The original still image from the eyewitness video shows the masked ICE officer who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good (left). Users on social media used Grok to “unmask” the agent (right). Experts have warned that AI cannot “unmask” individuals. NPR is publishing both images to demonstrate how AI is used to manipulate images of news events.
Screenshot: NPR/Image: Courtney Theophin/NPR
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Screenshot: NPR/Image: Courtney Theophin/NPR
Hours after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed in Minneapolis, images of an ICE officer opening fire began circulating.
A witness' video of the incident showed the agent wearing a mask, but he appeared to be unmasked in many social media posts. This image appears to have been generated by Grok, xAI's generative AI chatbot, in response to a user on X requesting the bot to “unmask” an agent.
NPR is publishing both images to show how AI is being used to manipulate real evidence in news events, but experts say it's unwise to use AI to try to “unmask” someone.
“AI-based corrections tend to make facial details look like hallucinations, and can produce corrected images that may be visually clear but lack realism when it comes to biometrics,” Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in digital image analysis, wrote in an email to NPR.
Nevertheless, the AI-generated image started circulating late Wednesday with the name Steve Grove. The origin of the name was not immediately clear, but by Thursday morning it had led to at least two outbursts of anger against Steve Grove, who had no connection to the shooting.
Statement from the Minnesota Star Tribune: We are currently monitoring a coordinated online disinformation campaign that falsely identified the ICE agents involved in yesterday's shooting. To be clear, there is no known relationship between ICE agents and the Star Tribune. we encourage…
— Minnesota Star Tribune (@StarTribune) January 8, 2026
One was a gun store owner in Springfield, Missouri, named Stephen Grove. Grove woke up to find his Facebook page under attack. “I'm never called 'Steve',” Stephen Grove said. springfield daily citizen. “And of course I'm not in Minnesota, I don't work for ICE and, you know, I have 20 inches of hair on my head, but that aside.”
The second generation Steve Grove is Minnesota Star Tribune. The newspaper said in a statement that it was monitoring activity that appeared to be a “coordinated online disinformation campaign.”
“We encourage anyone looking for factual information reported and written by trained journalists, not bots, to follow and subscribe. Minnesota Star Tribune” the paper wrote.
on the other hand, star tribune Other news outlets, including NPR, identified the ICE agent's name as Jonathan Ross. According to court documents, Ross was dragged by a car during another traffic stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, last June.
