Top prosecutors in D.C., Minneapolis leave amid turmoil over shooting probe [View all]
Prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office left after pressure to investigate the widow of a woman slain by an ICE officer.
Top prosecutors in D.C., Minneapolis leave amid turmoil over shooting probeâ©Prosecutors in the U.S. attorneyâs office left after pressure to investigate the widow of a woman slain by an ICE officer. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
— Jersey Craig (@jerseycraig.bsky.social) 2026-01-13T20:59:41.970Z
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/13/justice-department-civil-rights-resignations/
Multiple senior prosecutors in Washington and Minnesota are leaving their jobs amid turmoil over the Trump administrations handling of the shooting death of a Minneapolis woman.
The departures include at least five prosecutors from the U.S. attorneys office in Minneapolis, including the offices second-in-command, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the matter.
Their resignations followed demands by Justice Department leaders to investigate the widow of Renée Good, the 37-year-old woman killed last week by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot into her car, according to two people familiar with the resignations who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for retaliation. Goods wife was protesting ICE officers in the moments before the shooting. Prosecutors also were dismayed over the decision by federal officials to exclude state and local authorities from the investigation, one of the people said.
Five senior prosecutors in the criminal section of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division also said they are leaving, according to four people familiar with the personnel moves who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
The departures strip both the Civil Rights Divisions criminal section and U.S. attorneys office in Minnesota of their most experienced prosecutors. The moves are widely seen as a major vote of no-confidence by career prosecutors at a moment when the department is under extreme scrutiny......
This exodus is a huge blow signaling the disrespect and sidelining of the finest and most experienced civil rights prosecutors, said Vanita Gupta, the head of the division during the Obama administration and the associate attorney general during the Biden administration. It means cases wont be brought, unique expertise will be lost and the top career attorneys who may be a backstop to some of the worst impulses of this administration will have left.