Talk About Tennis 2.0

F.B.I. Agent Who Tried to Investigate ICE Officer in Shooting Resigns
The resignation of the agent, Tracee Mergen, was only the latest shock wave to have emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of the shooting of Renee Good.


By Alan Feuer and Glenn Thrush
Jan. 23, 2026
Updated 6:02 p.m. ET

An F.B.I. agent who sought to investigate the federal immigration officer who fatally shot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis this month has resigned from the bureau, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The agent, Tracee Mergen, left her job as a supervisor in the F.B.I.’s Minneapolis field office after bureau leadership in Washington pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the immigration officer, Jonathan Ross, according to one of the people. Such inquiries are a common investigative step in similar shootings.

Ms. Mergen’s resignation was only the latest shock wave to have emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of the shooting of Renee Good, an unarmed mother who was killed on Jan. 7 as she was behind the wheel of her Honda Pilot.

After the incident, several Trump administration officials described Ms. Good as a “domestic terrorist,” accusing her of trying to ram Mr. Ross with her vehicle. But a video analysis by The New York Times showed no indication that he had been run over.

Senior Justice Department officials have repeatedly said there are no plans to follow the path normally taken in such situations and pursue an investigation into whether Mr. Ross, who fired multiple shots at Ms. Good, had used excessive force.

Federal investigators have also refused to cooperate with state and local prosecutors in Minnesota, complicating any efforts they might take to open their own investigations into Mr. Ross.

Instead of allowing Ms. Mergen to work with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis to investigate Mr. Ross, the Justice Department has decided to investigate Ms. Good and her partner, Becca Good, scrutinizing their possible ties to left-wing protest groups in Minneapolis. That decision prompted at least six senior prosecutors in the office to resign in protest.

Cindy Burnham, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. office in Minneapolis, declined to comment on Ms. Mergen’s resignation.

In a separate move, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into several elected Democrats in Minnesota in an effort to determine whether they may have conspired to impede the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions in the state. As part of that inquiry, the department issued subpoenas this week to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Mayor Kaohly Her of St. Paul, among others.

Moreover, the Justice Department has started cracking down on protesters who have opposed the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement push in Minnesota.

On Thursday, prosecutors filed conspiracy charges against three people who were involved in interrupting a church service in St. Paul to protest a pastor’s apparent work as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. According to a criminal complaint, the three defendants — Nekima Levy-Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly — “intimidated, harassed, oppressed and terrorized the parishioners.”

On Friday, a pair of federal judges who are overseeing the case denied requests by prosecutors to keep the three in custody as they await trial.

Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/us/f ... -ios-share

Will Stancil‬
‪@whstancil.bsky.social‬
· 47m
in case you're curious about how angry Minnesota is about ICE, it was -20 today

DOJ sought to probe Renee Good for criminal liability, even after her death: Sources
A judge refused an FBI warrant that proposed investigating dead Minnesota mom for suspected assault on an officer.

Jan. 23, 2026, 6:26 PM EST
By
Carol Leonnig
and
Ken Dilanian
Aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche directed the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI agents based in Minnesota to shut down a civil rights investigation into an officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good and instead alter it to probe Good for possible criminal liability, according to three people briefed on the discussions.

After Good was killed on Jan. 7, FBI agents drafted a search warrant to obtain her car to reconstruct the path of bullets that an ICE officer shot into the vehicle. But they were instructed to redraft their warrant and change the subject of the investigation from a civil rights probe to an investigation into a suspected assault on an officer, the people said. A federal magistrate judge rejected that warrant, noting that Good was already dead and could not be considered a suspect for a warrant.

It was widely reported that the Justice Department chose not to investigate the ICE officer who shot and killed Good, but the details about how top Justice officials directed the altering of the investigation and search warrant — and how it was rejected as weak by a federal judge — have not been previously reported.

It’s extremely rare for judges to reject federal prosecutors’ requests for search warrants, as the standard for evidence needed to grant one is low. Prosecutors and investigators need to only show probable cause that they will find evidence of a crime in the location they wish to search.

Meanwhile, Tracee Mergen, an FBI supervisor in the Minneapolis field office who oversees fraud and public corruption cases, resigned in frustration over the handling by Justice Department leadership of the Good shooting investigation and the pivot of the original search warrant subject, according to two of the sources. Mergen is said to be frustrated as well with the Trump administration’s decision to treat protesters in Minnesota as possible domestic terrorists and conduct mass arrests of people peaceably protesting, according to two people familiar with her decision. The New York Times reported her departure earlier Friday evening.

FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told MS NOW, “The FBI doesn’t comment on personnel matters. The facts on the ground do not support a civil rights investigation. FBI continues to investigate the incident as well as the violent criminal actors and those perpetrating illegal activity.”

An FBI spokesperson for the Minneapolis office declined to comment on Mergen or her status.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

The Justice Department’s handling of an ICE officer who shot and killed the Minnesota mother has detonated in a series of damaging waves in the state, and particularly for federal law enforcement. Six prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office there resigned in frustration over the decision to investigate Good and her partner, rather than the shooting, MS NOW has reported. More resignations are expected in coming days, sources familiar with their plans have said.

The acting U.S. attorney who Trump chose for the office, Dan Rosen, has never worked as a prosecutor and has little credibility with the lawyers in the office, according to two former prosecutors who have spoken confidentially with their colleagues. In the wake of the No. 2 career prosecutor in the office resigning, along with several senior staff, Rosen has struggled to persuade anyone in the office to serve as his top assistant, those two former prosecutors said.

Last weekend, Attorney General Pam Bondi urged other U.S. attorneys in Midwestern states to loan prosecutors to the depleted Minnesota office. The office normally has 80 prosecutors but is down to nearly half that number since Trump took office a year ago, a situation aggravated by the newest departures.

According to Renee Good’s family, the day she was killed, she had dropped her child off at school and parked her car a few blocks from an ICE immigration raid going on near her neighborhood to help protest them with her partner, mostly using chants and whistles.

In the days after Good’s death, both Blanche and Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, decided the Justice Department would not conduct a civil rights investigation of the shooting, standard practice whenever a federal officer fatally shoots a member of the public. Six senior leaders in the Civil Rights Division unit that would normally investigate such a shooting accelerated their plans to resign and retire, partially to protest that decision.

As the Trump administration has surged more ICE officers to the state in the wake of Good’s death, clashes with protesters have only grown more tense. And a federal push to move aggressively to arrest more protesters appears to be failing.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Minneapolis has suffered a string of embarrassing blows from the federal bench, where magistrate judges have rejected arrest warrants and criminal complaints the office has submitted against protesters. That is also exceptionally rare, because the standard for an arrest warrant is also probable cause to believe the suspect committed a crime. As MSNOW reported Friday morning, magistrate judges have ruled in several cases that the the federal prosecutors and officers who provide accounts of their interactions with protesters have not provided sufficient evidence to meet that low bar.

https://www.ms.now/news/doj-sought-to-p ... th-sources

Federal Agents Kill a 37-Year-Old Minneapolis Man
The shooting two weeks after an ICE agent’s killing of Renee Good prompted escalating clashes between law enforcement and protesters. “How many more Americans need to die?” Mayor Jacob Frey demanded of the Trump administration.

Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident on Saturday morning, the city’s police chief said. The shooting prompted clashes between law enforcement and hundreds of protesters, as Minnesota officials renewed demands that the Trump administration end its immigration crackdown, which has now resulted in two deaths.

Homeland Security officials said that an agent had fired on a man with a handgun after an “armed struggle.” In video verified by The New York Times, several federal agents can be seen wrestling a man onto the sidewalk while at least one strikes him with an object. At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds, according to a Times analysis.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said that the Minneapolis police had asked them to investigate the shooting, but that state agents who attempted to access the site were “blocked” by Homeland Security officials.

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has requested that the Minnesota National Guard be deployed “due to the potential for continuing and growing conflict related to today’s federal agent-involved shooting.” Sheriff Dawanna Wit said in a statement: “Their presence is meant to help create a secure environment where all Minnesotans can exercise their rights safely, including the right to peacefully protest.” Hennepin County includes Minneapolis.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/24 ... ooting-ice

A protest at Union Square in NYC is starting at 4pm today. I imagine this will be happening across the country?

I am in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. This is as sleepy a town as you can find. Population is about 2,000 people, official.
Today, heading downtown (which is really MAIN STREET, as there are so few), we saw a small group of 10-12 people with signs protesting about Tiny.
One sign said: honk if you agree.
I did.
Something feels odd.

P1/2

Timeline: A Moment-by-Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti
By Bora Erden, Devon Lum, Helmuth Rosales, Elena Shao, Haley Willis and Ashley Wu Updated Jan. 25, 2026, 5:50 p.m. E.T.

Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, at about 9 a.m. Central time on Saturday morning. A video shared with The New York Times by a witness and her lawyer, as well as other video footage posted on social media, documents the violent scene, where agents appear to fire at least 10 shots in a span of five seconds.

The footage seems to contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the encounter, which the agency said began after an individual armed with a handgun approached the federal agents with the intent to “massacre” them.

48 seconds before shooting

Still from video shared with The Times. The New York Times

Videos show a small group of civilians standing in the middle of a street where a person was detained on the ground; the civilians are speaking to federal agents. Mr. Pretti appears to be filming the scene, and he walks closer to the federal agents while holding his phone.

Then an agent shoves two civilians from one side of the street to the other, pushing them toward a white S.U.V.

28 seconds before

Still from video shared with The Times. The New York Times

For a second time, the agent pushes the civilian with the orange backpack. The civilian falls to the ground near the white S.U.V.

25 seconds before

Still from video by Philophon via Reddit. The New York Times

Mr. Pretti tries to put himself between the D.H.S. agent and the two civilians. Footage shows the same agent squirting pepper spray in the direction of Mr. Pretti’s face. (This agent will later fire shots at Mr. Pretti.)

Mr. Pretti is holding his phone in one hand, and he holds his other hand up to shield himself from the spray.

23 seconds before

Still from video shared with The Times. The New York Times

Mr. Pretti appears to be trying to help the civilian with the orange backpack stand back up as the agent continues to pepper-spray the group.

17 seconds before
Still from video by witness shared with The Times. The New York Times

Several agents grab Mr. Pretti, who is still holding his phone. Additional agents approach and try to pin Mr. Pretti to the ground.

P2/2

11 seconds before

Still from video by Philophon via Reddit. The New York Times

Mr. Pretti is surrounded by a group of seven agents, some of whom have wrestled him to the ground. One of the agents, who wears a gray coat, gets closer to Mr. Pretti. The agent’s hands are empty as he reaches for Mr. Pretti, while the other agents hold Mr. Pretti down on his knees. At the same time, another agent strikes Mr. Pretti repeatedly with a pepper spray canister.

1 second before

Still from video shared with The Times. The New York Times

An eighth agent joins the group. The agent in the gray coat appears to pull a gun from near Mr. Pretti’s right hip. The agent then begins to move away from the skirmish with the weapon.

At the same time, another agent unholsters his firearm and points it at Mr. Pretti’s back.

First shot fired

Still from witness video via Associated Press. The New York Times

The agent in the gray coat removes the weapon from the scene. It matches the profile of a gun that D.H.S. says belonged to Mr. Pretti. Then, while Mr. Pretti is on his knees and restrained, the agent standing directly above him appears to fire one shot at Mr. Pretti at close range. He immediately fires three additional shots.

The diagram below shows the position of the agents, Mr. Pretti and other civilians at this moment.
The New York Times

Additional shots fired
Still from video shared with The Times. The New York Times

Several agents have moved away from Mr. Pretti, who has collapsed. Another agent — the same one who shoved the civilians into the street and pepper-sprayed Mr. Pretti — unholsters his gun and fires at Mr. Pretti. The first agent also fires additional shots. Together, they fire six more shots at Mr. Pretti while he lies motionless on the ground.

At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. By the moment of the 10th shot, the agent who moved away with the weapon has crossed the street.

Mr. Pretti is the second person to be shot and killed by a federal agent in Minnesota in recent weeks. Footage of Mr. Pretti’s death in Minneapolis was posted on social media almost immediately after the shooting.

The Homeland Security Department said that the episode began after a man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun, and that an agent fired “defensive shots.” Another encounter in Minneapolis this month, in which a Venezuelan man was shot in the leg by a federal agent, was also characterized as “defensive” by the department.

Gov. Tim Walz, Democrat of Minnesota, disputed the claims by federal officials that Mr. Pretti had posed a threat. He accused “the most powerful people in the federal government” of “spinning stories and putting up pictures.”

Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department said that Mr. Pretti was an American citizen with no criminal record and that he had a valid firearms permit. Under Minnesota law, citizens can legally carry a handgun in public, either openly or concealed, if they have a permit.

As with the fatal shooting of Renee Good, local and state authorities in Minnesota say that they have been impeded by D.H.S. from investigating the killing of Mr. Pretti, and that they have been cut off from access to crucial evidence and facts.

Large crowds of protesters gathered throughout Saturday at the site of Mr. Pretti’s shooting. On Sunday afternoon, around 1,000 people packed Government Plaza in downtown Minneapolis to protest the presence of federal agents in the city and to call for justice for Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti.

Here is the free link to the above

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... =url-share

White House Wobbles, Distancing Trump From Initial Response to Minnesota Killing
Officials clearly understood that the fatal shooting of a demonstrator posed one of the gravest political threats to President Trump since his inauguration.

By Luke Broadwater and David E. Sanger

Luke Broadwater and David E. Sanger are White House correspondents. They reported from Washington.
Jan. 26, 2026Updated 7:06 p.m. ET

Faced with broad outcry over the killing of a protester on Saturday in Minneapolis, the White House on Monday pulled a top border official from Minneapolis and tried to distance President Trump from the response of his most senior officials, who had immediately characterized the man fatally shot by federal agents as a “domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing” a gun, before video evidence undercut their charges.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, notably did not defend the rhetoric of White House officials, including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who were the most vocal in spreading false accusations against the victim, Alex Pretti. Mr. Pretti was shot roughly 10 times by immigration agents after he was apparently filming them with his camera.

He was licensed to carry a gun in Minnesota, but video from several angles shows he never pulled one, and his hands were visible as he was shot in the back.

White House officials clearly understood that the killing, the second of an American citizen protesting the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, posed one of the gravest political threats to Mr. Trump since his inauguration just a little over a year ago. Yet they seemed frozen in place, unwilling to walk back the statements by Mr. Miller and Ms. Noem, which were widely repeated throughout the administration, while sending Ms. Leavitt out to insist that “we will let the facts lead and we will let the facts play out in this investigation.”

They provided no evidence to back up the statements by the two officials, who have become the face of Mr. Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. And while Ms. Leavitt would not contradict the two officials, she insisted to reporters that “nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets.”

She also declined to defend the attacks on Mr. Pretti.

“This has obviously been a very fluid and fast-moving situation throughout the weekend,” Ms. Leavitt said. “As for President Trump, whom I speak for, he has said that he wants to let the investigation continue and let the facts lead in this case.”

For two days, the White House has struggled to contain the fallout from the killing. Democrats have been withering in their criticism of the administration’s actions, and Republicans have begun joining calls for a fair investigation into the killing. Even the National Rifle Association, long an ally of Republican administrations, has defended Mr. Pretti, who had a concealed-carry permit.

The bipartisan pushback on Capitol Hill now risks another government shutdown as lawmakers threaten to withhold funding for ICE after the killing of Mr. Pretti.
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The administration was planning to move Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official whose harsh tactics have drawn sharp criticism, out of the city, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several other Border Patrol agents were expected to leave with him, the latest sign that the administration was pulling back on its aggressive enforcement action inside the city.

Hours before news of Mr. Bovino’s impending departure circulated, Mr. Trump dispatched his border chief, Tom Homan, to oversee the immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. He also backed off his attacks on Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota after a phone call with him.

Mr. Bovino had been one of the first to deliver what turned out to be false information about Mr. Pretti, but the White House refused to acknowledge that his statements, and others from different top officials, were contradicted by the video evidence. Ms. Leavitt called Mr. Bovino “a great professional” who “is going to very much continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country.”

In his latest pivot, Mr. Trump moved from castigating Mr. Walz as a cause of the violence in Minneapolis and declared that, in their call, they “seemed to be on a similar wavelength.”

Mr. Trump said on social media that Mr. Walz was “happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota.” Mr. Trump announced earlier in the day that Mr. Homan would be his personal representative overseeing ICE operations in the state.

It was a sharp contrast from his weekend pronunciations, in which the president blamed Mr. Walz and other Minnesota Democrats for Mr. Pretti’s death. Those remarks echoed his comments after the fatal shooting by federal agents of a Minneapolis woman, Renee Good, this month.

As he hailed operations in Washington and other cities as a “tremendous success,” Mr. Trump said crime in Minnesota was “way down.” He added, “Both Governor Walz and I want to make it better!”

In a statement, Mr. Walz’s office described the call as “productive” and said the two men had discussed broader issues that have been at the center of the state’s complaints about the crackdown.

According to the governor’s office, Mr. Walz told Mr. Trump that impartial investigations into the two killings were needed, and he called for a reduction in the number of federal agents in Minnesota. Mr. Trump agreed to ensure a fair investigation and to look into reducing the number of agents, the governor’s office said.

But even as Mr. Trump tried to mend fences with Mr. Walz, Ms. Leavitt continued the administration’s previous strategy of arguing that the governor and Democrats in Minnesota bore the blame for the chaos. “This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota for weeks,” she said.

The administration’s reaction to the killing of Mr. Pretti was similar to its initial approach to the killing of Ms. Good.

In both cases, administration officials rushed to attack the victims and defend the ICE agents before an investigation had taken place. After video emerged raising serious questions about the cause for both killings, White House officials changed their tone.

Last week, Mr. Trump said the killing of Ms. Good was a “tragedy” about which he “felt terribly,” adding that the immigration agents he had deployed were sometimes “going to make a mistake.”

The change in tone was stark for the president, who said he had been told that Ms. Good’s father was a strong Trump supporter. No longer did the administration suggest she was a domestic terrorist.

“You know, when the woman was shot, I felt terribly about it,” he said. “And I understand both sides of it.” He called the shooting “a horrible thing.”

In the hours after Mr. Pretti’s killing, Mr. Trump referred to him as a “gunman” in a social media post. But after video emerged showing that Mr. Pretti carried a cellphone, and that agents took his legally carried gun from him before shooting him, the White House had a different message.

“Nobody here at the White House, including the president of the United States, wants to see Americans hurt or killed and losing their lives in American streets,” Ms. Leavitt said on Monday. “And we mourn for the parents.”

Ernesto Londoño and Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.

Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/us/p ... video.html

Bovino is leaving Minnesota. There are numerous calls for Noemskull to resign--or be impeached. Trump himself is speaking almost amicably about Walz. I'm not sure what to make of it all. If anything.

I said it before. Why are law enforcement agents in the USA so trigger happy?

dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 27, 2026 12:26 am Bovino is leaving Minnesota. There are numerous calls for Noemskull to resign--or be impeached. Trump himself is speaking almost amicably about Walz. I'm not sure what to make of it all. If anything.

The picture of Mr. Pretti crouching trying to protect himself says it all. They shot him ten times in the back. The NYTimes images present a truth they can no longer lie about.

Perfectly bagel inspired
Georgia1h ago

This all leads back to Stephen Miller, who is Trump’s right hand man, so it’s unclear how Trump is not fully entangled in this horrific murder. If Trump was smart and strategic, which he’s not, he would dump Stephen Miller.
https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/ ... =url-share

gep
st paul, MN1h ago

The tiresome and utterly predictable pattern:

Trump, through his statements or actions, creates chaos (in this case with deadly consequences).

Outrage ensues.

Trump shifts his position or walks back his comments or otherwise retreats, even just minutely.

A sigh of relief that the crisis has been averted (at least until the next one).

Trump gets credit for acting reasonably (at least until the next outrage, and "reasonable" being relative).

This country is stuck in an abusive marriage that it can't seem to escape.

When will enough be enough and we finally get the divorce we so desperately need?

https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/ ... =url-share