The official White House narrative of how a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen in her vehicle in Minneapolis is bumping hard up against what can be seen in videos of the incident.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are all insisting that the victim, Renee Nicole Good, deliberately rammed her vehicle into an ICE officer who then fired shots in self-defence because he feared for his life.
Yet three videos from the scene — each verified by CBC News as authentic — contradict these claims and raise serious questions about why the White House is defending the fatal shooting as justified.
What the videos show
Two of the videos were filmed from street level in close proximity to Good’s vehicle, at similar angles from the rear and sides. The third was filmed from above, at some distance away, showing the front of the vehicle.
Good’s SUV, a burgundy Honda Pilot, is seen parked horizontally across partially snow-covered Portland Avenue, its engine idling and driver’s side window rolled down.
A grey pickup truck drives up to about a car-length away from the driver’s side of Good’s vehicle. Two masked ICE officers emerge, walk briskly toward the SUV and repeatedly order Good to get out. One of the officers grabs the driver’s side door handle and tries to open it.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown, and now outrage is flaring over colliding narratives of what actually happened. Andrew Chang breaks down video evidence moment by moment and compares it against the rules governing the use of force and self-defence.
Images provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters and Getty Images
Then, as the SUV reverses briefly, a third ICE officer is seen stepping in front of the vehicle, from the passenger side.
Good turns her front wheels to the right and her vehicle starts to move forward. At that point, the third officer appears to be less a metre in front of the driver’s side edge of the SUV’s hood.
The officer then pulls his gun and fires what appears to be three shots into the vehicle. Even as he fires the first shot, the front of the vehicle has clearly passed him as it turns right and he is shooting as he stands beside it.
What Trump, Vance and Noem say happened
Just two hours after the shooting, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a statement blaming Good. The statement, posted on X, claimed that “rioters began blocking ICE officers” as the incident unfolded. No sign of rioters can be seen in any videos of the shooting.
“One of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them,” read the DHS statement. “An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.”
A few hours later, Noem told reporters the woman “attacked” ICE officers “and attempted to run them over” in what she described as “an act of domestic terrorism.”
U.S. Vice-President JD Vance speaks during a briefing at the White House on Thursday. Vance has insisted that video evidence from the scene of the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis backs up his version of events. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Trump issued a social media post on Wednesday afternoon, attaching the video that was filmed from furthest away. He claimed that Good was “very disorderly, obstructing and resisting” and that she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.”
None of the videos show Good’s vehicle running over the officer.
‘Tragedy of her own making’
Vance has been the most vehement in suggesting the shooting was justified and blaming Good.
“The reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car,” he told a news briefing at the White House on Thursday.
“It’s a tragedy of her own making,” Vance said. “You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that.”
Numerous officials in Minneapolis are, in fact, debating just that. Yet Vance insisted that the video evidence backs up his version of events.
“When you look at all angles of that video, it is very clear that her vehicle went right for the guy. She actually collided with him. And then that’s, of course, when he fired his shots. That’s obvious.”
The videos do not appear to show the vehicle colliding with the officer. The officer stayed on his feet for the entire duration of the shooting and can be observered walking around the scene after the shooting with no apparent injury.
“She was trying to ram this guy with her car. He shot back. He defended himself,” Vance said. He also accused media outlets that are reporting what happened any differently of “lying about this attack.”
In the wake of a fatal ICE shooting that killed a Minnesota woman, state officials and the Trump administration are at odds over the incident and how it should be characterized. And despite blunt demands from local officials for ICE to leave the state, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said its officers are not going anywhere.
Videos don’t support White House narrative: expert
John Gross, an associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School who has written extensively about police use of force, reviewed the videos and concluded that what they show does not match the narrative from the White House.
“The claim that this is some act of domestic terrorism is nonsensical,” Gross told CBC’s Power and Politics on Thursday.
“She never attempted to ram the officer who eventually shot her,” he said.
“The idea that the vehicle was being used as a weapon or was targetting the officers, it’s clearly not supported by video evidence that we have from the scene.”
Gross says the bullet hole just a few centimetres from the lower driver’s side corner of the windshield, indicates the officer first fired from beside the vehicle.
He says the two subsequent shots came as the car was turning away from the officer.
Daniel Brunner, a retired FBI agent, analyzes the Minnesota shooting and gives insight on what an investigation might look like.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is also disputing the White House version of events.
“People in positions of power have already passed judgment, from the president to the vice-president to Kristi Noem, have stood and told you things that are verifiably false, verifiably inaccurate,” Walz told a news conference on Thursday.
With the two most powerful elected officials in the U.S. already attempting to exonerate the officer, there are now concerns that the FBI investigation into what happened will lack independence.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a social media post on Thursday that Noem “doesn’t want an impartial investigation because she knows her narrative about domestic terrorism is bullshit.”
Frey’s post came in response to the news that Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension would not have access to any evidence gathered by the FBI as part of its probe into the shooting.