Detail from a bystander video of the shooting, a split second after the deadly shot was fired.YouTube

After an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis this week, firing his weapon as she attempted to drive away, protesters have amassed around the country, many wondering: Can that officer be taken to court?

The Trump administration, predictably, says the agent, Jonathan Ross, is immune from prosecution. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Thursday. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”

But what do independent attorneys say? After the shooting, I reached out to Robert Bennett, a veteran lawyer in Minneapolis who has worked on hundreds of federal court police misconduct cases during his 50-year career. “I’ve deposed thousands of police officers,” he says. “ICE agents do not have absolute immunity.”

Bennett says the state of Minnesota has the right to prosecute an ICE agent who commits misconduct. But, he adds, that might be difficult now that the FBI has essentially booted the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension off the case—blocking access, the BCA wrote, to “case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.”

In the conversation below, edited for length and clarity, Bennett discusses how the shooting in Minneapolis unfolded and the legal paths forward.

When you watched the videos of this shooting, what did you see?

You saw what could be........

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