The ICE agent who reportedly shot Renee Judd was a firearms instructor, according to testimony

According to Ross’ testimony in December, he served in the Indiana National Guard and was deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as a machine gunner on a patrol truck. He joined the Border Patrol in 2007 after finishing college, working near El Paso, Texas.

“I performed regular Border Patrol duties, including line surveillance and tracking operations, and I was also a field intelligence agent,” Ross testified. In this latter role, he testified, Ross “compiled and analyzed information from raw information, created an intelligence product and focused more on cartels and drug smuggling as well as alien smuggling.”

In 2015, according to his affidavit, Ross joined ICE, working in the ERO Division, where he was assigned to target “higher value targets” as a deportation officer in the Twin Cities area. As a member of a joint counterterrorism task force with the FBI, he testified that he was a “team leader” supervising, in a typical operation, two FBI agents and an IRS or ATF agent.

“I develop targets, create a target package, conduct surveillance, and then develop a plan to execute the arrest warrant,” he testified. He also described what he called the “ancillary” duties he performs in addition to deportation work.

“I’m a firearms instructor, an active shooter instructor,” he testified. “I’m also a field intelligence officer, and I’m a member of the SWAT team, St. Paul Special Response Team.”

In his testimony, Ross said he stopped hundreds of cars during his career and generally described people trying to get away. “They are engaging in erratic behavior,” he testified. “They’re taking huge risks, and they don’t seem to be aware that there are other people driving on the road. And they’re usually making extreme stunts with their vehicles.”

Ross claimed in his testimony that after he approached Muñoz-Guatemala, the man asked for his lawyer.

In court, Eric Newmark, who was representing Muñoz-Guatemala, noted that even government lawyers had never heard that assertion before. “I think he just made it up on the stand,” Newmark told the judge. “He never said that before. I think he said that for a certain reason” — allegedly to show that Muñoz Guatemala knew he was being arrested by law enforcement and was not attacked by a masked car thief. The prosecutor in the case admitted that this allegation was a “cause for impeachment” of Ross because he “never said that before – to my knowledge.”

During Newark’s interrogation, Ross testified that people he encounters often “act like they’re confused,” meaning they know he’s a federal agent even if they don’t seem to know it.

“I think it’s – it seems – something that some people just say – to stall,” he testified. “I think people talk on the phone a lot and wait for them to show up, especially in our line of work.

“They have phone trees where they call and then protesters show up.”

Updated at 8:30 a.m. ET, January 9, 2026: Added quote to The Intercept, which identified Ross following the Minnesota Star-Tribune and first reported on a Facebook photo titled “John Ross in Iraq.”