Renee Good, the woman shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis last week, served on the board of her son’s school — a school that linked parents to documents encouraging community members to watch for ICE activity and attend related training.
Those documents provide additional detail about Good’s ties to efforts aimed at monitoring, and potentially interfering with, ICE operations. Federal officials have indicated that those activities are central to their review of the fatal encounter, which happened as Good partially blocked ICE agents in the street with her SUV.
But four legal experts who reviewed the materials for CNN said the documents largely outline nonviolent civil-disobedience tactics that have long been part of American protest movements. They said the content does not match the portrayal of extremism or domestic terrorism suggested by Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance.
“There’s nothing in there that suggests attacking ICE agents or engaging in any other form of physical harm or property damage,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William and Mary Law School who wrote a book on protest law. “This is authoritarianism 101 where you blame the dissenters and the activists for causing their own death.”
Prosecutors resign amid pressure over focus of investigation
At least six federal prosecutors in Minneapolis resigned Tuesday amid pressure from the Trump administration to focus the probe on Good and those around her, according to a person briefed on the matter.
One of the school-linked documents appears to be a message to parents dated December 16 that begins, “Thank you to families who have been on ICE watch, helping to protect their neighbors.”
That note links to a separate training document that includes guidance on obtaining whistles to alert neighbors to ICE raids, along with contact information for a school parent offering “noncooperation training.”
“ICE are untrained bullies looking for easy targets. Neighbors showing up have saved lives,” the training document states.
Another guide linked within the training materials emphasizes nonviolent responses to ICE agents, while also encouraging refusal to “comply with demands, requests, and orders.” It suggests “creative tactics,” including the idea that “Crowds, props, traffic, and noise can make detentions difficult, sometimes ICE vehicles can’t move (‘whoops!’).” The guide does not specifically instruct people to block operations with a vehicle.
How the message appeared in school records
The December 16 note, titled “School Report,” appeared as an item on the school board’s meeting agenda that day, according to an agenda listing — a meeting Good attended as one of three parents on the board of Southside Family Charter School.
Records do not show a board vote on the message. It’s also unclear whether the note was broadly distributed to families at Southside, a small charter school known for progressive activism. The school and other board members who served alongside Good did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Two sources familiar with the school told CNN the “School Report” message looked similar to past newsletters shared with parents, though neither person was on the email list at the time and could not confirm whether it was sent.
The message was uploaded to the school’s public Google Drive around two weeks into a federal operation that ramped up immigration enforcement in the Minneapolis area — an initiative federal officials launched with the stated goal of targeting the region’s Somali community.
What videos show — and what remains unclear
Good was partially blocking a street with her SUV on Wednesday as ICE agents operated nearby. An ICE officer who was filming her shot Good after she began to accelerate. Video footage shows Good turning her vehicle away from the agent as she moved forward, but it remains unclear whether her SUV made contact with him before he fired.
Federal officials have alleged — without providing evidence — that Good was engaged in “domestic terrorism” and had been “stalking agents all day long.” Some state and local lawmakers have criticized that rhetoric as false and inflammatory.
Good’s family has said she and her wife had been dropping off their son at Southside earlier that morning, roughly a mile and a half from the location of the shooting.
In a statement last week, Good’s wife, Becca Good, said the couple had “stopped to support our neighbors,” adding, “We had whistles. They had guns.”
Legal experts question the investigative emphasis
Legal experts told CNN they were troubled by signs that federal authorities may be emphasizing low-level protest-related conduct rather than focusing on the shooting itself.
Gregory Magarian, a Washington University School of Law professor and First Amendment expert, said the noncooperation tactics described in the materials could, in certain contexts, violate laws. Still, he said the documents largely endorse standard nonviolent protest actions that typically would not justify a federal investigation into organizers.
“If the FBI has an inkling of investigating the protest organizers, it should read that and say, ‘OK, there’s not a fruitful path of inquiry here. Nothing about that raises red flags, nothing about that raises alarms, we should get back to doing our job,’” Magarian said. He called the idea of investigating protesters rather than scrutinizing the use of deadly force “appalling and really dangerous.”
Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, said investigations targeting activists and protesters can function as an attempt to “justify the officer’s conduct.”
Good’s role at Southside Family Charter School
Good joined Southside’s school board in August 2025, a few months after moving to Minneapolis with her wife and their six-year-old son, according to board meeting notes. Her leadership role at the school had not previously been reported.
Southside, founded in 1972, enrolled 111 students last year, according to a school board document. The school offers programming that includes trips to the American South to study Civil Rights Movement history and “hands-on experience planting and harvesting” as part of environmental curriculum.
“The heart of the school’s mission, social justice education, is woven into every subject and grade level,” one annual report stated. “By addressing social justice issues at an early age, the school encourages children to see themselves as citizen activists who can change the world and also helps children avoid internalizing the effects of discrimination.”
The documents indicate Good was deeply involved in the school community despite being a relatively recent arrival. She regularly attended board meetings, with one record noting that “Renee had some questions about the future growth of the school.”
The same school bulletin that encouraged monitoring ICE also included a lighter note about Good and her wife contributing to a school event: they had “brought pots for us to paint,” which the school planned to sell at a spring plant sale.
Rashad Rich, a former physical education teacher at Southside who taught Good’s son, said the couple were frequently present at school.
After drop-off, he said, their son “would say goodbye several times before they could leave, and then they would drive around the front of the school so they had a window where he could see them,” Rich told CNN. “They’d wave. They were just awesome parents.”
Aftermath at the school
In the days since the shooting, Rich said teachers and staff have had their names and addresses posted on social media.
“They’re getting threats,” he said. “It’s a scary thing right now.”
