I had a whole other post with links and “return from the holidays” thoughts written and ready to go, but last night I scrapped it.
Things feel too heavy right now for a lighthearted post.
By now most people are aware that on Wednesday morning, January 7th, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. She was 37 years old. She was a U.S. citizen. She was a mother of three, including a 6-year-old son. She was a poet, a writer, a legal observer documenting federal immigration enforcement actions.
She was out caring for her neighbors when she was killed by her own government.
What Happened
As has happened in multiple other cities over the last year, the Trump administration deployed federal agents to Minneapolis. This time it was over 2,000 agents – what ICE called “the largest immigration operation ever” – targeting the city’s Somali community. It’s worth noting that they were there as a response to a sensationalist viral-video created and spread by a right-wing internet influencer.
On Wednesday morning, Renee Good was in her vehicle on Portland Avenue in south Minneapolis when ICE agents surrounded her. According to witnesses, agents gave her conflicting orders: One told her to drive away, another yelled at her to get out of her car while trying to force open her door.
She tried to get away and an ICE agent shot her three times in the head.
They then refused to allow a nearby doctor to attend her. The officer who shot her walked away, calling out to other agents to “call 911”. They removed her body from the car before EMS arrived, thereby altering an active crime scene.
The Lies
What happened next makes it so much worse. The federal government, including the President himself, immediately began lying about what happened:
- “Violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle” in “an act of domestic terrorism” (DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin)
- “Attempted to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents” (DHS Secretary Kristi Noem)
- “Violently, willfully and viciously” ran over the agent (President Trump)
- “Left wing radical” who was not “some innocent woman” (Vice President JD Vance)
Not only did they slander a dead woman, they put out a story that their followers have swallowed hook, line, and sinker and are using to justify her extrajudicial execution.
All of it is lies.
Multiple videos of the incident contradict them. The videos show Good was driving away from the agents, not toward them. Multiple sources including The New York Times conducted a frame-by-frame analysis showing the agent was not in the path of the vehicle when he fired three shots at close range, including through the open driver’s side window, hitting Good in the face.
The Pattern
Let’s not beat around the bush: This wasn’t “a tragic accident”. This wasn’t an isolated incident. This is a pattern of indiscriminate violence by ICE agents.
The New York Times reported that DHS agents, over the past four months, have now fired on nine people inside their vehicles, resulting in at least one other death. In many cases, the official government account does not match video evidence. In every one of them DHS claims that the officer was acting defensively, “in fear for his life”.
A federal district judge has written extensively about DHS agents in Chicago drawing guns on peaceful protestors documenting their activities. Judge Ellis wrote that “agents have used excessive force in response to protesters’ and journalists’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, without justification, often without warning”.
As I said above, this isn’t an isolated incident.
The “Investigations”
The FBI initially said it would conduct a joint investigation with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Then the FBI “reversed course,” blocking the BCA from “access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation”.
The federal government is investigating itself. We know how that ends.
Meanwhile, Trump is sending even more agents to Minneapolis. None of this is about immigration enforcement. It’s about creating a climate of fear and demonstrating federal power over cities that resist.
Why This Matters
This matters. It should matter to every person in the US.
Renee Good was a U.S. citizen. A legal observer, exercising her Constitutional rights. Someone who should have been safe from this kind of state violence.
If they can kill her in broad daylight, on video, with witnesses, and then lie about it with the full backing and participation of the President, the Vice-President, and the Department of Homeland Security, then no one is safe.
As writer Jay Kuo notes in his piece “In Honor of Renee Nicole Good“:
This is not, and has never been, only about immigration. It’s about the assertion of a fascist police state, and no one is safe from its reach.
And Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark, in “The Distance Between Renee Good and Ashli Babbitt Is Fascism“:
There was no need for the entire apparatus of the federal government, from the DHS press flack, to the secretary of that department, to the president and vice president of the United States, to lie about the events and slander Renee Good as a “domestic terrorist.”
There was no need for Renee Good’s 6-year-old son to wake up an orphan this morning.
I don’t have recipes today. I don’t have food links or gardening tips or anything lighthearted.
What I have is rage. And grief. And a determination not to look away from what is happening in our country.
Renee Good should be alive today. She should be picking up her son from school. She should be writing poetry. She should be loving her wife and her family and her community.
Instead, she’s dead. Killed by federal agents who then lied about her. Called her a terrorist. Blamed her for her own murder.
And the administration is doubling down. Sending more agents. Creating more fear. Building toward more violence.
This is not normal. This is not acceptable. This cannot stand.
Her name was Renee Nicole Good.
Remember her name.
I’ll be back next week with food posts and recipes and the normal rhythm of this space. But today, this is what matters. This is what I need to say.
If you’re feeling helpless or angry or overwhelmed—you’re not alone. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. And don’t look away.
