The family of Renee Good, the 37-year-old killed last January by a federal agent during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, filed two civil lawsuits against the federal government Thursday.One of the lawsuits, against the United States government itself, is essentially a wrongful death case, arguing that Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed Good, violated his agency's own policies and the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force.It is seeking damages for Good's family for the suffering she experienced in the final moments of her life.And also for her partner, Becca Good, who witnessed the killing.
The lawsuit says she has suffered intense emotional distress from what she has experienced.Ross shot Renee Good several times in her car.
At the time, federal officials claimed she had weaponized her vehicle, though video evidence contradicted that.The other lawsuit is rarer, alleging that federal officials engaged in a conspiracy to interfere with the civil rights of people in Minnesota.It argues that Good's death was the "predictable and intended product" of the immigration crackdown in the state and that Ross' actions were in furtherance of a "carefully planned, coordinated effort" to make Somali and Hispanic people the "object of aggression and abduction" and to silence the people "who observed, documented, and warned of that campaign."In making that argument, the lawyers, with the firm Romanucci & Blandin, relied on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was used to combat the terrorism wrought by the KKK during the Reconstruction era."I would say the second lawsuit is very unusual," Rachel Moran, a law professor at the University of St.Thomas, told NPR.
"It was immediately striking to me because the Trump administration has been aggressively using conspiracy charges, including here in Minnesota, against people involved in protesting the administration's immigration tactics."Moran said the la...