MINNEAPOLIS — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis this week served with the Indiana National Guard, according to the Associated Press.
The officer, identified as Ross in court testimony, deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 with the Indiana National Guard, where he served as a machine-gunner on a gun truck as part of a combat patrol team.
After returning from Iraq in 2005, Ross went to college and joined the Border Patrol in 2007 near El Paso, Texas, the Associated Press reported. He worked there until 2015, serving as a field intelligence agent gathering and analyzing information on cartels and drug and human smuggling.
Ross has served as a deportation officer based in Minnesota since he joined ICE in 2015. He is assigned to fugitive operations, seeking to arrest "higher value targets" in the ICE region that includes Minneapolis, and also serves as a team leader with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to the Associated Press.
"So I develop the targets, create a target package, surveillance, and then develop a plan to execute the arrest warrant," Ross said in court testimony last month, according to the Associated Press.
Ross also served as a firearms instructor, an active shooter instructor, a field intelligence officer and member of the SWAT team. He attended the Border Patrol's academy in New Mexico, where he learned to speak Spanish, the Associated Press reported.
Records reviewed by Scripps News show the officer was involved in a similar violent encounter just months before this week's fatal shooting. During a June arrest in the Twin Cities area, the officer was dragged roughly 100 feet by a suspect's vehicle, according to court records and police reports. The officer suffered injuries to his arm that required about 20 stitches.
The shooting that has drawn national attention occurred on Wednesday, when the officer shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, during an immigration enforcement operation in a Minneapolis neighborhood.
Good was inside her vehicle at the time of the shooting. Video circulating online shows agents seemingly ordering her to exit her vehicle when she appears to try to drive away. The officer who shot Good was near the driver's side of the vehicle when he fired his weapon through the windshield, killing her.
The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation, but federal authorities have barred Minnesota investigators from accessing evidence, leaving the probe solely in federal hands.
That decision has prompted backlash from state and local officials, who say excluding Minnesota authorities raises concerns about transparency and accountability.
