https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/jonathan-ross-shot-renee-good-in
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On January 23, an FBI agent named Tracee Mergen supervised the civil rights squad in the Minneapolis field office. She had opened an investigation into Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Renée Nicole Good three times through her car window on January 7 and walked away while she bled to death. FBI leadership ordered Mergen to reclassify the investigation, redirecting it away from Ross’s conduct and toward an examination of Good’s own actions. She resigned rather than comply.
Most people missed that story. It ran briefly in late January and got swallowed by everything else happening. But it tells you exactly what the federal government’s posture is toward accountability in this case: an agent who tried to investigate the shooter was removed from that investigation by the people above her. The federal government has since ignored every evidence request from Minnesota state prosecutors. Two formal demand letters with hard deadlines passed without a single document produced. The FBI refused to share its case file with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. That is documented obstruction of an active state criminal investigation.
That obstruction warrants its own inquiry. Attorney General Ellison has independent authority to examine whether federal officials who redirected Mergen’s probe and refused to respond to lawful state evidence demands violated Minnesota law. Governor Newsom and California AG Rob Bonta said it plainly in January: the federal government’s conduct in Minnesota makes clear that this administration will attempt to thwart other agencies from investigating its agents. Opening that inquiry, separately from and in addition to the Ross prosecution itself, would be a meaningful step toward accountability for the full scope of what happened here.
What has not changed is the law.
Minnesota Statute § 609.19 defines second-degree unintentional murder. Minnesota Statute § 609.205 defines second-degree manslaughter. Minnesota Statute § 609.662 defines the duty to render aid. Those statutes apply to Jonathan Ross. The Hennepin County courthouse where Derek Chauvin was convicted applies to Jonathan Ross. The legal architecture Keith Ellison built to convict Chauvin applies to Jonathan Ross, and none of it requires FBI cooperation, federal case files, or a grand jury. We put together a full prosecution memorandum making that case element by element, sourced to primary law, named experts, and verified footage. Today we released an updated version of the prosecution memo containing additional evidence showing sufficient cause to charge Ross, you can find it by clicking on this sentence.
When people hear “unintentional murder” they assume it means a weak charge. It is not. Prosecutors choose charges strategically, not just based on what they believe happened. Overcharging is one of the primary ways officers walk free. If you go for first-degree murder and the jury decides the evidence falls short of premeditation, the defendant walks entirely. Not to a lesser charge. Out the door. What Ellison did with Chauvin, and what this memo lays out, is the smarter path: charge what you can prove to a certainty, stack every applicable count underneath it, and push for the maximum sentence on conviction. Second-degree unintentional murder carries up to 40 years. Add second-degree manslaughter and failure to render aid. That is Ross spending the rest of his natural life in prison, on publicly available evidence alone.
Mike Freeman filed charges against Derek Chauvin four days after George Floyd died. Four days. He had one bystander video, a handful of witnesses, and no completed autopsy. He filed anyway because the evidence supported it.
Moriarty has five synchronized videos, a completed independent autopsy, expert testimony, the shooter’s own footage, DHS policies that contradict the conduct on camera, and a prosecution memorandum laying out the exact charges and legal theory in granular detail. Here is what she has said, in her own words, on the record.
January 12: “Let me be clear, we have no preconceived opinion on what the evidence will show.”
January 26, MPR News: “We will have sufficient evidence to make a charging decision.”
Late January, Law Dork: “I know enough now to feel pretty confident that we will be able to make a decision about charges in those three cases.”
January 28, joining the FAFO coalition: “No agency and no officer is above the law.”
February 18: The state is “in good shape” to make charging decisions “with or without federal cooperation.”
March 2: Her office had received over 1,000 public submissions and she was “confident” she could pursue charges.
That is six public statements across seven weeks. Every one of them points toward action. None of them have produced it.
We cannot know exactly how many of those submissions came from this community, but we know what this community did. For nearly three months, The Existentialist Republic has been equipping readers to act. We distributed thousands of posters on the streets of Minneapolis giving people Moriarty’s contact information directly. Readers sent physical mail to her office. Hundreds of people sent her the full prosecution memorandum by email, the same document laying out the exact charges, the legal theory, and the precedent. The case has been delivered to her office hundreds of times by the people whose city this is. None of it has produced a charge.
Justice for Renée Good. You can make that happen.
In a normal criminal case, when a prosecutor says publicly that she has sufficient evidence, charges follow. The gap between “I have enough” and “I am filing” is measured in days, maybe weeks while paperwork is prepared. It is not measured in months while the prosecutor joins coalitions, holds press conferences, and sends letters that go unanswered. The only things that produce a gap this long between a public sufficiency statement and no action are political calculation, institutional pressure, or a decision that the cost of acting outweighs the cost of not acting, and every one of those is a choice, not a verdict.
Since Good was killed, ICE and CBP agents have continued operating in Minneapolis. Not one of them has faced a single criminal charge. The FAFO coalition, which Moriarty joined on January 28 and which declared that no officer is above the law, has filed zero charges against any federal agent anywhere in the country in the nearly two months since its formation. Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi, one of the coalition’s founding members, articulated the deterrence argument at the launch: “I’d like to think that when they are thinking about beating a protester, destroying evidence, shooting somebody who is unarmed, they will say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m in Tucson. Wait a minute, I’m in Dallas... and I know that this DA is going to be watching me.’ And maybe, just maybe, that will save a life.” That was January 28. No one in the coalition has filed charges. What that means in practice is that federal agents in Minneapolis have now demonstrated, through months of uncharged conduct including two killings, that there is no action they can take that will result in prosecution. And when the absence of accountability becomes observable fact rather than theoretical risk, you are not describing a system under stress. You are describing a system that has made a decision. If these agents can act with this much impunity, kill two people, face no charges, and watch a prosecutor who said she had enough do nothing, then we are living in a country where tyranny is not a future threat. It is a present condition.
This is not the first time Walz and Ellison have faced this situation with Moriarty specifically. In April 2023, Walz authorized Ellison to remove the prosecution of Zaria McKeever’s killers from her office after she offered a plea deal the victim’s family and Ellison himself called a miscarriage of justice. Ellison took the case. That authority exists right now. It has been used before against this specific prosecutor. Given everything documented here, the question that needs to be asked directly is this: is it time to take Moriarty off this case?
Attached is a new and updated prosecution memorandum for Jonathan Ross covering additional public evidence that has emerged since the first version was released. Here is what you can do with it.
Contact elected officials and demand they act. Use the sample messages below or write your own.
Governor Tim Walz: governor.state.mn.us/contact | @GovTimWalz on X | 651-201-3400
Attorney General Keith Ellison: ag.state.mn.us/contact | @keithellison on X | 651-296-3353
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty: @MaryMoriarty on X | @HennepinAtty on X | hennepinattorney.org/about/
Matt Pelikan, candidate for Hennepin County Attorney: mattpelikan.com | @mattpelikan on X
Send the memo to reporters. These outlets are covering this story or should be. Same messages below.
Minneapolis Star Tribune: whistleblower@startribune.com
MPR News: news@mpr.org
Minnesota Reformer: editor@minnesotareformer.com
Sahan Journal: editor@sahanjournal.com
WCCO Radio (CBS Minnesota): news@wcco.com
KARE 11 (NBC Minneapolis): news@kare11.com
FOX 9 Minneapolis: fox9news@foxtv.com
KSTP (ABC Minneapolis): newsreply@kstp.com
Sample message for Governor Walz:
Subject: Direct Ellison to take over the Ross prosecution the way you took over Chauvin
You directed Attorney General Ellison to take over the Chauvin prosecution in May 2020. You authorized him to remove a case from Moriarty’s office in April 2023. That authority exists again right now. A detailed prosecution memorandum laying out the charges, predicate felonies, and immunity analysis under existing Minnesota law is available at https://buymeacoffee.com/
Sample message for Attorney General Ellison:
Subject: Take over the Ross prosecution and investigate the federal obstruction
You have the authority to take this case. You took over the Chauvin prosecution in 2020. You took a case from Moriarty’s office in 2023. A detailed prosecution memorandum laying out the charges, predicate felonies, and immunity analysis under existing Minnesota law is available at https://buymeacoffee.com/
Sample message for media:
Subject: Prosecution memorandum on the Jonathan Ross case
Mary Moriarty’s office has received over 1,000 calls and submissions demanding charges be filed against ICE agent Jonathan Ross for the killing of Renée Good. Experts nationwide have said the evidence supports prosecution. Moriarty herself has said it publicly, multiple times. It took four days to charge Derek Chauvin with far less evidence. It has been three months. A detailed prosecution memorandum laying out exactly how charges could be filed tomorrow morning, under existing Minnesota law, with no federal cooperation required, is available at https://buymeacoffee.com/
Make some noise.
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