A 37-year-old US citizen, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday during a large-scale federal immigration enforcement operation that has drawn fierce criticism from city and state leaders and sparked protests and vigils.
Video recorded by bystanders and shared online appears to show federal agents approaching Good’s vehicle on a snowy residential street in south Minneapolis. In one clip described by The Associated Press, an officer is seen approaching the driver’s side, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. As the vehicle begins to move forward, a second officer standing in front of the vehicle draws a weapon and fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range, according to AP’s account of the footage.
Good was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to the head and later pronounced dead, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in remarks reported by Time. O’Hara said the woman had been blocking ICE vehicles and that “at some point, a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot, and the vehicle began to drive off”. He said two shots were fired before the vehicle veered and crashed.
Good, who had recently moved to Minnesota, was born in Colorado and, according to AP reporting, appeared never to have been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a traffic ticket. In social media accounts, she described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom,” and wrote that she was “experiencing Minneapolis”. AP also reported that her online presence included posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.
Her ex-husband, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity out of concern for the safety of their children, said she had just dropped off their six-year-old son at school and was driving home with her current partner when they encountered ICE agents. He told AP she was not an activist and that he had never known her to participate in any protest. AP reported that he described her as a devoted Christian who had taken part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger, and that she loved to sing, studying vocal performance in college.
In another video taken after the shooting, AP reported a distraught woman sitting near the vehicle, wailing: “That’s my wife, I don’t know what to do!”
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE cast the shooting as justified self-defence, saying officers were confronted by people attempting to disrupt their operation. In a statement quoted by Time, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said ICE officers were conducting “targeted operations” when “rioters began blocking ICE officers” and “one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them, an act of domestic terrorism”. She said an ICE officer, “fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots”.
Local and state leaders rejected that account, pointing to the videos circulating online. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the ICE operation in an emotional press conference and demanded the agency leave the city. “I have a message for ICE: Get the f— out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here,” Frey said, according to Time. “Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart … and now somebody is dead.”
Frey also disputed the self-defence justification. “I myself saw a video of the shots being fired as the car was driving away,” he said, according to Time. He described DHS’s account as a “garbage narrative” and said it “has no truth”.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also pushed back publicly. Time reported Walz wrote on X: “I’ve seen the video. Don’t believe this propaganda machine,” and said the state would ensure “a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.”
US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, called for transparency and questioned whether DHS’s description matched what could be seen in the footage, Time reported.
The episode quickly became a flashpoint in national politics after President Donald Trump posted about the shooting on Truth Social, siding with ICE and placing blame on the people at the scene. In remarks described by Time, Trump wrote he had viewed video of the incident and called it “a horrible thing to watch,” but said “the woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator,” and that the driver was “very disorderly, obstructing, and resisting,” and had “violently, wilfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” who “seems to have shot her in self-defense.”
Trump added, according to the Guardian’s reporting of his comments, “Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital,” and said “the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.”
The death came as the Trump administration expanded immigration enforcement in Minnesota, an operation that federal officials have described as unusually large. ITV News reported DHS had deployed more than 2,000 officers to the Minneapolis-St Paul area in what it said was its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. It reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said agents were not “going anywhere” despite calls from local officials for ICE to leave, and that Noem said more than 1,500 people had been arrested.
The Guardian reported the enforcement push has been tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents, and that protests erupted after the shooting, with chemical irritants used to disperse crowds in parts of the city. The Guardian also reported that the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were involved in investigating the shooting.
As the official narratives clashed, Good’s family and friends began to publicly describe her life in the days before her death. AP reported 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 from the university’s English department Facebook page. AP said she had a daughter and an older son from her first marriage, and a six-year-old son from her second marriage.
Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune the family learned of her death late Wednesday morning, AP reported. “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.”
The shooting has intensified an already volatile debate over the federal government’s immigration tactics and the presence of federal agents in US cities. In Minneapolis, the immediate focus has shifted to the investigation, the release of further official details and the question of accountability for the fatal use of force captured on widely shared video.