A Cincinnati rally and march protesting the shooting of a woman by an ICE agent in Minneapolis drew hundreds to downtown Cincinnati Thursday evening.
The Associated Press has identified the officer who shot Renee Good as Jonathan Ross. He shot Good, 37, during an incident on a Minneapolis street Jan. 7. Good was in her vehicle at the time. The Trump administration has claimed she intended to hit Ross with her vehicle. But Minneapolis elected officials and other critics strongly disagree with that assertion.
The Fountain Square rally and march was organized by the Cincinnati Party for Socialism and Liberation and other groups advocating for immigrant rights, Palestinian liberation and socialist causes.
Olivia Merrill is secretary of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky's chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. She was one of several speakers to address the crowd. She said Good's death amounted to murder.
"The response of the federal government was to say this was acceptable, this was justified, and to ask us to deny the evidence of our eyes and ears in seeing what happened," she said as the crowd jeered and shouted "shame."
Merrill, and several other speakers, also criticized Mayor Aftab Pureval for not doing more to oppose ICE actions in Cincinnati. Pureval said last February that the city would not assist ICE. But he also said, "if the president, backed by Republicans in the House and Senate, wants to do it, and clearly they do, there is nothing we can do about it," in regard to immigration enforcement.
Other speakers tied Good's killing to violence experienced by families in Palestine. Some mentioned deaths and injuries during encounters with ICE. Those included two people shot by ICE agents in Portland Thursday. Still other speakers recounted their own struggles with America's immigration system.
Cincinnatian Bob Dzubinski was among those attending the rally. He said his reason for showing up was simple: He was deeply disturbed by videos of Good's shooting.
"It's a tragedy that didn't really need to happen," he said. "It looks like the confrontation could have been handled a lot better. I'm here because she's dead — Ms. Good is dead, and it just breaks my heart."
Cincinnati resident Pam Owens said she came out to the Fountain Square protest because she thinks ICE has too much power and not enough accountability.
"The most recent of that is Renee Good," she said. "If we're not willing to come out and speak up against that kind of tyranny, we're going to lose our democracy."
Local reaction to Good's shooting began earlier in the day, when a group of roughly 15 people gathered with signs and banners on the Montgomery Road overpass over I-71. They held signs visible to motorists that read "ICE murdered her."
What videos show
Several videos captured Good's shooting. In those videos, Good's vehicle is seen sitting partway across the road. One ICE vehicle goes around Good's. Her hand can be seen waving another forward, but two ICE agents get out of that vehicle and approach Good's car instead of moving forward.
A third agent, Ross, begins walking toward Good's vehicle from the other direction. Good backs up, then starts to move forward. Ross fires three shots. Good's vehicle accelerates before crashing. She died soon after from gunshot wounds.
Officials in Minnesota have requested the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension be involved in the investigation into Good's death. The FBI has announced it will conduct the investigation itself, and Minnesota officials say they're not able to access evidence related to the shooting.
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