To achieve that goal, they also sought to silence community members who refused to look away. Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act to hold accountable those who conspire to deny the equal protection of the laws."

At the Capitol Hill forum last week where Renee's mother spoke, Brent — Renee's brother — also addressed the lawmakers in attendance. He spoke about Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s " Letter From Birmingham Jail ," in which King made his case for racial equality and wrote of his disappointment in the absence of solidarity from the "well-meaning white citizens and his fellow white clergymen."

"I am ashamed to say that I was a part of this generation's white moderates," Brent said. "I deeply regret that it took the death of Renee to wake me up to the fact that no one in this country is untouchable."

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