ICE Murdered Her

feature image photo by SOPA Images / Contributor via Getty Images

On the morning of January 7, in Minneapolis, on East 34th Street and Portland Ave, an ICE agent shot a woman, in the head, three times, through the driver side window of a vehicle that was first parked and then turning away from the man slowly. The car with the woman who was then either wounded, unconscious, or already dead, moved forward suddenly and crashed into parked vehicles. The man who shot her dead then ran away, got in a vehicle, and left the scene. ICE agents surrounded the site of the crash. The woman was Renee Nicole Macklin Good, and the ICE agent who killed her is Jonathan Ross.

Footage shows a physician identifying himself, asking ICE agents if he can check the victim’s vitals and try to administer life-saving care. An ICE agent tells him “I don’t care.” ICE officers then block anyone trying to administer medical aid and tell them they have to wait for the EMS that ICE has called. It takes 15 minutes. None of the ICE agents are seen administering first aid to Good. Meanwhile, a woman who was filming and screaming “NO!” is on the side of the road. “They killed my wife,” she shouts, “they shot her in the head.”

Renee Nicole Macklin Good was a 37-year-old woman with innumerable facets to her life. She was a poet, a self-described “shitty guitar strummer,” a woman of faith who had done mission work in Northern Ireland, a mother of three — including a six-year-old who’d lost his father in 2023 and who now has no living biological parents, a wife to Becca Good — and she was someone who cared about her neighbors, who had shown up that day in support of people targeted by ICE.

Minnesota is home to the largest Somali-American community in the United States, a community specifically targeted by Trump and ICE. Because the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t been able to justify deportations, as the vast majority of people in Minnesota’s Somali community are U.S. citizens, they have instead targeted Somali-Americans by accusing various nonprofits and those running them of fraud. The people of the Twin Cities have mobilized bravely in support of their neighbors experiencing this systematic attack. Minnesotans have organized efforts to escort children at school bus stops and drop-offs because what organizers are calling ICE abductions have occurred at these sites. They also have organized grocery drop-offs for families who are afraid to leave their houses. According to her wife Becca, Renee and Becca were out on the day she was killed in order to support their neighbors.

“We had whistles,” Becca Good said in her sole statement to media. “They had guns.”

Many outlets have mentioned that Renee Nicole Good was a legal observer. I have yet to see any sources that verify that Good was an official legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, but whether she was observing as an individual, a trained ICE observer, or as a volunteer with the NLG, I immediately felt a deep grief at hearing her called a legal observer, knowing she died doing this work.

Founded in 1937, the NLG is the first abolitionist association of lawyers in the United States. Legal observers are volunteers with the guild who serve a specific — and extremely non-violent — purpose. They watch the actions of law enforcement officers and record any behaviors that are possible infractions of laws on the part of officers or violent or abusive actions on the part of law enforcement. Legal observers are usually present at protests, but they can also be present during actions by law enforcement, like sweeps of unhoused encampments. Legal observers also get the information of anyone arrested and interview people who have been injured. Because of their training and official association with the attorneys of the NLG, the notes, video, and photos taken by legal observers are admissible as attorney work product and can be used by defense attorneys for protesters and others who might be arrested during actions. In the event of physical harm done by law enforcement officers or Civil Rights violations, legal observer notes can also be used as evidence in lawsuits.

As a legal observer, Good would not have been an active part of any protest, but would be there to watch the actions of whatever law enforcement was on scene. Part of legal observer training acknowledges that police and other law enforcement officers have been known to target legal observers. I think because they represent oversight and accountability to officers who have no intention of following the law, police are motivated to use excessive and unjustified force against legal observers. Attacking non-participating individuals like legal observers and journalists is an intimidation and repression tactic. In my opinion, if the ICE agents present knew or even just thought Renee Nicole Good was a legal observer, it adds context to the motives behind Ross’s aggression and ultimately lethal violence.

That same day, Border Patrol agents descended on Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, using tear gas and other chemical irritants on students and staff in addition to tackling and arresting a teacher. Heartbreaking video taken by a student shows a school staff person urging students not to “antagonize them,” saying, “they literally just killed someone.”

Following Wednesday’s events, Customs and Border Patrol announced they would be sending 200 more officers to Minnesota, possibly more. Soon after, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey called Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s plans to increase ICE’s presence in Minnesota “bullshit,” and called her out for trying to obstruct an investigation into the killing. The mayor also told ICE to “get the fuck out.”

Subsequent media reports would go on to not mention Renee Nicole Macklin Good’s wife, and on social media and far right outlets, her queerness was mocked. I read through way too many comments on social media where people proudly wrote FAFO (fuck around and find out), openly declaring that Good had it coming, that her partner corrupted her, that she was twisted by leftist ideology into a “suicidal” act. Kristi Noem called Renee Good a “domestic terrorist.” While Becca Good referred to Renee as her wife, multiple pieces of reporting would instead refer to Becca Good as “her partner.” Interviews with family, who are devastated by losing her, involved the same language, with Good’s mom referring to Becca Good as a partner, or her ex-husband who also referred to her wife as her “current partner.” This heinous New York Post article describes the windows in Good’s neighborhood as “decked out in LGBTQ+ flags or signs depicting George Floyd,” and somehow they make that sound like a slur. Users on X made claims that Becca Good had been arrested for child abuse in the past and that Renee Nicole Good was an “unfit mother” who lost custody of her two older children, but there have never been any substantiated claims found or published by reputable sources, with the source of these claims seeming to be only other social media posts. Even “Grok,” X’s often offensive and incorrect AI, said a search of public records and the internet found no verification of these claims. People are celebrating her death, not least because of her queerness. People circulated a doctored photo indicating Good had celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and have combed through her social media to also find a TikTok allegedly doing the same. Yesterday, a woman who was detained by ICE agents in Minneapolis spoke up about her treatment by ICE agents, saying ICE agents took pictures of her when they had her in the back of their vehicle, mocked her, called her ugly, and said to her “you guys got to stop obstructing. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.” Good is a symbol, a person to sneer at for her beliefs, who she loved, and how she was raising her kid.

The ex-husband also said that Renee Nicole Good was not an activist and that he had never known her to protest, which may have been true when he knew her but which was clearly not a reflection of her current life. So much of the rhetoric justifying Good’s death cites some kind of accusation of “blocking the roadway.” It’s no surprise to anyone that the current administration makes no room for the fact that American citizens and residents are still legally able to exercise their first amendment rights and protest, with Vice President Vance calling Good’s death “a tragedy of her own making,” as though she had no right to be there, no first amendment rights, no right to be on her own street.

This is a residential neighborhood, and witnesses say this was, in fact, Good’s street, where she lived. Photos, video footage, and Google Maps all show the streets to be ample, wide, flat, well-maintained with generous on-street parking lanes on either side and a well-buffered bike lane. This is the midwest, and the roads are flat. This is a relatively affluent-looking neighborhood, and the houses are spaced far apart with plenty of trees growing in yards and in the, again, larger than average tracts of grass between sidewalk and road. Two SUVs turned perpendicularly might have trouble completely blocking traffic on these roads, let alone one. Good apparently smiled and said “I’m not mad at you,” at the officer moments before her death. Good died less than a mile from where Goerge Floyd was killed in 2020.

Defenders of the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good say that he, Jonathan Ross, feared for his life. Officials and politicians have talked about how Ross was dragged by a vehicle last year, as though his knee-jerk reaction to being near a vehicle is justified and not evidence he was unfit to work. Experts in the law enforcement field have gone on to criticize Ross’ actions and tactics — from his choice to film with his cell phone and so tie up his hands, to his tactical error in choosing to stand so close to a vehicle. Law enforcement officers are also supposedly restricted from firing into a moving vehicle if the operator has no other weapons, and yet it feels like Ross broke every “rule” possible here. On top of that, the man had posted “white supremacist” commentary on social media, despite having a Filipina wife whose parents live in The Philippines. When Ross’s father was asked if she was a U.S. citizen and when she had come to the U.S., he said, “I do not want to go any further than that.” The Intercept found that a GoFundMe for Ross which has raised over half a million, was created by a user whose Facebook profile picture depicts a white hand doing a Nazi salute over the Black raised fist associated with the George Floyd Uprisings and Black Lives Matter movements. The user, Clyde Emmons, wrote Good was “the stupod bitch that got what she deserved.” GoFundMe’s terms of service are apparently supposed to prohibit raising funds for the legal defense of violent crimes, including extremism and hate. Meanwhile, the FBI has taken over the investigation into Good’s killing, and state officials fear for the fairness of the investigation.

Since January 7, protests have erupted across the nation in support of Renee Nicole Good and decrying ICE actions. She’s not the first person ICE has killed in recent memory. An off-duty ICE officer killed Keith Porter, Jr. on New Year’s Eve. According to Time, “An investigation published by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday identified 13 instances of immigration agents firing at or into civilian vehicles since July, leaving at least eight people shot, with two confirmed dead—including Good. It found that at least five of those shot were U.S. citizens.” In September, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was shot and killed by an ICE agent while in his vehicle, with the agent saying his own injuries were “nothing major.” A day after Good was killed, ICE agents shot two people in Portland, Oregon, claiming they had connections to a Venezuelan gang, allegations that are disputed by their defense attorney who says the accusations made by the federal government “follow a well-worn playbook that the government has developed to justify the dangerous and unprofessional conduct of its agents.” Yesterday, January 12, video surfaced of ICE agents intentionally crashing into the vehicle of a legal observer, and then piling on top of her and violently detaining her. Around the same time, video of an ICE agent accompanying a detainee witnesses say was a woman into a port-a-potty circulated online, with the Trump administration claiming the detainee was instead male. In addition, 2025 was the deadliest year on record for ICE detainees in more than two decades, with 32 people dying in ICE custody.

Since the shooting, Good’s street has become a hub for mutual aid efforts in support of her family as well as the people and families of Minneapolis who are still being targeted by ICE. Community members have come together to mourn Good and others killed by ICE, and at the same time, to call out ICE’s “arrests” as kidnappings, and to talk about efforts like rapid response teams and legal observation to help support their neighbors and resist ICE’s efforts. Legal observer trainings are reportedly filling up, the GoFundMe for Good’s surviving family was closed after reaching over $1.5 million, and there are a number of events in honor of Good and mutual aid efforts underway in Minneapolis.

Renee Good died because an ICE agent chose to shoot her while she was taking peaceful action in support of her community members being targeted by the Trump administration and ICE. Good and others are right to keep their eyes on ICE, to volunteer as legal observers, to witness and document. It’s clear these agents are dangerous to everyday people. I hope Becca Good as well as Renee Nicole Good’s children can find peace and that they find comfort in their communities. I’ve been thinking about Good’s son who now has lost both a father and a mother. I’ve been thinking about Becca and the gut-tearing sight of seeing her wife shot to death, about Good’s parents who have to outlive their child. No one should have to live in fear of being shot by ICE, no one should have to live in fear of being kidnapped by ICE, and no one should have died on that street in Minneapolis on January 7 — but people do have to fear being shot or kidnapped, and Good did die. It’s hard to imagine anything like winning when the people repressing you are armed and trigger-happy, when officers and agents who harm unarmed mothers and students and teachers — and so many others — are told by this administration that they can commit acts of violence with impunity. But Good was brave enough to go out there; her neighbors are still working to support each other and speaking up in her memory; and rather than reacting out of fear, so many people have signed up for legal observer trainings in Minneapolis that folks have reported them to be full.

I know we’re all deeply troubled by Good’s killing, but I also hope we’ll find the strength to keep going, to hold ICE accountable and to find ways to protect and support our immigrant neighbors, for Renee Nicole Good and her wife and her kids and family and everyone else who is a victim of ICE.