By: Al Ballesteros
Rally Photos by: Lorenzo Gomez
The video of the Renee Nicole Good’s shooting is hard to watch. A young woman in an SUV, parked roadside, evidently near an operation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Officers approached her SUV, words were seemingly spoken, she pulls off, shots are fired striking her and the vehicle is seen then slamming into a parked car as Renee Good was either incapacitated or killed instantly at the wheel. This occurred on January 7 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Renee was 37 years old and leaves a 6-year-old son behind and two other children.
The incident occurred after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed roughly 2,000 federal agents to the state of Minnesota and specifically to Minneapolis as part of an aggressive crackdown on supposed fraud in the state, according to news reports.
“Taxpayer dollars are being used by the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to brutalize American Citizens and law-abiding American taxpayers in ways the American people reject,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader of the Congress at a January 15, 2026, press conference. “The American people did not sign up for what we are seeing on the streets of Minneapolis…the American people thought the Trump administration was focusing on violent felons who are in the country illegally. But instead, we see American citizens like Renee Nicole Good being gunned-down in cold blood without justification…taxpayer dollars are being used by the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to unleash extremism on the streets of America…the American people don’t want their tax-payer dollars used in that fashion” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Rep. Jeffries says that house democrats are demanding changes to the way ICE conducts itself as part of the upcoming budget appropriations process. Senate democrats say they will vote to shut down the government if changes are not made to how ICE conducts itself.
The pressing concern with respect to Renee Good is whether the incident will be properly investigated. This because almost immediately after the shooting, the DOJ went on record that they saw no fault with respect to the officer(s) involved. In fact, United States Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not be investigating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who killed Renee Good.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, January 18, Blanche said the civil rights unit of the Justice Department would not bow to pressure to investigate the shooting death of Renee Good. “We don’t just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody,” said Blanche. “We investigate when it’s appropriate to investigate.” “So, no, we are not investigating. And if there comes a time when we need to, we will, but it’s not now,” Blanche added.
Numerous LGBTQ+ elected officials have released statements and posted to their social media their sentiments that there was no justification for ICE to shoot Renee Good and that there must be a thorough investigation.
Robert Garcia, Democrat California said “ICE just killed someone in Minneapolis. This Administration’s violence against communities across our country is horrific and dangerous. Oversight Democrats are demanding answers on what happened today. We need an investigation immediately.”
“A fatal ICE operation in Minneapolis is the latest proof of an agency out of control under Trump’s watch. Lethal force demands immediate accountability and transparency. We need an independent investigation now. This is unacceptable, said Congressman Richie Torres, D., New York on his IG.
“No matter how the Trump Administration spins this, we all saw it,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey posted on X. “Renee Good was a mother and an American citizen. My heart breaks for her family. ICE’s dangerous, aggressive tactics don’t make us safer. Just the opposite. This has to stop.
Video tapes have emerged and also capture Renee Good’s final words and show her speaking to one of the ICE officers. With her window rolled down, she says, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” This was sometime while she was sitting in the vehicle and before the vehicle is shown trying to move away, with what shows at least three officers surrounding the vehicle and then gunshots are heard. Then an agent is heard saying “F*cking bitch,” likely, the person who shot the gun.
Renee Good was a member of the LGBTQ+ community and lived with her wife. She was a mother, a poet, singer, devoted Christian, and an “extremely compassionate” human being.
Renee Good was a white gay woman, who with her wife, were standing up for immigrants, primarily immigrants of color. The struggles for the rights of underserved and marginalized communities, primarily people of color, have always benefited from the voices of those like Renee Good. That fact makes this even more tragic. To be sure, during the early days of the AIDS movement the gay women helped tremendously in the work as gay men were increasingly affected by the disease and could not do all the work. Because of this history, our community knows what peaceful activism looks like. We’ve been in these same streets, together fighting the battle for the under-served, many whom are immigrants. This is why it is so difficult for our community to reconcile the immediate dismissal of any wrongdoing of the ICE officers by the DOJ.
It feels like Renee Good is being “brushed off’ as just another one of “them.” But her shooting needs to be fully investigated to determine what happened.
There have been countless on-line reactions to the killing of Renee Good, some supportive and calling for justice and others not so much. Different people viewing the videos and hearing the accounts may reach different conclusions on what happened and who is at fault, that is why a proper and impartial investigation is needed. If this is done properly, eventually the truth will come out.
However, some of the postings are simply horrible comments and disparaging remarks, primarily around Good’s identity as a gay woman. Her wife is being criticized for shouting “shame” at the ICE agents after the shooting and being labeled an “agitator’. Other comments won’t be repeated here but it is homophobia on display with many dismissing her rights as a human under the Constitution of the United States because she is a gay woman.
The DHS has said that “rioters began blocking ICE officers” during what it called “targeted operations” near East 34th Street and Portland Avenue. The department has alleged that Good “weaponized” her vehicle by attempting to run over agents, labeling her actions as “domestic terrorism” and those of the officers as “self-defense.”
However, multiple eyewitness accounts and video footage from the incident contradict this.
This includes a three-camera analysis by the New York Times which they say actually show Ms. Good was attempting to leave the scene by turning right when an agent approached her vehicle from the side and opened fire into her driver’s seat window. According to the Times, Ms. Good did not hit the officer. The vehicle then accelerated, crashing into a nearby light post, with the officer who was seen firing the shots then walking away from the wreckage.
A GoFundMe page for Good’s wife and children was set up after the shooting and has reached over $2.5 million in contributions as of the writing of this article.
Renee Good was a member of the LGBTQ+ community and lived with her wife. She was a mother, a poet, singer, devoted Christian, and an “extremely compassionate” human being.
Ms. Good had a wife and three children. A 15-year-old and 12-year-old from her first marriage, and a 6-year-old from her second marriage to Timmy Ray Macklin Jr., who died in 2023 at age 36. The identity of her current partner has not yet been confirmed, but video circulating on social media shows a distraught woman at the scene of her killing, referring to her as her wife. A person wearing the same outfit as the woman can be seen in another video leaning over a bloodied body in the driver’s seat of the SUV.
“They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do. We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the woman says through sobs in the footage with a damaged SUV visible in the distance behind her. “We have a 6-year-old at school. We’re new here.”
According to reporting in Out Magazine on January 8, Renee Good was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado but previously lived with her wife in Kansas City, Missouri before moving to Minnesota last year. She previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union, her ex-husband said, but had recently become a stay-at-home mom.
Renee Good was said to be a poet with a passion for singing. Good described herself in her Instagram bio, which featured a Pride flag, as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado; experiencing Minneapolis, MN.”
Good graduated in December 2020 from Old Dominion University in Virginia with a degree in English, and won an award the same year for one of her works. She also hosted a podcast with her second husband before his death. The President of Old Dominion University released a statement, “This is yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation. Indeed, this tragedy reflects the deep strain being felt in countless communities across our nation. As citizens, it is our duty and right to call upon leaders and officials to restore civility in all facets of our lives, especially at the hands of those who are entrusted to protect and serve.”
“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” he continued. “My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”
Good’s ex-husband said she was a devoted Christian who had taken part in mission trips to Northern Ireland in her youth and participated in a choir during high school. Her love of singing would lead her to study vocal performance in college, though writing was her ultimate passion. Good’s ex-husband said she was not someone who was politically active. He said that she had not participated in a protest in all the years that he had known her, and did not have a criminal record beyond a parking ticket.
Good’s mother shared the same characterization of her daughter. Donna Ganger told The Star Tribune that Good was “not part of anything like that at all,” referring to ongoing protests against ICE, and that she would never act so violently.
“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.”
Reported in News Edge on January 18, country-rock singer Kid Rock has donated $500,000 to the “Remembering Renee Nicole Good” memorial fund. Kid Rock has reportedly committed to fully funding the child’s education through graduate school, but more importantly, he has pledged to act as a “distant mentor.” In a private message shared with the family and later partially revealed to the press, Rock wrote: “Money can’t replace a mother’s hug, and it can’t fix a broken system. But this boy will never wonder if he has a future. I’m stepping in to make sure he has every tool to become the man his mother dreamed he would be. He’s got an uncle in Detroit now.
Late Night TV show host Stephen Colbert donated $500,000 to the “Remembering Renee Nicole Good” Fund, supporting the family of Renee Good.
LGBTQ+ organizations and leaders have released statements expressing outrage, grief, and calls for justice. The statements highlight her identity as a queer woman, a wife, and a community member, while emphasizing the need to combat state-sanctioned violence.
National LGBTQ Task Force: Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, condemned the actions of ICE, calling the loss of life “preventable and reprehensible.” The statement expressed anger at the handling of the incident and noted that this killing occurred near the site of George Floyd’s murder, highlighting it as a wake-up call regarding the threats to marginalized communities.
The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Joe Hollendoner released a statement on January 7, “The fatal shooting of Renee Good-an LGBTQ+ United States citizen exercising her right to protest ICE activity in Minneapolis is a horrifying and senseless loss of life. Renee’s death lays bare the dangerous reality of an agency that continues to operate with impunity, fueled by a Trump administration that has normalized violence, cruelty, and the erosion of basic human rights.”
According to reports, the DOJ is seeking to investigate Renee Good’s wife, and even Renee herself. However, the ICE agent is not being investigated.