Shots Fired on a Public Street – An ICE Operation Kills a Mother and Leaves a Child an Orphan

Minneapolis – In a residential neighborhood in the south of Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot dead without justification on Wednesday by an officer of the U.S. immigration authority ICE. The incident occurred during a large-scale immigration operation by the Trump administration that has put the city and its surrounding areas on high alert for days. What federal authorities portray as self-defense is experienced locally as a preventable escalation. Videos, eyewitness accounts and even statements from local police paint a picture that does not align at all with the official justification from Washington.

“Where the threat – or, according to Kristi Noem, an act of domestic terrorism – is supposed to have taken place is absolutely impossible to comprehend, especially when you see and hear the moment at which the shots were fired.”

Multiple video recordings from different angles show the decisive seconds. An SUV is stopped sideways across Portland Avenue. One officer approaches on foot, orders the driver to open the door, and reaches for the door handle. The vehicle then begins to move forward slowly. Moments earlier, Renee Good may have dropped someone off, which would also explain the brief reversing of the car. A second ICE officer is positioned in front of the vehicle. He immediately draws his weapon and fires at least two shots into the interior from close range. He jumps aside as the car continues to roll forward. The vehicle did not make contact with the officer. Forensic analysis has confirmed this. What is certain is that the woman was left critically injured inside her vehicle. The SUV collided with two parked cars and came to a stop. Bystanders screamed and shouted; some were visibly in shock. The woman was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center with life-threatening gunshot wounds to the head, where she died shortly afterward.

Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, painted a picture that could hardly stand in sharper contrast to the portrayal by federal authorities. Renee was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger said. She was extraordinarily compassionate and had spent her entire life caring for others. “She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.” Renee had been living with her new partner in the Twin Cities. When Ganger learned how her daughter had died, she reacted with disbelief. “This is so senseless,” she said. Renee had probably been panicking in those moments. She had been an anxious person. One clarification was especially important to her: her daughter had nothing to do with protests or confrontations. “She was not involved in any of that. Not at all.” She was on her way home.

Renee Good had previously been married to Timmy Ray Macklin Jr., who died in 2023 at the age of 36. From that marriage came their shared son, now six years old. Timmy Ray Macklin Sr., the father of her late husband, was also devastated by the news. He said his grandson now had no one left in his life. “There’s nobody else,” he said. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come and get my grandchild.” The ICE operation thus not only killed a woman, but took the last remaining parent from a child.

The fatal shot marks a new level of escalation in a series of aggressive immigration operations that the Trump administration has carried out in several states since last year. It is at least the fifth death linked to these operations. Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul have been considered especially tense since the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to deploy around 2,000 federal officers to the region. Officially, the operation targets fraud investigations allegedly linked in part to segments of the Somali community. For many residents, however, the massive presence of armed federal officers feels like collective pressure.

Reactions to the death of Renee Good could hardly be more contradictory. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke of an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers. The woman killed had allegedly attempted to run over officers with her vehicle. The shot, she said, had been necessary to protect lives. This portrayal lacks any factual basis, as all available videos show. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey sharply rejected that account. He called it “garbage” and spoke of chaos caused by federal authorities in the city. The officers, he said, should leave Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota immediately.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara also avoided any dramatization. He said only that the woman had blocked the roadway with her vehicle, that a federal officer approached her, and then the vehicle began to move slowly. He did not speak of a targeted attack or an attempt to run anyone over. This restraint is striking because it clearly contradicts the language coming from Washington. The fact that one side of the roadway was blocked also logically explains a brief reversal and then forward movement.

There is also a central point that further calls the justification into question. The U.S. Department of Justice’s own guidelines state that firearms should not be used to stop a moving vehicle. Deadly force is permitted only when there is an immediate danger to others and no realistic alternative exists, such as stepping out of the vehicle’s path. Police trainers have emphasized for decades that officers should not place themselves in front of vehicles to block them. When looking at the bullet hole in the vehicle’s windshield, it is clear that the officer did not follow this rule. He fired even though he could have moved slowly to the side, as the vehicle itself was moving slowly. Research shows that the second shot was already fired from the side, with a direct line of sight into the driver’s area. Many police departments explicitly prohibit targeted shooting at vehicles because it greatly increases the risk to bystanders. These rules are not theoretical. They are the result of past cases in which bullets struck passersby or vehicles became uncontrollable after the driver was hit.

That these principles are relevant here is hard to ignore. The videos do not show a violent attack, but a situation that escalates because armed officers approach a stationary vehicle instead of keeping their distance. A resident, Lynette Reini-Grandell, later said the woman was driving away and they killed her. She said she filmed the scene because she was afraid of being shot herself or sprayed with pepper spray.

The death of Renee Good has shaken the city, and the consequences for the country as a whole are not yet foreseeable. Hundreds of people gathered at the scene that same evening. Some held signs with angry slogans against ICE, others waved flags, many stood silently. Clergy from the neighborhood joined them to show presence and prevent further violence. They spoke of a city that felt under siege.

Sharp criticism also came from the civil rights movement. The organization Black Visions, affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement in Minneapolis, said the killing was the result of escalating state violence driven by raids, fear and the criminalization of immigrant life. Communities had been sounding the alarm for a long time, the group said, and now that violence had turned deadly. “We will not normalize this violence,” the statement continued. The greatest resistance, it said, had always been mutual care. “They will not defeat us.”

The political dimension extends far beyond Minneapolis. Governor Tim Walz openly called the Department of Homeland Security’s portrayal propaganda. He announced a comprehensive investigation together with federal authorities, while also warning against escalation in the streets. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar described the incident as state violence, not law enforcement. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus criticized the fact that the woman killed had been publicly vilified before the facts were established.

Doubts are reinforced by earlier cases. Just in October, a woman in Chicago was shot five times by a border patrol agent. There, too, authorities initially spoke of a targeted vehicle attack. Later videos showed that the officer himself had rammed the car. We researched that case ourselves and were involved in the proceedings. The charges against the woman were dropped. Shocking internal messages showed that the shooter later bragged about his shots. This history is present in Minneapolis. The messages were presented in court and included phrases such as “I fired 5 shots and she had 7 holes” and “Put that in your book, boys.”

This was the case of Marimar Martinez and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz. We were in Chicago at the time. On the morning of Saturday, October 4, 2025, an unremarkable intersection in southwest Chicago turned into a mirror of American power politics. Against the backdrop of escalating immigration raids, a federal officer shot at a female driver who, according to Washington, was said to have tried to ram an enforcement vehicle, allegedly armed with a semi-automatic weapon. No evidence was presented. The woman, a U.S. citizen named Marimar Martinez, survived, was taken to a hospital and later placed in FBI custody. The Department of Homeland Security claimed the officers had acted in self-defense after their vehicle had been “surrounded by ten cars.” Witnesses described the situation differently. A woman was shot, and another man, Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, was arrested after allegedly being involved in the incident. His mother, Elizabeth Ruiz, said her son had called her during the shooting, panicked and confused, before agents overpowered him. When she asked why he had been arrested, she received no answer. In court, the case collapsed because every part of the officer’s account proved false. Marimar Martinez’s compensation lawsuit is still in its early stages.

All of this is unfolding in a neighborhood that still bears the scars of 2020, when the killing of George Floyd sparked protests, fires and widespread destruction. Many businesses never recovered. Trust in state institutions here is not an abstract concept. It is an open wound.

What remains is a stark assessment. A woman is dead. A child is without parents. The versions of what happened are irreconcilable. Federal authorities speak of terrorism, local officials of chaos, videos of a situation that spiraled out of control. The investigations are only beginning. But even now it is clear how dangerous it is when immigration policy is enforced as a show of power, with thousands of armed officers in residential neighborhoods. For Minneapolis, this death is not a marginal news item. It is part of a climate in which fear grows faster than safety.