What evidence has been publicly released about the identity of the ICE agent in the Minneapolis shooting?
Executive summary
Federal authorities have not issued a formal, plain‑spoken press release naming the officer who fired the fatal shots, but multiple court records, agency disclosures and news organizations have publicly pointed to Jonathan E. Ross as the ICE agent involved; those materials include references to a prior June 2025 incident in which an agent identified in court documents as Ross was dragged by a vehicle and later treated for serious injuries [1] [2] [3]. The Department of Homeland Security released short video clips and officials publicly described details that align with those court records, creating a converging — though not universally definitive — public record about the agent’s likely identity [4] [1].
1. Court records and prior case linkage: the core basis for the public identification
Federal court documents from a June 2025 Bloomington arrest identify an agent as Jonathan Ross and describe an incident in which that agent was dragged by a vehicle, producing injuries that required stitches; reporters and outlets say those documents match details the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem referenced when describing the Minneapolis shooting officer’s past injury, which is the primary public evidentiary thread linking Jonathan E. Ross to the Minneapolis shooting [2] [3] [1].
2. Video evidence and descriptive matching: footage used to corroborate identity
DHS and other federal posts circulated short cellphone and body‑cam clips showing the moments before and during the Minneapolis shooting, and reporters note an FBI affidavit included a back‑of‑head photo that matches the haircut and build visible in viral videos of the shooting; outlets such as The Guardian report that those visual and descriptive matches are among the reasons news organizations have named Jonathan E. Ross as the agent in the footage [4] [1].
3. Media reporting and how the name entered the public sphere
Regional and national outlets — including the Minnesota Star Tribune (reported via Wikipedia), CBC, WBUR and several national news sites — published stories identifying Jonathan Ross based on the courtroom records and the matches to DHS statements; tabloid and national outlets also reported family members and neighbors speaking in defense of a man they named Jonathan Ross, amplifying the identification across media ecosystems [5] [3] [2] [6].
4. Federal posture and investigative status: official silence and internal reviews
Despite widespread media reporting, federal officials have not formally released an identification framed as a naming of the officer in a single authoritative statement, and the FBI is conducting an investigation while ICE’s Office of Public Responsibility and internal agency reviews are proceeding; the U.S. Department of Justice has said at points there was “no basis” for a Civil Rights Division probe and at least some federal prosecutors resigned citing concerns about the probe, underscoring that investigative and prosecutorial decisions remain unsettled [7] [8] [9].
5. Competing narratives and the evidentiary limits in public reporting
The DHS and Secretary Noem have publicly described the agent as having been “dragged” in a prior case and framed the shooting as defensive — a line echoed in some reporting — while local officials, eyewitness accounts and Minneapolis leaders dispute that characterization and call for more accountability; reporting that identifies Jonathan Ross rests largely on matching details across court papers, agency statements and video imagery rather than on a single unambiguous official naming, which remains a material limitation in the public record [1] [10] [4].
6. What is not public or remains unresolved
No public source in the corpus reviewed shows an unambiguous, single federal communiqué that says “Jonathan E. Ross — identified and confirmed” in those exact words; no criminal charges have been publicly filed against an officer by that name in connection with the Minneapolis shooting as of the documents reviewed here, and several outlets caution that identifications in the press are based on matching documentary and visual evidence rather than a consolidated official identification [1] [3] [7].