How the Minnesota ICE shooting compares to a Milwaukee police shooting that led to charges against the officer

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- These days, there is nothing at the intersection of N. 44th St. and W. Auer Ave. that would indicate this was the site of a deadly police shooting that sparked two nights of rioting. The 2016 shooting of Sylville Smith has similarities to the deadly shooting this week of a woman in Minnesota, who was killed by an ICE agent as she tried to flee in an SUV.

As the shooting death of Renee Good as gotten national attention, those calling for charges against the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, have noted cell phone and surveillance video appears to show the second and third shots Ross fired came from the side of Good's SUV, when he was no longer in her path.

The first shot appeared to come after Good struck Ross when she pulled away after another agent yelled for her to get out of the car.

The 2017 trial of Dominque Heaggan-Brown hinged on whether a jury would agree the former Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) officer's first shot was justifiable, but a second shot was not.

Heaggan-Brown shot and killed Smith during a short foot chase after Smith ran from a traffic stop. Body camera footage showed Smith drop a gun and reach to pick it up. At that moment, Heaggan-Brown fired a shot. Smith then threw the gun over a fence as Heaggan-Brown fired again in a downward motion, fatally wounding Smith.

Then-District Attorney John Chisholm charged Heaggan-Brown with First-Degree Reckless Homicide. During the trial, Chisholm argued the second shot was completely unjustified.

"This isn't a self-defense case, ladies and gentlemen. This is an excessive force case," Chisholm said at closing arguments. "He had all the information he needed to make the right decision at the right time, and he made the wrong decision."

The officer's lawyers, including Jonathan Smith, argued it was unreasonable to expect an officer to decide in a span of 1.7 seconds that he was no longer facing a threat.

"You can dissect it, but this didn't happen on pause," Jonathan Smith said during closing arguments. "This didn't happen on rewind. This didn't happen on still shot."

The jury acquitted Heaggan-Brown of the initial charge, and also found him not guilty of lesser charges, including Homicide by Negligent Use of a Dangerous Weapon.

Jonathan Smith sat down with CBS 58 Friday, where he discussed both the similarities and differences between the 2016 Milwaukee shooting and this week's ICE shooting in Minneapolis.

He said if Ross were to be charged in connection to the shooting, he'd have a defense similar to Heaggan-Brown's; that a fast-moving situation involving someone not following orders caused him to fear for his safety.

"It was a very quick moment in time," Smith said. "And from what I have seen, video from the Minnesota situation is that it, too, is a rapidly unfolding timeframe here."

Jonathan Smith said one factor working against Ross in a possible trial is Good was not the reason for law enforcement's presence.

While Sylville Smith was involved in a traffic stop, the attorney said the reasonable threat level would be considerably lower when approaching someone who wasn't the reason officers were responding.

"It was a person that wasn't, at least to my understanding, any sort of initial target of anything," Smith said. "Person's a U.S. citizen, person's a mother."

Thus far, Minnesota investigators say federal authorities haven't given them access to evidence related to Good's shooting. The FBI is currently investigating the case.

Jonathan Smith said another key difference between the Minnesota shooting and the Heaggan-Brown trial is Ross has federal immunity, creating a higher standard Minnesota authorities would have to meet in order to charge him with a state-level offense.

"It's gonna come down to a lot about, 'Is that a legitimate law enforcement function they were engaged in?'"

Because of federal immunity, Smith said Ross could only face state charges if Minnesota investigators are able to prove he wasn't acting in a legitimate federal capacity at the time of the shooting. He added that argument alone could play out in court for years.

CBS 58 also contacted Chisholm for this story, but he did not respond to an interview request.