Floyd Lawyer Takes on Renee Good Case: ‘This Fight Ain’t Over’

Antonio Romanucci’s return to Minneapolis in January evoked, he said, a strong sense of déjà vu.

“Feeling the tension and the city being on edge, for me, it was bone-chilling,” he said. “And part of me was very sad, but I also knew that, okay, this fight ain’t over. We have to keep doing it.”

Nearly six years after the prolific Chicago-based attorney joined the team representing George Floyd’s family, his firm Romanucci & Blandin signed on to another Twin Cities matter with extraordinarily high stakes: representing the family of Renee Good. Her Jan. 7 killing by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was a prelude to mass protests and another fatal shooting by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis—this time of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse—and escalating calls for reform or abolition of ICE.

“We thought that Renee’s killing—wholly unnecessary, wholly needless, senseless—would have been a moment where there would have been some sensibility returned to this exaggerated, violent immigration enforcement,” Romanucci said. “And when we saw what happened to Alex Pretti, I mean, it certainly was another watershed moment, one that never should have happened.”

The air in Minneapolis recalled the stressful atmosphere after Floyd’s killing, Romanucci told Bloomberg Law, and the legal strategy in representing Good’s family requires the same agility he brought to that matter.

When embarking on that case, he said, he told his colleagues “there is no playbook here. Throw it out.”

“The same edict went out to this legal team,” he said. “We are going to be creative. We will make sure that we leave no stone uncovered.”

‘Breaking of the Dam’

There are significant differences between the cases. Floyd was killed by a local police officer, meaning his family had an open path to file civil-rights claims. State and local officials also were largely sympathetic to the Floyd family’s efforts, Romanucci said. The family’s civil suit against the city of Minneapolis settled before trial for $27 million.

But suing a federal law enforcement officer is notoriously difficult, and Good’s family will be up against the Trump administration, which quickly moved to paint Good as an agitator and, reportedly, try to launch an investigation into her partner.

There is “currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into Good’s killing, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Jan. 29 to Bloomberg Law.

Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a lengthy statement held firm that the agent fired in self-defense after Good “weaponized her vehicle in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to federal law enforcement.”

There are signs the administration is changing its overall tactics after the uproar that followed Pretti’s killing. The Department of Justice said Jan. 30 it would launch a civil-rights probe into Pretti’s death. But Romanucci said Jan. 27 he’s gotten no signal it might be reconsidering its approach in the Good matter.

“Renee’s case was the breaking of the dam,” he said. “And now Alex’s case is the waterfall. So they are dealing with the waterfall right now, and not so much with the dam breaching. So I think they are so concerned with the blowback from Alex that they haven’t refocused their attention yet on Renee’s case.”

Tort Claims

The firm is preparing for proceedings under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the mechanism by which plaintiffs can proceed against federal agencies for various harms.

The procedure presents significant bureaucratic hurdles. Before a lawsuit can be filed, a claimant must complete paperwork that Romanucci said looks much like an insurance claim form. The government has six months to either accept the claim, at which point settlement talks can begin, or reject it, at which point the claimant can file a federal lawsuit.

There’s no right to a jury trial under the statute, meaning any case would be decided by a district court judge. And once there, it would look much more like a personal-injury suit than a civil-rights case, Romanucci said.

The team isn’t ruling out a potential claim against Good’s shooter himself, Romanucci said, but acknowledged such cases are typically very challenging.

The US Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Bivens said private citizens can seek monetary damages against federal officers for violating their Fourth Amendment rights. But that’s been interpreted quite narrowly, and two justices have called for Bivens to be overturned.

Meanwhile, the firm’s investigation is proceeding. Romanucci & Blandin has been unusually transparent, publicizing their letter to federal agencies demanding preservation of evidence as well as releasing preliminary conclusions from an independent autopsy that, he says, supports their contention Good was shot while moving away from the agent who fired.

The agencies haven’t responded to the preservation request except to acknowledge receipt, Romanucci said. The letter was “beefy,” and written with a particular eye toward the vehicle Good was driving when she was shot. It was taken from the scene on a flatbed truck, he said, which spurs concerns about the integrity of the evidence.

A Department of Justice spokesperson didn’t answer questions seeking to confirm their response to the preservation letter.

The FTCA claims process, by its nature, delays their ability to get in front of a judge, Romanucci said, and in a more typical case against a state or local actor they’d likely be able to access the car more quickly.

Federal officials’ initial response to Pretti’s killing—taking control of the scene such that Minnesota authorities went to court aiming to preserve evidence—heightens Romanucci’s concerns.

“The concerns are raised,” he said. “Now, if they want to risk spoliation, let them. Go ahead and let that evidence be spoiled in any way, shape or form, and then we’ll deal with it. But they’re on notice.”