Renee Nicole Good is being remembered by loved ones as a devoted mother and a deeply compassionate person after she was shot and killed during an encounter with ICE agents in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7.
Video recorded from multiple angles shows Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, seated in the driver’s seat as agents confronted her. As the vehicle moved forward, one agent fired multiple shots into the car, fatally wounding her.
Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told The Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(688x413:690x415):format(webp)/renee-nicole-good-010826-1-b2918fee7ac143feb3a7ff6182969dcf.jpg)
“She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life,” Ganger said. “She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”
After the Department of Homeland Security described Good as a “domestic terrorist” and said agents acted in self-defense, Ganger rejected that characterization. “That’s so stupid. She was probably terrified,” she said, adding that her daughter was “not part of anything like that at all,” referring to protesters who have been challenging ICE agents.
Good’s father, Tim Ganger, also spoke about her life and character. “She had a good life, but a hard life. She was a wonderful person,” he told The Washington Post.
According to the Post, Good is survived by three children: a 15-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 12 and 6.
Good graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia in 2020, earning a degree in English. She was also a poet and received the university’s undergraduate poetry prize. Old Dominion University President Brian O. Hemphill described her as “a proud Monarch who graduated in December of 2020 from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/renee-nicole-good-vigil-010826-2-bf9154933795459aa102be56b68e5eeb.jpg)
“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” Hemphill said in a statement. “My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”
When Good won her poetry award, the ODU College of Arts & Letters noted that her work had been published in Metrosphere and Coronado Literary Review. Her bio also described her life beyond writing: “When she is not writing, reading, or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons.”
Good was previously married to comedian Tim Macklin Jr., the father of her youngest son, according to The Minnesota Star Tribune, citing her former father-in-law Tim Macklin Sr. Macklin Jr. died in 2023.
“There’s nobody else in his life,” Macklin Sr. said of Good’s son. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come and get my grandchild.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/renee-nicole-good-vigil-010826-3-c72c773f0369492f90a52f37047a191d.jpg)
In the aftermath of the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security accused Good of “domestic terrorism,” writing in an X post, “Today, in an act of domestic terrorism, an anti-ICE rioter weaponized her vehicle against law enforcement. Our officer relied on his training and saved his own life, as well as the lives of his fellow officers.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey forcefully disputed that account during a press conference, calling DHS’ assessment “bulls—.”
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense, having seen the video for myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bulls—,” Frey said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody getting killed.”
