FBI Agent’s Sworn Testimony Contradicts Claims ICE’s Jonathan Ross Made Under Oath

In testimony last month in federal court in Minnesota, FBI special agent Bernardo Medellin appeared to directly contradict a claim that ICE agent Jonathan Ross made under oath about whether a man they were trying to detain had asked to speak to his attorney.

Medellin’s testimony, which details federal training for interactions with drivers, also calls into question whether Ross followed his training during the interaction that led to the shooting and killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, last week. Ross has been identified by multiple media outlets as the shooter; while the Trump administration has declined to confirm those reports, details about the shooter shared by Vice President JD Vance match details of Ross’ biography.

As WIRED previously reported, in December Ross testified that last June he led a team seeking to apprehend a man named Roberto Carlos Muñoz-Guatemala, who had an administrative warrant out for being in the US without authorization. According to his testimony, after following Muñoz-Guatemala in an unmarked car, Ross—who was wearing ranger green and gray and had his badge on his belt—approached the man and asked him to roll down his window and open his door. He then broke the rear driver side window with a special tool and reached into the vehicle. Muñoz-Guatemala accelerated, eventually shaking Ross, who’d fired his Taser at him with the vehicle in motion. Ross testified that he needed 33 stitches due to his injuries; Muñoz-Guatemala was later convicted of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

At trial, prosecutors sought to establish that Muñoz-Guatemala understood that Ross was a federal law enforcement officer during their initial interaction. Ross testified that he repeatedly told Muñoz-Guatemala that he was law enforcement in both English and Spanish, and that he had “no concerns” Muñoz-Guatemala didn’t speak English because he replied to Ross in English.

“When you say, ‘replied back in English,’” asked assistant US attorney Raphael Coburn, “what do you mean?”

“He would—he would reply back he wants his attorney, I believe he said,” responded Ross.

During the trial, this became a point of contention because it had not come up during pretrial interviews, and was thus a surprise to both Muñoz-Guatemala’s attorney, Eric Newmark, and to US prosecutors.

“I was, frankly, quite shocked that he said it,” Newmark told district court judge Jeffrey Bryan. “It was not in any of his previous statements, and it’s my understanding he never—the government was as surprised as I was that he said it.” Newmark went on to explain that Ross’ claim pertained to whether his client “believed he was talking to law enforcement or someone who was trying to do him harm,” and that he intended to cross-examine Ross on the fact that Muñoz-Guatemala’s purported request for a lawyer had come up neither during an interview Ross gave the FBI nor during pretrial preparation—something neither Bryan nor Coburn, the government lawyer, objected to. Under questioning from Newmark, Ross conceded it was “fair to say” he had not previously made this claim.

The question came up again as Newmark cross-examined Medellin, an FBI special agent who took part in the operation under Ross’ leadership. Medellin testified that Muñoz-Guatemala—whose English he described as limited, and for whom the court provided an interpreter during the two-day trial—had asked Ross repeatedly who he was.

“You never heard Mr. Muñoz-Guatemala ask for an attorney, did you?” asked Newmark.

“No,” said Medellin, who affirmed that he had overheard most or all of the conversation, and said again that he had never heard Muñoz-Guatemala ask for a lawyer.

In response to a WIRED question about his opinion of the credibility of Ross’ testimony, Newmark said: “I’m not commenting about this case as it is still pending, but I think you can tell by my questioning of him and others what I thought about that.”

In response to a request for comment, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “You’re referring to the case with the child sexual predator?” (Muñoz-Guatemala pleaded guilty in 2023 to criminal sexual conduct with a victim who “was at least 16 but under 18 years of age at the time of the sexual contact,” according to Minnesota court records.) The FBI declined to comment.

Since Good’s killing, experts speaking to outlets like CNN and The Washington Post have raised questions about whether Ross was following his training, as McLaughlin has repeatedly said he was while defending his actions. Further testimony from Medellin raises questions about whether Ross complied specifically with FBI training about interactions with drivers during his confrontations with both Muñoz-Guatemala and Good. This training would have been relevant to Ross, who, Medellin testified, “works as an FBI task force officer in the Minneapolis Field Office.”

“Typically, when we conduct traffic stops, it’s in a supportive role. So if a local marked unit or a federal partner is executing a traffic stop, we typically find ourselves near the rear of the vehicle,” Medellin testified. “If we are to have agents near the front of the vehicle or near the driver’s side door, passenger side door, we train to place ourselves in a position where we minimize the chance that we will be hit by the vehicle or run over by the vehicle or potentially taken away by the vehicle if it decides to—to leave or flee.”

While agents placing themselves near the front of a vehicle seems to run counter to FBI training, a 2013 independent review of Customs and Border Protection’s use-of-force policies, as well as more than a dozen cases in which shots were fired at vehicles, reportedly found an apparent pattern of Border Patrol agents intentionally staking out ground in front of vehicles to justify the use of deadly force. Of the cases reviewed, the independent agency found that most cases “involved non-violent suspects who posed no threat other than a moving vehicle,” and concluded that “there is little doubt that the safest course for an agent faced with an oncoming vehicle is to get out of the way of the vehicle.”

Ross testified that he was a member of Border Patrol from 2007 to 2015. According to his own sworn testimony in December, Ross has also acted as a firearms instructor for ICE, as well as a member of a Special Response Team—ICE’s version of a SWAT team—and a leader of teams drawn from multiple federal agencies including the FBI.

According to Medellin’s December testimony, the plan, which was originated by Ross as team lead, was to just interview Muñoz-Guatemala; but because Ross exited his vehicle and soon drew his gun, Medellin told the court that he, too, unholstered his weapon to “provide coverage with lethal force.” The incident escalated as soon as Ross approached the vehicle, Medellin testified, because he believed Ross “had seen something that made him very uncomfortable and I wanted to be in a good position to support him.” Ross ultimately approached to break the window and got his arm stuck between the car’s B pillar and the headrest.

Medellin further testified that during the initial stop, his foot had been placed on the driver’s-side tire.

“It’s an early indicator, a touch point, so to speak. If—if a vehicle is going to flee or to leave, the tires might turn before the vehicle actually starts moving,” Medellin said. “So if the tires start moving, somebody in that position with their foot up against the tire would feel it immediately.”

Even before the release of first-person footage of the killing of Good showed her turning the wheel of her vehicle away from immigration agents immediately before she was shot, video analyses by The New York Times and The Washington Post showed that her wheels were turning away from, not toward, Ross—who does not appear in any footage to maintain contact between his foot and her tires. In the video footage, Ross appears to stand directly in front of the car, parallel to the car’s hood.