Which Justice Department officials resigned after the Minneapolis ICE shooting and why?

1. Who resigned: names and units

Reporting from multiple outlets identified roughly half a dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota — Reuters and the New York Times named six, and local reporting highlighted Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson among those who left — and several senior supervisors in the Civil Rights Division’s criminal section in Washington gave notice or opted into early‑departure programs, with some accounts saying the unit’s chief, principal deputy chief, deputy chief and acting deputy chief sought to depart ^{[2] [1] [6] [3] [7]}.

2. Why they resigned: disagreement over the investigative approach

Sources close to the departures told reporters the resignations were driven by deep disagreement with Justice Department leadership’s handling of the investigation — specifically the decision not to open a criminal civil‑rights investigation into an unarmed U.S. citizen killed by an ICE officer, the FBI’s decision to run the probe alone and exclude Minnesota state investigators, and pressure from senior DOJ officials to investigate the victim’s widow rather than aggressively scrutinize the shooter ^{[3] [4] [8] [2] [9]}.

3. The widow‑investigation controversy and internal pressure

Multiple outlets reported that a central flashpoint was senior DOJ requests to probe the actions of Renee Good’s widow and activist groups tied to her, a move career prosecutors found objectionable; those sources said prosecutors believed leadership was pushing a narrative that framed the incident as an assault on a federal officer rather than a potential civil‑rights violation, prompting offers from career staff to take over the inquiry that were rebuffed ^{[1] [3] [9] [2]}.

4. DOJ’s response and the counter‑narrative

The department publicly disputed that the departures were a direct protest over the case, saying several employees had sought early retirement well before the shooting and that “any suggestion to the contrary is false,” while other DOJ spokespeople and allies called many reports “fake news,” asserting no one quit because of the incident ^{[5] [10]}. The AP and Reuters reported both the departures and DOJ statements that there was “no basis” at that time for a criminal civil‑rights probe, illustrating the official denial even as multiple outlets continued to cite anonymous career prosecutors and internal sources who described resignations in protest ^{[4] [2]}.

5. Why this matters: institutional norms, politics and the Civil Rights Division

Observers and lawmakers framed the departures as part of a broader exodus of career lawyers uneasy with shifting priorities under the current administration — reporting places the resignations against a backdrop of mass departures and reassignments across the Justice Department since the administration took office, raising questions about political influence over decisions to open civil‑rights investigations and the sidelining of state investigative partners in a high‑profile shooting ^{[6] [7] [3]}. At the same time, the DOJ’s insistence that no staff resigned over the shooting, and that early‑retirement requests predated it, highlights the competing narratives and the limits of available public evidence ^{[5] [10]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of reporting

Public reporting identifies named departures — including Joseph Thompson and as many as six Minnesota federal prosecutors — and links them, according to anonymous sources and multiple news outlets, to frustration with DOJ leadership’s handling of the Minneapolis shooting, especially the refusal to mount a civil‑rights probe and the push to investigate the victim’s widow; the department disputes that characterization and says many departures were planned before the incident, and contemporary reporting does not provide a definitive public paper trail proving protest was the sole or principal cause ^{[1] [2] [5] [4]}.