Renée Good ICE Shooting and Independent Autopsy Developments

Season 6, Episode 7: Renée Good ICE Shooting and Independent Autopsy Developments 

In this episode, we return to the case of Renée Good, who was fatally shot by ICE in Minnesota, a case we originally broke down in Episode 2: Legal Breakdown of the ICE Minnesota Shooting on January 14.

Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7. Since that initial breakdown, her family has released results from an independent autopsy commissioned by Romanucci & Blandin, showing three gunshot wounds, and fueling intense debate about the force used. 

Karen Koehler, Mo Hamoudi, and Mike Todd unpack what those autopsy findings mean legally, how federal narratives diverge from on-the-ground evidence, and why this case resonates far beyond Minneapolis.

If you haven't listened to Episode 2: Legal Breakdown of the ICE Minnesota Shooting from January 14, it’s worth starting there for foundational legal context before diving into this update. 

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State. 

Produced by Mike Todd, Audio & Video Engineer, and Kassie Slugić, Executive Producer. 

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Transcript

Cold Open And Banter

Karen Koehler 0:07

Hey, wake up. Okay. First of all.

Mo Hamoudi 0:13

Wait a minute, what are those? Okay, I like those. Those are shiny shoes.

Karen Koehler 0:17

My world got these for me and she didn't think that I'd ever wear them, but so I wear a lot of Uggs. These are like half the weight of an Ug. It's like walking on a f on a pillow.

Mike Todd 0:28

Yeah, but it looks like you're walking on a pillow in space. I am.

Karen Koehler 0:31

I am a space creature. Just remember that. Secondly, uh, we're going to the movies.

Mike Todd 0:37

I know. I saw.

Karen Koehler 0:38

And my and Mo called the Amazon Lawyers Morons. Just FYI.

Mike Todd 0:45

You might be getting another letter about that podcast.

Karen Koehler 0:51

You lost.

Mike Todd 0:52

I can't believe it.

Mo Hamoudi 0:54

Wait, are we are we playing?

Mike Todd 0:56

Yeah, no, we're we're live, buddy.

Mo Hamoudi 0:58

Oh. Okay. Wait a minute. I need to talk to the lawyers and confirm this. There is no way I'm gonna.

Mike Todd 1:07

There's no way. You already lost it. That was pretty clear in that letter.

Karen Koehler 1:10

Very clear.

Mike Todd 1:11

That seemed very clear to me. We won't have it for a little while.

Karen Koehler 1:16

Means here's the dates for the deposition, which you can take.

Mike Todd 1:20

We are gonna have them available.

Karen Koehler 1:22

They ordered surveillance. This is true.

Mo Hamoudi 1:26

My heart breaks.

Karen Koehler 1:27

Yeah, whatever. It's just par for the course.

Losing The Case And Going Live

Mo Hamoudi 1:31

I can't believe it. Um okay. Well, we're gonna talk about the Minnesota shooting.

Mike Todd 1:39

Yeah, again.

Mo Hamoudi 1:40

I got a fact wrong. I got a couple of facts wrong. Well, we all did. Renee's wife was not in the car. Uh so I went back and I looked at first stop.

Correcting Facts On The Minnesota Shooting

Karen Koehler 1:50

Renee's Wait, how does it feel to have publicly told the world that she was in the car and now you have to, you can't.

Mo Hamoudi 1:57

I mean, I don't care. I mean I don't mind. I mean, I'm I'm okay with making mistakes.

Mike Todd 2:01

We're not we're not saying that we're professional media figures. Yeah, we just a podcast.

Mo Hamoudi 2:08

Um, but I own what I do incorrectly. I have no problem with that. Even incorrectly. Do you?

Karen Koehler 2:13

Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. Because my point is like we're not perfect.

Mo Hamoudi 2:17

No. No, no, no. I don't mind owning what I do wrong. Yeah. But I went and looked at what I I'm gonna say to source. I went to PBS. Because I think PBS is a fairly good recounter of facts. So here's the PBS facts.

Karen Koehler 2:31

PBS was out of business now.

Mo Hamoudi 2:33

No, they're still there.

Karen Koehler 2:34

They've been defunded.

PBS Video Breakdown Of The Incident

Mo Hamoudi 2:35

Okay, okay. What the video shows per PBS is that the bystander video shows goods SUV stopped in the middle of a snowy street while two officers approach. One tries the driver's door and reaches into the car as it starts to move, while a third officer walks directly in front of the SUV with his gun drawn. As the vehicle moves forward, the officer in front appears to be knocked backward, but not run over, and then fires at least two shots through the windshield. The SUV then accelerates toward the curb and collides with parked cars. Additional video obtained by PBS shows a prior confrontation in which Good and her wife exchanged heated words with ICE agents near school. Footage that PBS says was allegedly recorded by the same ICE officer who later fired the fatal shots.

Karen Koehler 3:32

Okay. Well, there has been some developments since we last talked about the ice shooting, and that is that the estate the wife hired a plaintiff firm. Yes. In fact, a great great plaintiff firm. Um Tony Romanucci's firm, he was president of AHA a couple years ago, and they were involved in George Floyd, of course, and they are just a great firm when it comes to um excessive force, wrongful death, killings out of Chicago. And they had an autopsy done. Did you read this?

Mo Hamoudi 4:13

I'm I'm not familiar with these facts. I just read the facts of the shooting.

Karen Koehler 4:17

And the autopsy showed uh three wounds on the body. Um one uh two of them non-fatal. One was um gosh, no, I can't remember, like through the shoulder or something, you know, two benign shootings where that she would have survived, and then a shot to the head. That's that was the killer shot. Um and they hired their own um medical examiner to do that. The the official medical exam um still hasn't occurred yet. And so in criminal cases, in police shooting cases, in certain wrongful death cases, medical negligence cases sometimes, if we can get we're like enough to get the body, and I'm sorry that it sounds gruesome, but that's what we do. Don't always wait for the official medical examiner. Don't always trust the fact that you're gonna be suing a government and they're paying for that, say, medical examiner, or you're suing a hospital and they're paying for that medical examiner to live. So and sometimes you know, there's a disagreement. So that's why this firm had a separate medical examiner.

What “Homicide” Legally Means

Mo Hamoudi 5:29

Which I think was smart. It was very smart. And I suspect that the autopsy report is gonna the cause of death is going to be not just the conscious, the manner of death is gonna be homicide.

Karen Koehler 5:40

Well, so now we always see that.

Mo Hamoudi 5:42

Um But it makes people go homicide?

Karen Koehler 5:45

I know people when people will hear cause of death is homicide, and they'll think someone murdered them, which honestly, I mean, someone did murder them, but there's legally justifiable murder and then there's the criminal murder that we're familiar with. So what does homicide mean, Mo, since you deal with it or dealt with it so often?

Mo Hamoudi 6:06

All it means is death at the hands of another. That's what it means. But you know, how it happened determines whether it's a crime or or unlawful or not.

Karen Koehler 6:15

Yeah, there were a lot of reporting sensationalizes death by homicide when there's nothing to sensationalize. It's just that's a technical term. Did you know that, Mike?

Mike Todd 6:26

I did. It was I I I I saw something recently like that in the media where they said that somebody had internal bleeding and it was just a bruise. Oh like not even a big bruise. Yeah, they had just gotten some bruises from falling down.

Karen Koehler 6:41

Okay.

ICE Escalation: Kids, Searches, Second Shooting

Mike Todd 6:42

So another way that the media sensationalizes stuff that's happened without it really being something. I mean, like homicide's a like you said, a term for another person killing somebody else. Yeah. But because of TV and movies and stuff, everybody attributes it with murder, meaning murder, criminal murder, not justified murder.

Karen Koehler 7:06

Well, you know, you would think that since that incident happened, that ice would be kind of dialing down and people would be pausing, and you know, there'd be some reevaluation, some thoughtful looks at what happened here, uh, to make sure that it didn't happen again, some, you know, public restoration of trust, some kind of just even a symbolic uh gesture of kindness to the community, the family of this woman who was really executed in the streets. Um you would think that that would occur. But instead, what has happened?

Mo Hamoudi 7:49

Nothing has happened. Oh no. But it's gotten worse. There's been another shooting um and uh and and the administration uh is doubling down on what happened and justifying what happened.

Karen Koehler 8:04

Well, it's even worse. I mean, just even last night, just in two headlines, uh one they were detaining the children. They were so they're going to the school and detaining children to use this bait to get the parents, which is grotesque um in a civil civilized society or an uncivilized society. I mean, it's gross. And number two, as we talked about also, they are now escalating the use of warrantless searches.

Mo Hamoudi 8:39

They're out of control. I get I mean, you know, you know what's crazy is that the Obama administration deported more people.

Mike Todd 8:48

No, I know, that's what I said.

Mo Hamoudi 8:50

Right? Yeah. And and but they didn't do it like this.

Mike Todd 8:53

No.

Who Are These Agents And How Trained

Mo Hamoudi 8:54

You know, and that's one thing that's like pretty telling that there's more than meets the eye about what the pretext is of what's happening right now. The second thing is that the officers and I was just somebody called me yesterday. They have a they have uh they wanted me to consult with them, give them some advice on a case. And it's a case involving uh here in the state of Washington and uh a bunch of ICE officers assaulting somebody. Shocker news flash and and and all of them um had uh were carrying body cams, but the body cams were not turned on, and to they didn't know that there was a camera capturing the entire incident. And uh so this person was investigating the case and uh had identified the ICE agents by name, and uh it's fairly easy to find out what the professional history of an ICE agent is. And what was revealed was that these aren't traditional Homeland Security agents, and it's important for people to understand the distinction. The Department of Homeland Security has multiple agencies within, like departments within, that conduct investigations. Department of Homeland Security agents who execute enforcement um uh initiatives in internally, like in the U.S., in the cities, these are not those individuals. These are individuals who are stationed at the border. And their primary training and task is border protection. And now they have been removed and asked to marshal their resources for domestic policing. These these guys are not trained for this. They have no training for this. So these are untrained people.

Mike Todd 10:57

Wait a minute. The last time we talked about this, you talked about how trained they were.

Mo Hamoudi 11:01

No, I didn't say they were trained. I said this that oh, you know what? Yes. You did say they were trained.

Mike Todd 11:07

You said they were trained in the use of deadly force and how to administrative.

Strategy: Lawsuits, Courts, And Public Record

Mo Hamoudi 11:12

Yeah, hold me to it because what what I didn't know, what I didn't know, which is what I learned yesterday, is that when when I was being told, no, these are border patrol guys. And I was like, wait a minute, these guys aren't trained in in arresting citizens. They're not even trained in the Fourth Amendment, really.

Mike Todd 11:32

These guys are like secret police that are being sent onto the streets to do what the administration wants them to do.

Mo Hamoudi 11:41

I mean, this is illegally. This is a recipe for disaster.

Mike Todd 11:44

Oh, we're already past that. Wait. That's what I was saying last time.

Mo Hamoudi 11:48

I didn't know that. And I just I just was like, and I asked, like, hey, what's the jacket on these guys? Like, tell me a little bit about these guys. He's like, yeah, I ran them down, and like this is, you know, these guys are and I was like, holy Moses. That's crazy.

Mike Todd 12:05

Why do you think people are afraid when they say that the National Guard is going to be backing those guys up? Because they are soldiers who are trained to kill, not to deal with citizens like police are. That this is the problem with this. Yeah, yeah. So if anybody wonders why people are getting killed, it's that.

Mo Hamoudi 12:26

Yeah, yeah.

Karen Koehler 12:28

All right, so what are we supposed to do?

Mo Hamoudi 12:30

What are we supposed to do? We're supposed to bring cases. We're supposed to do what my advice was to this lawyer, I was like, you have to um you have to have hearings, you have to put people on the stand, you have to get their personnel files, and you have to use the tools that you have to bring these facts to light so that judges learn about it, lawyers learn about it, the public learns about it.

Faith In Government, History, And Next Steps

Karen Koehler 12:56

Because and this is really how is this how is we've already we've already been doing that. The judges already know. The judges are not happy. So what? And then they get overruled, and then they get away.

Mike Todd 13:08

All the judges that have done stuff about this, it's gone to the Supreme Court and it's got turned back on them. So the only thing I can think is that in a civil disobedience action, the plaintiff's lawyers start just avalanching the government with cases until somebody in the government decides they actually have to do something about it. Because our elected officials aren't doing shit about this. They're sitting around and letting it happen. And and that's on both sides.

Karen Koehler 13:38

And you can't do it in the state courts. It would only be federal courts, and the federal courts are already overwhelmed.

Mike Todd 13:44

So when you keep overwhelming more is what I say. Shut the shut them down. Okay, but we make it so nothing happens until somebody actually fucking does something.

Karen Koehler 13:52

But the problem is the courts are the courts are the only thing doing anything. I don't care, Karen.

Mike Todd 13:57

But listen scam them up until somebody actually thinks about something.

Karen Koehler 14:00

But they but that's that plays into Trump. He wants our bits shut down.

Mike Todd 14:04

Let's play let's play their battle. Let's fight them on their level, because that's what we have to do.

Karen Koehler 14:11

I mean, honestly, my some people would say, some people would say that the only thing that can be done is to have a revolution and overthrow the government.

Mike Todd 14:19

That's exactly what's has happened. That's what's gonna have to happen if it continues this way.

Mo Hamoudi 14:22

But I honestly think that like this administration's because when I think about like how many people Obama deported, and more than this administration, how they're doing this, is to make people hate the government. Exactly. I think that their intention is to make people hate the government. But they're not but this this administration that we're a republic. Every four years everybody gets a new we get a new election. Every two years we have an election, and things transition. What they're trying to do is make people lose faith in the government. What what I what what I'm talking about is that I go back and think about like when has something happened that has like disgusted us as a society that the government has done. I go to Abu Ghraib, I go to Guantanamo, and I go back and then I go to you know the Vietnam War. And it was the public airing of facts, okay, which allowed a future government to say never again. And there are changes made. And so there, and there are hearings, and people are held to account. We have to have a public recording of the facts. We have to go to court and let the facts be recorded. Because I don't suspect we're going to get this administration to change its policy. But what we can do is vote, and with the with a new administration come back and say, we want a public vetting of what happened, why it happened, and we want safeguards put into place so it never happens again. The alternative, honestly, is that like if you lose complete faith in the government, then that is how despots and autocrats come into power. This is precisely what people in power want. They want people to lose faith in the process that they have access to. Because then the powerless, the only way they have is to go get, to file lawsuits, to march, to protest. They want to say these things that we give you, they're meaningless. And so, you know, that's, you know, I I Mike, I totally feel what you're saying. It's like frustrating, I, you know, that flip it. I'm done. Well, the feedback.

Mike Todd 16:29

I mean, it's not just that. I I believe that at this point we've got to make drastic changes to the Constitution and our government because we are not protected the way that we always thought that we were. And I think that I think that the public has already lost faith in the government and it's been that way for a while now. And I don't think that I think that if you look at the fact that we've just recently seen the government killing people in the streets, that I only think unless you know there's a major action and it's got to shock the public into thinking about it. Because this isn't the first time this stuff's happened. If you go back to World War II, they took Asian Americans and put them into camps. Now they're doing that again, and people are doing the same thing they did back then, kind of sitting back and letting it happen.

Karen Koehler 17:23

History repeats itself.

Mo Hamoudi 17:26

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 17:27

Okay, well, this is really a depressing subject. There is no good answer, and I think we should end this podcast. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Mike Todd 17:35

Okay.