Billionaire Bill Ackman has given $10,000 to the US federal immigration agent (ICE) who fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week, amid nationwide protests against the officer’s actions.
In footage from bystanders on 7 January, ICE agent Jonathan Ross can be seen shooting Good three times in the face, seconds after she tells him ‘I’m not mad at you’ and attempts to maneuver her vehicle away from the area. The video footage also captures a man’s voice saying ‘Fucking bitch’ after she was mortally wounded.
The US Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that the footage is authentic, saying “the American people can watch this video with their own eyes and ears and judge for themselves.”
In response to the distressing event, the Trump administration is claiming that Good was using her vehicle as a weapon and that the ICE agent Ross was in fear for his life.
Meanwhile, mass protests have erupted across the US arguing that the shooting was unjustified and calling for an end to ICE’s actions towards carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation initiative.
Local city residents are resisting ICE in the thousands, saying the masked agents are kidnapping civilians and causing unprecedented fear in their communities.
Notably, the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, told ICE to “get the fuck out of” the city.
Following the shooting of Good, fundraising pages were opened for both Good and the ICE agent who shot her.
Donations to Good’s family reached up to $1.5 million in two days, before the GoFundMe page was taken down, with her family thanking the generosity of people and directing further support to go to others in need.
For Ross, an unverified GoFundMe page was set up as well, raising more than $630,000 in four days, with the page claiming Ross was “1000 percent justified in the shooting”. Critics are calling for the page to be deleted, saying it’s a direct violation of the company’s terms of service, which prohibits raising money for the defense of someone accused of a violent crime, including murder.
However, Ross has received an even greater donation from Billionaire Ackman, an endorser of Trump in the 2024 election, who gave the ICE agent $10,000. Ackman has said he supported Ross because he is a “big believer in our legal principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.”
The billionaire American hedge fund manager also said he intended to support the fundraising page for Good’s family but that it was closed by the time he went to make the donation.
Responding to criticism of his donation to Ross, Ackman wrote on X: “The whole situation is a tragedy. An officer doing his best to do his job, and a protester who likely did not intend to kill the officer but whose actions in a split second led to her death.”
Among the criticism that Ackman’s response received, one commenter (Noah Dahl) pointed out that the anonymous organiser of Ross’s GoFundMe page had written numerous expletives about Good, saying she “got what she deserved”.
The comment asks Ackman: “Are these the principles you mean?”