Four top DOJ civil rights leaders walk out in mass resignation after Trump shuts down fatal ICE shooting probe

Four top leaders of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division have officially walked off the job, registering their protest over the administration’s refusal to investigate a fatal shooting involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. This mass departure includes the chief of the criminal section, along with the principal deputy chief, a deputy chief, and the acting deputy chief. Losing four high-level supervisors all at once is a huge deal, and it really shows the depth of frustration within the department.

This is actually the most significant mass resignation the Justice Department has seen since February. Back then, five leaders from the Public Integrity Section resigned rather than comply with an order from a President Trump appointee to dismiss a bribery case against then-New York mayor Eric Adams. Clearly, there’s a pattern here where career officials are choosing to leave rather than align with the current administration’s priorities on sensitive legal matters, per MS Now.

The recent catalyst for this serious walkout was the fatal shooting of a motorist named Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7. The criminal section of the Civil Rights Division is supposed to specialize in probing alleged abuse or improper use of force by law enforcement, and it would normally investigate any fatal shooting by an officer. However, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon reportedly decided the office would not conduct a separate DOJ investigation into whether the ICE officer improperly used deadly force against Good.

It’s almost as if they didn’t want to persecute their own

The situation surrounding the shooting has already been incredibly fraught. Vice President JD Vance defended the ICE officer just one day after Good’s death, even though no investigation had been completed yet, saying the shooting was justified. President Trump even made claims that Good had “run over” the ICE officer, but video evidence actually contradicts that statement, showing her wheels were turned away from the officer when he opened fire.

This is awful for the integrity of the investigative process. Democrats have already accused the Trump administration of trying to seize the evidence as part of what they are calling a cover-up. The FBI announced on January 10 that it would be handling the investigation on its own, blocking Minnesota authorities from their typical role in reviewing evidence and investigating the incident themselves.

In response to the shooting and the subsequent expansion of immigration enforcement announced by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul filed a lawsuit this week attempting to block the administration’s enforcement actions there.

As one former head of the division, Kristen Clarke, pointed out, investigating officials to determine if they broke the law or failed to de-escalate is one of the division’s most solemn duties. She noted, “Prosecutors of the Civil Rights Division have, for decades, been the nation’s leading experts in this work.”

The Justice Department did push back on the resignations, with one official claiming that the departing leaders had actually requested early retirement prior to the Minnesota shooting, adding that “any suggestion to the contrary is false.”