A federal agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed a woman who was acting as a legal observer during protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, local officials announced.
In a post on X, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar said she was “beyond outraged” by ICE’s “reckless and callous actions” and that these actions “led to the murder of a legal guardian in Minneapolis.”
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The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the woman killed was 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good.
“She was very compassionate. She cared for people all her life. She was a loving, forgiving, loving person. She was a wonderful human being,” Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the newspaper.
Protesters quickly gathered at the scene after the shooting, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota!”
Heavily armed federal agents wearing gas masks met the protesters, some of whom fired chemical munitions at the protesters.
Snap protests were organized in other cities and towns across the U.S. on Wednesday night, as the Trump administration claimed the agent who allegedly shot Goode was acting in “self-defense.”
“They’re already trying to report this as an act of self-defense. I also saw the video, and I want to say it directly to you: That’s bull***,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a fiery press conference.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also called the shootings “totally predictable” and “totally avoidable.” He called on protesters to remain peaceful and added that the state’s National Guard had been put on alert.
“I feel your anger,” he told Minnesotans at a separate news conference.
The shooting occurred in a modest neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just blocks from some of the area’s oldest immigrant markets.
Notably, the area was just 1 mile (1 mile) from where George Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, sparking massive Black Lives Matter protests during Trump’s first presidency.
“Defense Shot”
Authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are investigating a shooting that occurred after agents surrounded a car on foot on a snow-covered road, according to video of the incident shared online.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Goode was targeting agents when she was killed and that the vehicle was “weaponized.”
“The ICE officers fired defensive shots in fear for their lives, the lives of their fellow law enforcement officers, and the safety of the public,” McLaughlin wrote in a post on social media platform X, calling the incident an “act of domestic terrorism.”
After the shooting, Good’s SUV was seen with bullet holes in its windshield and blood spattered on its headrest.
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump claimed without evidence that the murdered woman was a “professional agitator.” He blamed the situation broadly on the “radical left,” an amorphous label he regularly applies to those who criticize his policies.
But witnesses at the scene said Good was leaving when he was shot.
Emily Heller, who said the incident happened near her home, told Minnesota Public Radio that she heard ICE agents telling the driver to “get out of here.”
“As she turned around, there was an ICE officer in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it in, right on top of her bumper with his abdomen, and he reached over the hood of the car and shot her about three or four times in the face,” Heller said.
Venus de Mars, 65, who also lives nearby, said she saw paramedics performing CPR on a woman who collapsed next to a snowbank near the crashed car. Shortly thereafter, they loaded her into an ambulance and drove away without a siren.
“There have been many ICE operations in the past, but none like this,” De Mars said. “I’m so angry. I feel so angry and helpless.”
Representative Ilhan Omar accused the Trump administration of spreading false information.
“You are lying. It does not appear that you tried to run over any police officers and no ICE officers were injured,” she wrote to X, adding, “Get off our streets.”
deadly immigration crackdown
The Midwestern cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, known as the Twin Cities, have been targets of recent immigration raids under the second Trump administration, with thousands of people detained and violent clashes between immigration officials and protesters.
The city is home to thousands of Somali-Americans, who have recently been targeted by the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies, including allegations that some community members misused federal subsidies for low-income child care.
President Trump called Somali residents “trash” at a Cabinet meeting in December and said “we don’t want them coming to our country” as his administration withdrew millions of dollars in funding for child care facilities in the city.
The Trump administration has significantly increased mass deportation efforts, including allocating $75 billion to ICE’s personnel, enforcement, and detention budget over the next four years.
The funding makes ICE the nation’s best-funded law enforcement agency, with a budget that far exceeds the military budgets of most countries in the world.
Since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, the news website Trace has documented at least 28 instances in which federal agents fired shots or brandished guns during immigration raids.
At least three other people had died before Wednesday’s shooting, Trace said, including two detainees killed by a sniper at an ICE field office in Dallas, Texas, and a 38-year-old Mexican man allegedly shot to death by ICE agents in Chicago, Illinois, in September.
