The Loss of Renee Nicole Good

Renne Nicole Good was fatally shot on January 7, 2026 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. She lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the situation and took the community by shock and outrage. Good was only 37-years-old and had been a U.S. citizen for her whole life. She is a mother of three children which were all fairly young with the youngest being six and the oldest fifteen.

Before the incident, ICE had enforced a lot of operations in Minnesota with thousands of agents in the state searching for illegal immigrants. This intensified enforcement led to the locals being on an “ICE watch” and sparked a lot of protests in the area. These “ICE watches” included Renee Nicole Good protesting in their neighborhood, trying to escalate the situation.

On the day she was shot, she had dropped off her six-year-old son at school and was driving around when she saw ICE vehicles in her neighborhood. The neighbors were using whistles to alert the others in the area of ICE’s presence for anyone who needed to be aware. Multiple witnesses recall that Good stopped her car which blocked traffic a bit. This caused an ICE worker to approach her car while recording. Another agent came and aggressively told her to get out of her car. Good refused and pulled forward but as she was turning, the agent fired three gunshots at her which ended up being fatal. After she got shot, her car continued moving until it crashed into another car and a pole. The agent claimed that it was “self-defense” although there has been no conclusive evidence of her being a threat to him. 

President Trump and the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, claimed that Good was known to be a “violent rioter” who used her car as a weapon against the agent by attempting to run him over. They claim that the agent had to be treated at a hospital from the injuries caused by being hit by the car. 

In contrast, the local mayor, Jacob Frey, and the governor, Tim Walz, disagreed that Good was a threat to the agent. The people around Good claimed that she was receiving conflicting orders and was just trying to drive away from the situation before being shot. The video footage shown by multiple witnesses did not show any contact with the car and the ICE agent which causes this divide between the stories.

After the shots were fired, people claimed that the ICE agents stopped a doctor nearby from performing medical aid on Good. After the emergency responders came to the area, Good was already pronounced dead by the time they arrived at the hospital.

This situation made a lot of the people in the country start to protest against Trump and how he is handling immigration and ICE’s activity all over the country. Her death made ways to even bigger cities like New York City and Chicago which were all holding strong protests against ICE. Her family started a GoFundMe for the rest of her family to be able to have financial support with the loss of Good’s income. They originally were asking for $50,000 for support for her children but they were able to raise over $1.5 million dollars before the fundraiser closed. 

Her local community was impacted in many ways with some of the Minneapolis Public Schools closing classes for the week in fear of ICE reports coming to school grounds. The district called for classes to be online until February because the locals felt unsafe bringing their children to school after such a violent incident. Her neighbors were expressing extreme grief for her children and how upset they were to see her youngest child’s stuffed animals in the car while she got shot. All of this combined led to 20,000 people joining a community watch group to monitor agent activities. A lot of protests spurred this situation. The most prominent one would be the ICE Out For Good Movement which led to thousands of people marching in Minneapolis in honor of Good and for justice. 

Overall, the situation was very unfortunate and I hope the community heals from such an event. She was a young woman and had a lot in store for her future but unfortunately her time got cut short. What happened to Renee Good was an extreme tragedy and I truly wish the best for her family, neighbors, and children.

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.