Who Was Renee Nicole Good? What We Know About the Woman Killed by ICE
By now, a lot of us have seen the video. It is the kind of clip that sticks in your throat because it looks like something you cannot unsee. But the person at the center of it was not a headline first. She was a neighbour. A mom. A writer. A whole life. Renee Nicole Good, 37, died after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot her during a federal operation in south Minneapolis on Wednesday, January 7.
The woman killed by ICE had a life before the video
Good described herself on Instagram as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado; experiencing Minneapolis, MN.”
Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Star Tribune her daughter lived in the Twin Cities with her partner, and the family learned about the death late Wednesday morning. “She was probably terrified,” Ganger said.
Ganger also pushed back on the idea that her daughter belonged to a protest movement challenging ICE. “Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” she said. “She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving, and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”
What happened in Minneapolis, according to the video and witnesses
Details are still coming in, and officials continue to dispute the key moments. But multiple outlets have described the same basic sequence: agents approached Good’s vehicle, an officer tried to open the driver’s side door, and an agent fired as the vehicle began to move, according to Reuters and the Associated Press.
Mitú reported that witnesses said alarms sounded in the neighbourhood to alert residents about ICE’s presence. The same piece described a video showing a dark red SUV in the street as officers approached, before an officer shot Good.
Why officials keep arguing about the woman killed by ICE
Federal officials have framed the shooting as self-defence. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has claimed Good tried to “weaponise her vehicle” and described the incident as “domestic terrorism.”
Local leaders and witnesses have rejected that framing. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the federal presence in blunt terms, saying, “To ICE, get the f*ck out of Minneapolis.”
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan also criticised federal agents in a statement reported by mitú: “These masked agents are out of control and creating real chaos in our state. ICE must leave Minnesota immediately – before more people are hurt.”
The details that shaped who Renee was
Good’s story does not start in Minneapolis. The Associated Press reported she was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado who had recently moved to the city.
In 2020, while studying creative writing at Old Dominion University, Good won the school’s undergraduate poetry prize for “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” according to the Star Tribune.
People who met her kept returning to the same word: warm. The Star Tribune reported that Megan Kocher wrote on social media, “I met Renee and her wife just a few weeks ago. She fed me tea and cookies at her house while we talked about school stuff.”
How the woman killed by ICE became a rallying cry overnight
Within hours, vigils formed and people chanted her name. At one vigil, CAIR Minnesota executive director Jaylani Hussein said, “She was peaceful, she did the right thing. She died because she loved her neighbors,” according to the Star Tribune.
The shooting happened about a mile from the site where George Floyd was murdered in 2020, a fact that has shaped how Minneapolis residents have talked about what happened next, according to The Guardian.
