When Federal Agents Kill Citizens, These Laws Determine Accountability

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On January 7, 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross fired three shots in less than one second at Renée Nicole Good as she sat in her SUV on a Minneapolis street.

Seventeen days later, ICE officers pepper-sprayed Alex Jeffrey Pretti in the face, forced the 37-year-old intensive care nurse to the ground, and—while multiple officers held him down on the pavement—shot him multiple times at close range. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled it a homicide.

Both families now face a legal reality: the laws governing accountability when federal officers kill citizens are dramatically weaker than those covering state and local police.

Where families of people killed by city police can sue under Section 1983, a law passed after the Civil War, families of people killed by federal officers must work through a legal rule created by judges that has been increasingly restricted by the Supreme Court. Where state prosecutors can bring criminal charges against local officers, state prosecutors seeking to charge federal officers must overcome a federal law rule that shields federal officials from state prosecution.

The result is a two-tiered system of accountability. The families of Renée Good and Alex Pretti are about to discover how wide that gap has become.

Civil Lawsuits Against Federal Officers

For victims of state and local police, the path to accountability runs through Section 1983, a law passed after the Civil War that lets citizens sue government officials who violate their constitutional rights.

For victims of federal officers, the equivalent is a doctrine called Bivens. The Court extended Bivens to cover certain violations like forcing confessions or using excessive punishment. Federal officers faced real consequences for serious misconduct.

Starting in the 1980s and accelerating dramatically in recent years, the Supreme Court began treating Bivens not as a general remedy for constitutional violations but as a narrow exception that should rarely if ever expand.

The 2022 decision in Egbert v. Boule rejected a claim that federal officers used excessive force, violating constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, against a Border Patrol agent shooting someone near the border. The Court held that it involved different circumstances than previous cases despite involving the same constitutional amendment as the original Bivens case. If your case differs in any meaningful way from cases the Supreme Court has already decided, you probably can’t sue.

Both Good and Pretti cases involve claims that federal officers used excessive force, violating constitutional protections against unreasonable searches—the core of the original Bivens doctrine—but occurred during operations to enforce immigration law. The Supreme Court has shown particular reluctance to allow Bivens claims in immigration contexts. In Hernandez v. Mesa, the Court rejected a Bivens claim for a Border Patrol agent shooting someone near the border, citing national security and foreign affairs concerns.

Good and Pretti were killed on U.S. soil, not at the border. But the Trump administration has characterized Operation Metro Surge as a matter of national security—a framing designed to invoke the special reasons that courts use to dismiss Bivens claims.

Qualified Immunity: The Second Barrier

Assume a Bivens claim survives the “new context” challenge. The agent can still invoke qualified immunity—a doctrine that shields government officials unless they violated a rule that prior court cases had already clearly defined.

In theory, qualified immunity protects officials who make reasonable mistakes about what the law requires. In practice, it shields all but the most egregious misconduct.

To overcome qualified immunity, plaintiffs must identify a prior court decision holding that substantially similar conduct was unconstitutional. Nearly identical—not similar, but nearly identical.

The doctrine creates an impossible situation. If no prior case has addressed virtually identical facts, qualified immunity applies—even if the conduct was obviously unconstitutional. But if qualified immunity always applies to novel fact patterns, how does clearly established law ever develop?

For Agent Ross, who shot Renée Good, courts would ask whether prior cases clearly said officers cannot shoot at a departing vehicle when the officer is not in its path. For the officers who shot Alex Pretti while he was pinned to the ground by other officers, the analysis might examine whether prior cases clearly established that officers cannot shoot a restrained suspect who poses no threat.

Qualified immunity doesn’t ask whether the conduct was constitutional. It asks whether prior cases clearly established it was unconstitutional in substantially similar circumstances. “Substantially similar” has come to mean “nearly identical.”

The Federal Tort Claims Act

When Bivens claims face insurmountable obstacles, some families turn to the Federal Tort Claims Act. Enacted in 1946, the FTCA allows people injured by federal employees to sue the United States government directly—not the individual officer, but the government itself.

FTCA claims require filing an administrative claim with the agency before you can sue. That process can take months or years. The agency investigates itself, decides whether to pay, and only after it denies your claim (or six months pass without a decision) can you file a lawsuit.

The FTCA has many exceptions that protect the government. One exception protects the government when officials make judgment calls about enforcement. Courts have interpreted this exception broadly. If the government can characterize the agent’s decision to shoot as involving discretionary judgment about when to use force—rather than a simple failure to follow clear rules—the exception might apply.

FTCA claims are decided by judges, not juries. There are no punitive damages to punish wrongdoing. Damage caps can limit recovery in certain cases.

For the Good and Pretti families, the Trump administration controls the agencies that will investigate the administrative claims.

State Criminal Prosecution

Minneapolis prosecutors have expressed intentions to investigate both killings. The question is whether they can.

States can prosecute federal officials for crimes committed in their official capacity—but only when the official acted in a way no reasonable officer would, or exceeded their authority. This principle comes from an 1890 case that established a rule now called Supremacy Clause immunity. Federal officials are protected from state prosecution when they act reasonably within the scope of their federal duties. When they don’t—when they act unreasonably, violate federal law, or exceed their authority—states can prosecute.

The modern application came in Idaho v. Horiuchi. The Ninth Circuit held that Supremacy Clause immunity doesn’t protect officers in all cases—it only protects those who acted reasonably within the scope of their federal authority. Where facts are disputed about whether the agent’s conduct was reasonable, the case must go to trial for a jury to decide.

Neither case involves conduct that appears objectively reasonable under standard use-of-force principles, which permit deadly force only when an officer faces imminent danger of death or serious physical injury.

But federal law lets federal officials move state criminal cases to federal court if the case relates to their federal job and they claim a federal law defense. Once in federal court, a federal judge—not a state judge—decides whether Supremacy Clause immunity applies.

The Trump administration has blocked Minnesota authorities from accessing evidence. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension withdrew from the Good investigation after being denied access to the scene. Federal officials have prevented state investigators from examining locations and gathering witness statements. The federal government appealed a state court order granting limited access to evidence in the Pretti case.

You can’t prosecute what you can’t investigate. You can’t investigate what the federal government won’t let you see.

Legal Standards for Use of Force

Federal rules say immigration officers can only use deadly force when they reasonably believe it’s necessary to protect themselves or others from “imminent danger of death or serious physical injury.” This matches the Supreme Court’s rule from Graham v. Connor. Courts must decide if a reasonable officer in that situation would have done the same thing.

Renée Good was in a vehicle when Agent Ross fired. Ross later claimed he feared being struck by her vehicle.

The government’s defense has focused on Ross’s history: he was injured in June 2025 when a driver accelerated while he was attempting an arrest, dragging him approximately 50 yards. Homeland Security Secretary Noem and Vice President J.D. Vance have cited this incident as context for why Ross might have reasonably feared being struck by a vehicle.

But use-of-force law doesn’t ask what an officer personally feared. What matters is whether a reasonable officer would have felt threatened.

Alex Pretti’s case is clearer. He was on the ground. Multiple officers were restraining him. An agent shot him anyway. There is no legal rule, no court decision, no training protocol that permits shooting a restrained suspect who poses no threat.

The legal standards are clear. The facts appear straightforward. What’s missing is a legal mechanism that can hold the officers accountable.

Operation Metro Surge

These killings occurred during Operation Metro Surge, which deployed approximately 2,000 ICE officers and 1,000 CBP officers to Minnesota.

The operation was so large it created immediate problems. Schools transitioned to remote learning because of ICE activity in their neighborhoods. Businesses closed in protest. Thousands participated in general strikes. Federal officers violated at least 96 court orders in one month, according to Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who noted that ICE had “likely violated more court orders in January [2026] than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

A federal agency violated 96 court orders in one month. Not recommendations. Not guidelines. Court orders—the mechanism by which judges enforce the law and protect constitutional rights.

When judges found these violations, the government appealed. Continued the conduct. In some cases, threatened to defy further orders.

This is what accountability failure looks like at scale. Not individual officers escaping consequences for individual shootings, but an entire operation conducted with apparent disregard for judicial oversight, resulting in two citizen deaths and thousands of arrests, with minimal meaningful constraint.

Minnesota, Minneapolis, and Saint Paul filed a federal lawsuit on January 12, 2026, arguing that Operation Metro Surge violated the Constitution by taking police powers that belong to states, violating the First Amendment by targeting the state because of how its residents vote, and violating other constitutional provisions. They sought a court order to stop the operation immediately while the case was being decided.

On January 31—nearly three weeks later, after two citizens had been killed and over 3,000 people arrested—a federal judge denied the request, saying he couldn’t tell which side had the better argument.

Accountability for Federal Officers vs. State and Local Police

When state or local officers kill someone, families have options. They can sue in federal court under Section 1983. They can sue in state court under state tort law. State prosecutors can bring criminal charges. Local prosecutors answer to local voters. Police departments face political pressure from city councils and mayors who face reelection.

Federal officers face a different situation. Bivens claims are increasingly difficult to bring and easy to dismiss. The FTCA is slow and narrow. State criminal prosecution requires overcoming Supremacy Clause immunity and federal court removal. Federal prosecutors answer to the President, not local voters. Federal agencies are largely insulated from local political pressure.

Federal officers face much weaker accountability than state and local police. According to investigation by The Trace, ICE officers were responsible for at least 59 shootings from 2015 to 2021, including 23 fatal shootings. The number of cases in which officers faced prosecution or serious discipline appears dramatically lower than comparable figures for state and local police—though data is difficult to obtain because federal agencies don’t consistently report use-of-force incidents.

Local police must report use-of-force data to the FBI, but federal agencies don’t have to. What is reported is often incomplete or difficult to access.

Congressional Reform Efforts

Congressman Hank Johnson and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse have reintroduced the Bivens Act of 2025, legislation that would restore the right to sue federal officials for constitutional violations without the restrictive framework the Supreme Court has imposed. The bill would allow citizens to recover damages against federal officials—including immigration officers—in the same way Section 1983 allows suits against state and local officials.

The Project On Government Oversight noted that the legislation would ensure that people can’t violate constitutional rights without facing consequences.

It has no realistic chance of passage in the current Congress.

Republican legislators and judges have opposed making it easier to sue federal officers, arguing that the threat of lawsuits discourages officers from doing their jobs aggressively. The Trump administration views expanded accountability mechanisms as a threat to its immigration enforcement agenda. Vice President J.D. Vance claimed that Agent Ross cannot be sued for conduct taken in the course of federal law enforcement—a statement that misstates the law but shows what the administration believes.

What Happens Next

The families of Renée Good and Alex Pretti will likely pursue civil claims—Bivens, FTCA, or both. Those claims will face the obstacles described above. They may settle, probably with non-disclosure agreements that prevent public disclosure of what the government found or admitted. Or they may be dismissed on qualified immunity or special factors grounds before reaching a jury.

Minnesota prosecutors may attempt criminal charges. Those charges will likely be moved to federal court, where federal judges will decide whether the officers are protected from state prosecution. The government will argue that the officers acted reasonably in the course of federal operations. Prosecutors will argue that shooting a departing vehicle and shooting a restrained suspect cannot be reasonable under any circumstances. The outcome will depend entirely on which federal judge hears the case and how that judge weighs the competing interests of state sovereignty and federal law enforcement.

Federal criminal prosecution appears unlikely. The Trump administration has defended the officers and characterized the shootings as justified. No federal prosecutor has announced an investigation into the officers’ conduct.

Operation Metro Surge has largely ended. The Trump administration announced in early February that it would withdraw 700 officers, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stated that the operation was expected to conclude within days. The operation achieved its goals: thousands of arrests and a show of federal force.

Two U.S. citizens are dead. The officers who killed them remain on duty. The legal framework that was supposed to provide accountability has revealed itself to be largely useless.

The Broader Problem

The Good and Pretti killings expose a fundamental asymmetry in American law. When state police kill citizens, multiple accountability mechanisms exist—imperfect, often inadequate, but present. When federal officers kill citizens, those mechanisms largely disappear, replaced by doctrines that favor the government at nearly every turn.

The Supreme Court has made it harder to sue federal officers, so they increasingly operate without real risk of being sued for constitutional violations. The way courts apply qualified immunity means that even terrible misconduct often goes unpunished if no prior case involved nearly identical circumstances. The FTCA’s exceptions and procedures mean that suing the government is slow, difficult, and often unsuccessful. Clarifying when federal officers are protected from state prosecution means that state prosecutors face significant obstacles when attempting to hold federal officers criminally accountable.

The cumulative effect is a system that provides federal officers with greater practical immunity than state and local officers, despite the fact that federal officers lack the local political accountability and community oversight that constrain local police.

Congress could fix this. The Bivens Act would restore meaningful civil remedies. Legislation eliminating or reforming qualified immunity would remove the “clearly established law” barrier that shields obvious misconduct. Reforms to the FTCA could streamline the process and eliminate some exceptions. Clarifying when federal officers are protected from state prosecution could help state prosecutors hold federal officers accountable when they exceed their authority.

But Congress hasn’t acted. Given current political dynamics, it probably won’t.

The accountability framework that failed Renée Good and Alex Pretti will remain in place, ready to fail the next victims of federal law enforcement misconduct. The laws that determine accountability when federal officers kill citizens aren’t working. The people with the power to change them have shown little interest in doing so.

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