Killing of Renee Good

Based on Wikipedia: Killing of Renee Good

The encounter lasted barely ninety seconds. By the end, a thirty-seven-year-old poet and mother was dead from three gunshots to the head, her maroon Honda Pilot crashed into a light pole on a residential Minneapolis street. The shooter was a federal immigration agent. The victim was an American citizen who had just dropped her son off at school.

What happened on the morning of January 7, 2026, in the Central neighborhood of Minneapolis would ignite protests across the country, draw comparisons to the killing of George Floyd less than a mile away six years earlier, and raise fundamental questions about the use of lethal force by federal agents operating in American cities.

The Backdrop: A City Under Siege

The day before Renee Good was killed, the Department of Homeland Security announced what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever conducted in the United States. Two thousand agents descended on the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area, including officers from Homeland Security Investigations focused on suspected fraud cases.

The operation was unprecedented in scale. Saint Paul City Council member Molly Coleman described the first day as "unlike any other day we've experienced." An eyewitness to the shooting would later say, "People in our neighborhood have been terrorized by ICE for six weeks."

This context matters. Good's killing was not an isolated incident. It was the ninth time that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had opened fire on people since September of 2025. Four other people had already died during federal deportation operations.

Who Was Renee Good?

Renee Nicole Macklin Good was a writer and poet who lived in Minneapolis with her wife Becca and their six-year-old child. Originally from Colorado Springs, she had graduated with an English degree from Old Dominion University in Virginia. She had been married twice before. Her first marriage, which lasted from 2009 to 2016, produced two children. Her second husband, with whom she had one child, died in 2023 at just thirty-six years old.

According to a neighbor, Good had previously lived in Kansas City before relocating to Canada with her partner and family following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election. Later, she moved to Minneapolis.

Her ex-husband would later tell reporters that she "was not an activist."

The Agent

The ICE agent who fired the fatal shots was identified by the Minnesota Star Tribune as Jonathan Ross, though federal authorities never publicly released his name. The newspaper found him through court records after both Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance mentioned in press briefings that the shooter had been injured in a traffic stop six months earlier.

That previous incident had occurred on June 17, 2025, when Ross smashed a vehicle's window, reached in to unlock the door, and was then dragged fifty yards when the car drove away. He received thirty-three stitches.

Ross had worked for United States Border Patrol from 2007 to 2015 before joining ICE in 2016. He had served in Iraq. In court testimony from December, he described himself as "a firearms instructor, an active shooter instructor, a field intelligence officer, and a member of the SWAT team, the St. Paul Special Response Team."

His father described him as a conservative Christian. A neighbor said he had supported Trump during the 2024 election and had at one point flown the Gadsden flag, the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" banner associated with libertarian and conservative movements, outside his home.

The Morning of January 7th

Secretary Noem would later allege that Good had been "stalking and impeding ICE all day" prior to the shooting, which occurred at approximately 9:30 in the morning. Several Minnesota officials, including Attorney General Keith Ellison and United States Representative Ilhan Omar, said Good was acting as a legal observer of ICE's activities at the time. Good's ex-husband offered a simpler explanation: she had just dropped her son off at school and was on her way home "when they came upon a group of ICE agents."

The timeline that follows comes from multiple video sources and has been reconstructed by several news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and BBC News.

At 9:35 and five seconds Central Standard Time, Good's maroon Honda Pilot SUV was stopped diagonally on Portland Avenue as she began to turn. Four cars passed her in the adjacent lane, which remained open.

A minute and forty-six seconds later, Good's wife Becca exited the vehicle and spoke with an ICE agent in the street. Both recorded each other on their cell phones. Good stopped the car as the agent moved in front of it.

Seven seconds after that, a Ford Explorer entered Portland Avenue. Good waved to let the driver pass her car, and the vehicle did. As she continued waving, a Nissan Titan pickup truck stopped to the left of her SUV and two ICE agents stepped out.

Ninety Seconds

Video taken by Ross himself captured part of what happened next. In the footage, Ross was at the front of Good's car and then walked toward the driver's seat. Good is seen facing Ross and telling him, "That's fine dude. I'm not mad at you." Her wife Becca says to Ross, "We don't change our plates every morning, just so you know. This will be the same plate when you come talk to us later." Becca then pulls out a cellphone, holds it toward Ross, and says, "You wanna come at us? You wanna come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy."

At 9:37 and eight seconds, the ICE agents from the Nissan pickup approached Good's vehicle, which was stopped sideways in the road. At least one of them repeatedly ordered her to "get out of the car."

An eyewitness would later claim the agents gave conflicting orders. One agent told Good to drive away from the scene. Another shouted at her to get out of the car.

As the agents approached, Good put the car in reverse. One of the ICE agents placed his hand on the open window of her vehicle. Ross was positioned near the front-left corner. The agent at the driver's door attempted to open it and reach through the open window. As Becca tried to get back into the passenger seat, Good reversed briefly, moving a few feet, with the agent's hands still on the door.

Then she began to drive forward, away from the agents, while turning the steering wheel. Becca was heard yelling "Drive, baby, drive!"

The car moved forward and to the right. What happened next became the subject of intense scrutiny and conflicting accounts.

The Critical Moment

Whether the vehicle ever came into contact with Ross, the shooter, remains disputed. Separate analyses of the video footage by The Washington Post and BBC News were inconclusive. An analysis by The New York Times concluded that the agent was not struck.

A later video emerged on January 9, taken directly from Ross's own mobile phone and published by Alpha News, a Minnesota-based conservative outlet. The Department of Homeland Security later shared the same footage. The Times, reviewing the video from Ross's perspective, said "the front corner of the car clips him, turning him sideways." The Telegraph, a British newspaper, said he was "almost knocked off his feet as Good lurches the SUV towards him."

But BBC News and the Associated Press also reviewed the agent's phone recording and noted that the footage doesn't actually show the car making contact with Ross because the camera angle suddenly points upward at the sky during the critical moment.

In the video Ross took, the camera briefly points up at his masked face. At nearly the same time that Good's vehicle began moving in the correct direction of traffic on the one-way street, Ross shot her in the head.

ABC News confirmed that Ross fired his weapon at 9:37 and thirteen seconds. Three shots were fired into Good's car as it withdrew. The entire burst took less than one second.

Seconds after the shots, a male voice on Ross's recording said, "fucking bitch."

The Aftermath

Good's car continued down the street until it crashed into a parked car and a light pole.

Ross approached the crashed vehicle and then returned to his colleagues. He told other agents to "call 911" and remained on scene for more than a minute. The New York Times reported that after the shooting, "several agents, including the agent who opened fire, [got] in their vehicles and [drove] off, apparently altering the active crime scene."

A bystander who identified himself as a physician attempted to provide medical aid to Good. ICE agents refused to permit him, saying first responders were en route.

At 9:43 and fourteen seconds, six minutes after the first shot was fired, emergency medical services and firefighters arrived. They began removing Good from her vehicle and attempted to render aid. By 9:45 and thirty seconds, Good was carried to the intersection of Portland Avenue and 34th Street, where she began receiving CPR. This was eight minutes after being shot. Seven minutes later, around 9:52, her body was placed into an ambulance.

Good was pronounced dead after being taken to Hennepin County Medical Center.

Secretary Noem said that the ICE agent who fired the shots was treated at a hospital for being "hit by the vehicle" and was later released.

Competing Narratives

The official federal account and the version suggested by video evidence diverged sharply.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson named Tricia McLaughlin alleged that an ICE officer "fearing for his life" had shot Good in self-defense after she attempted to run agents over in what McLaughlin described as "an act of domestic terrorism." After the release of Ross's phone footage, McLaughlin said, "The American people can watch this video with their own eyes and ears and judge for themselves."

DHS claimed several federal agents were injured but were expected to recover. A report published by The Guardian the same day said there were "no visible sign in the videos" of injuries to ICE officers in the incident.

President Donald Trump described Good as "very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense." He added that he found it "hard to believe [the agent] is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital."

The ICE officer in question, Ross, remained on his feet throughout the entirety of the incident.

When reporters from The New York Times questioned Trump's conclusion during an interview in the Oval Office, the president showed them a video of the incident. The reporters remarked that the video did not show the officer being run over. Trump responded, "Well, I, the way I look at it," and then said, "It's a terrible scene, I think it's horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it."

Vice President JD Vance called Good's death "a tragedy of her own making" and described her as "a victim of left-wing ideology."

Secretary Noem alleged that Good "attacked [ICE] and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him." The following day, Noem announced Operation Salvo, which would increase ICE presence in New York City.

The Investigation That Wasn't

On January 8, the head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension disclosed that the FBI had revoked their access to evidence of the shooting. This reversed an earlier agreement that a joint investigation would be undertaken by the state bureau and the FBI.

Minnesota's Public Safety Commissioner said "it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible" for the local investigation to continue "without cooperation from the federal government."

Minneapolis's chief county prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, said her office was "exploring all options to ensure a state level investigation can continue." The next day, she and Attorney General Ellison asked residents to submit videos, photos, and eyewitness accounts of the shooting and the events leading up to it. The officials said it was too early to tell if enough evidence could be gathered to decide whether to charge the shooter.

ICE policy requires agents to wear active body cameras to record enforcement and interactions for review in serious incidents. The Times reported that the ICE agents at the scene were equipped with body-worn cameras, but the footage had not been released to the public. It remained unknown whether the shooter himself was wearing one. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about whether the officer who opened fire or any of the others on scene were wearing body cameras.

The Ripple Effects

Minneapolis Public Schools cancelled classes for the remainder of the week, citing safety concerns after the shooting and ICE's use of pepper spray and pepper balls against students at Roosevelt High School. Faculty at the high school said that armed ICE officers had handcuffed two members of the staff. On January 9, the school district announced it would offer remote learning as an option until February 12.

A fundraiser on GoFundMe started by Good's family was closed on January 9 after reaching more than one and a half million dollars in donations. The family stated that the money would be placed in a trust fund.

The killing brought renewed attention to other incidents of killings by immigration agents, including an off-duty ICE officer's fatal shooting of Keith Porter Jr. just one week earlier.

The Protests

Good's death occurred about one mile from the location where George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020, an event that sparked worldwide protests over police brutality and racial justice. The parallel was not lost on anyone.

The killing drew a crowd of hundreds of protesters to the site. Federal law enforcement fired tear gas and pepper spray. Some protesters threw snowballs. Governor Tim Walz announced he had begun preparing the Minnesota National Guard. By evening, the crowd at the location where Good was killed had grown to thousands, including members of the Minneapolis City Council. Protests also gathered in cities across the country.

On January 8, a crowd barricaded the street where Good was killed to hold a vigil in her memory. City workers removed the barricades shortly after but preserved a memorial that had been established. More protests occurred elsewhere, including in Buffalo, Chapel Hill, Durham, Kansas City, and Los Angeles.

Over one thousand protests were planned for the following weekend. Tens of thousands marched in Minneapolis on January 10.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Governor Walz called on the federal government to end their presence in the city.

What the Video Shows

The facts of those ninety seconds are available for anyone to see. A woman in an SUV, surrounded by federal agents giving conflicting orders. An attempt to drive away. Three shots fired in under a second. A car crashing into a light pole. A voice saying, "fucking bitch."

What those facts mean depends, apparently, on who is watching.

To the federal government, this was self-defense against a domestic terrorist who ran over an officer. To eyewitnesses and video analysts, this was a woman trying to leave a chaotic situation, shot in the head as she drove away. To Good's family, she was a poet and mother who had just dropped her son off at school.

To her six-year-old child, she was Mom.

The investigation into whether the shooting was justified effectively ended when the FBI revoked state access to the evidence. Without federal cooperation, local authorities said they could not proceed. The agent who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, remained on duty. The Department of Homeland Security considered the matter closed.

But in Minneapolis, and in cities across America, the matter was anything but closed. The protests continued. The questions multiplied. And a memorial grew on Portland Avenue, between East 33rd and 34th Streets, just a few blocks from where Renee Good had lived with her wife and child.