Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and U.S. citizen born in Colorado, was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Wednesday while seated in her vehicle on a Minneapolis street. On Thursday, family members, friends, and neighbors mourned a woman they described as gentle, kind, and devoted to her children, even as Trump administration officials continued to characterize Good as a domestic terrorist who had attempted to ram federal agents with her car.

Good had dropped off her youngest child at an elementary school in Minneapolis that morning before the encounter. Bystander video posted to social media shows an ICE officer approaching her Honda Pilot, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle; when she began to pull forward, a second officer standing in front of the vehicle fired at least two shots into the car at close range. The entire incident was over in less than 10 seconds.

The fatal shooting of Good — a U.S. citizen who had apparently never been charged with anything beyond a single traffic ticket — intensified scrutiny of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations and drew sharp rebukes from state and local officials who said the federal government’s account is contradicted by video evidence.

The day Renee Good was killed, she had dropped off her 6-year-old son at an elementary school in Minneapolis — the city she, her wife, and her youngest child had recently made their home after relocating from Kansas City, Missouri.

Hours later, Good, 37, was dead on a snowy residential street, shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer while behind the wheel of her Honda Pilot. A U.S. citizen born in Colorado who had apparently never been charged with anything beyond a single traffic ticket, Good was, by her own description on social media, a “poet and writer and wife and mom.”

On Thursday, as the Trump administration continued to characterize Good as a domestic terrorist who had attempted to ram federal agents with her vehicle, dozens gathered at a makeshift memorial of flowers and a handmade cross at the site of the shooting. Neighbors, weary of reporters, posted a handwritten sign to one front door: “NO MEDIA INQUIRES” and “JUSTICE FOR RENEE.”

What the video shows

Bystander footage of the shooting, posted to social media, shows an ICE officer approaching Good’s parked vehicle and demanding she open the door while grabbing the door handle. When Good began to pull forward, a second ICE officer standing in front of the car drew his weapon and immediately fired at least two shots into the vehicle at close range. The entire encounter lasted less than 10 seconds.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the footage contradicts the federal government’s account, saying video recordings show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

State and local officials and protesters have also rejected the administration’s characterization of the shooting. In a second video taken immediately after the shooting, a distraught woman near the vehicle can be heard wailing, “That’s my wife, I don’t know what to do!”

Good’s ex-husband, who asked not to be named out of concern for the safety of their children, said she was no activist and he never knew her to participate in a protest of any kind. He said she was headed home before the encounter with the group of ICE agents.

‘Incredibly caring of her peers’

Good had a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son from her first marriage and a 6-year-old son from her second marriage; her second husband died in 2023. In recent years she had worked primarily as a stay-at-home mother, having previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union.

She studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia, where she won a prize in 2020 for one of her works, according to a post on the school’s English department Facebook page.

Kent Wascom, who taught Good in the creative writing program at Old Dominion, recalled her juggling the birth of a child with work and school in 2019.

“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’s ex-husband said she was a devoted Christian who participated in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland. She loved to sing, took part in a chorus in high school, and studied vocal performance in college.

Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune the family was notified of her death late Wednesday morning.

“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger 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.”