Family members and neighbors are mourning Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman who was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, as questions and outrage continue to grow around the circumstances of her death. Reported by APNews.
According to the Associated Press, Good was shot while sitting behind the wheel of her vehicle shortly after dropping her youngest child at an elementary school.
The mother of three had recently moved to Minneapolis with her wife and 6-year-old son, settling into what neighbors describe as a quiet residential street lined with older homes, multifamily buildings and porches still decorated with pride flags and holiday lights.
While officials from the Trump administration have portrayed Good as a domestic terrorist who attempted to ram federal agents with her Honda Pilot, those who knew her strongly dispute that narrative.
Family, friends and neighbors remember her as a gentle, kind and openhearted person. In the days following her death, the neighborhood has grown weary of media attention, with a handwritten sign posted on a front door reading “NO MEDIA INQUIRES” and “JUSTICE FOR RENEE.”
Good, who was born in Colorado, was a U.S. citizen and had no known criminal history beyond a single traffic ticket. This stands in stark contrast to claims that she represented a serious threat.
Her ex-husband, who requested anonymity out of concern for their children’s safety, said she was not politically active and had never participated in protests to his knowledge. He said she was simply on her way home when she encountered a group of ICE agents on a snowy street.
On social media, Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” In recent posts, she shared that she was “experiencing Minneapolis,” accompanied by a pride emoji. Her online profiles included images of her smiling with a young child, as well as posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home décor — offering a glimpse into an ordinary life now abruptly cut short.
State and local officials, along with protesters, have rejected the federal government’s account of the incident. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said video recordings undermine the claim that the shooting was an act of self-defense, calling the justification “garbage.”
As investigations continue, Good’s family and community are left grieving a woman they say never fit the dangerous image painted by authorities, and are calling for accountability and justice in her name.
Video taken by bystanders posted to social media shows an officer approaching her car, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. When she begins to pull forward, a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range.
The entire incident was over in less than 10 seconds.
In another video taken immediately after the shooting, a distraught woman is seen sitting near the vehicle, wailing, “That’s my wife, I don’t know what to do!”
Calls and messages to Good’s wife received no response.
On Thursday a few dozen people gathered on the one-way street where Good was killed, blocking the road with steel drums filled with burning wood for warmth to ward of a pelting freezing rain.
Passersby stopped to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial with bouquets of flowers and a hand-fashioned cross.
Good’s ex-husband said she was a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger.
She loved to sing, participating in a chorus in high school and studying vocal performance in college.
She studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia and won a prize in 2020 for one of her works, according to a post on the school’s English department Facebook page. She also hosted a podcast with her second husband, who died in 2023.
Kent Wascom, who taught Good in the creative writing program at Old Dominion, recalled her juggling the birth of her child with work and school in 2019. He described her as “incredibly caring of her peers.”
“What stood out to me in her prose was that, unlike a lot of young fiction writers, her focus was outward rather than inward,” Wascom said.
“A creative writing workshop can be a gnarly place with a lot of egos and competition, but her presence was something that helped make that classroom a really supportive place.”
Good had a daughter and a son from her first marriage, who are now 15 and 12. Her 6-year-old son was from her second marriage.
Her ex-husband said she was primarily a stay-at-home mom in recent years but previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union.
Donna Ganger, her mother, told the Minnesota Star Tribune the family was notified of the death late Wednesday morning. She did not respond to calls or messages from the AP.
“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger told the newspaper.
“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.”
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