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The Minnesota Attorney General and Hennepin County Attorney’s offices announced a joint effort on Friday to gather their own evidence related to the fatal shooting of a woman by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, after state authorities said they were blocked from participating in the investigation.
Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, said her office is launching a portal for witnesses to share any videos or information related to the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, which will be shared with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
That investigative agency is no longer accessing evidence from the scene, which is solely being handled by the FBI.
“We still know there is evidence out there and we want to make sure it gets gathered and collected and we’ll deal with those other matters of joint versus exclusive later,” said Attorney General Keith Ellison. “For now, we want to make sure the evidence that may be out there in the public lands where it should.
“The decision to exclude state authorities from the federal investigation is drawing criticism from Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, and other local officials.
“Our efforts in advocating for a joint investigation is not an attack on the FBI. We have had a strong working relationship with the local FBI field office throughout my administration,” Moriarty said. “Based on previous experience with FBI processes, we are concerned that the evidence obtained in an investigation that has only been conducted at the federal level will not be shared with our office for review.”
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Krisi Noem on Thursday reiterated her defense of the officer who shot Good, saying he followed his training protocol. The day before, she said Good’s actions were “an act of domestic terrorism.”
Noem during the Thursday news conference rejected the notion that Minnesota had been shut out of the investigation.
“They have not been cut out,” Noem said. “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.”
Moriarty said in the past when an FBI investigation is not a joint collaboration, local officials only see a “high level overview” of that information but couldn’t see the entire investigation nor talk about the findings publicly.
Among the evidence in the FBI’s possession is Good’s vehicle, the shell casing from the bullet, and witness interviews, she noted.
“While I respect the FBI’s process, our community’s expectations are much different in terms of transparency. The community — this community — expects to understand what the evidence is and the justification for any decision that might be made. To that end I cannot overstate the importance of a local investigation, or at least access to that investigation by the BCA,” she added.
Moriarty told reporters she has no preconceived opinion on what the evidence will show and said it’s unclear if there will be sufficient evidence without the FBI case file to even make any potential charging decision in the case.
Klobuchar and Smith in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi Friday asked that she reconsider and allow collaboration with local officials, noting the work federal and state partners did together in wake of the assassination of House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in June and the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting in August.
“The law is clear: We do have jurisdiction to make this decision that happened in this case where her life was taken in Hennepin County. It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent,” Moriarty said.
She ended the news conference saying that she “can’t speak to why the Trump administration is doing what it’s doing or says what it says, but I can say that the ICE officer does not have complete immunity here.”
