Renee Nicole Good's ex-husband has spoken out after an ICE agent fatally shot her.
On Wednesday (January 7), the 37-year-old mother was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent identified as Jonathan Ross at the intersection of 34th Street and Portland Avenue in Minneapolis.
Footage of the horrific moment was shared on social media and shows ICE agents surrounding Good’s vehicle, with one officer shouting at her to open the door and grabbing the handle.
As she begins to pull forward in her car, another agent standing in front of the vehicle draws his weapon and fires multiple times into the windshield at close range.
The woman was taken to the hospital but did not survive.
Good's Ex-Husband Speaks Out
While Trump administration officials have painted Good as a domestic threat who tried to "ram" agents with her vehicle, her family and community are pushing back hard.
Good’s ex-husband, who asked not to be named to protect their children, rejected any claims that she was politically active.
The Associated Press reports that he said: “She was no activist and that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind. He described her as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger.”
Born in Colorado, Good was a US citizen with no criminal history beyond a single traffic ticket.
A self-described “poet and writer and wife and mom,” she had recently moved to Minneapolis from Kansas City with her wife and six-year-old son.
Her social media accounts were filled with posts about motherhood, tattoos, and home decorating. Her Instagram bio proudly stated she was “experiencing Minneapolis,” complete with a pride emoji.
Good had two other children, a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son, from her first marriage.
She previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union, but had spent recent years primarily as a stay-at-home mom. Her second husband, with whom she shared a podcast, died in 2023.
“She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life,” her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Star Tribune. “She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”
A haunting parallel to George Floyd’s killing
Good’s death took place barely a mile from the spot where George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020, another incident that was filmed by witnesses and ignited national outrage.
As with Floyd, bystander videos of the mother's final moments quickly spread online, showing the ICE officers appearing to escalate the situation rather than de-escalating it.
ICE's own policies, updated in 2023, require agents to use force only when “no reasonably effective, safe and feasible alternative appears to exist,” and to prioritize “de-escalation” and “respect for human life.”
State and local officials have said Good’s action did not appear to pose an immediate threat that justified lethal force. In addition to this, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the federal self-defense argument “garbage”.
A tearful woman, identified by neighbors as Good’s wife, was filmed moments after the shooting, sobbing on the sidewalk, and yelling: “It’s my fault."
“I made her come down here; it’s my fault,” she said at the scene, according to The National News Desk. “They just shot my wife.” Rebecca added: “They shot her in the head. I have a six-year-old in school.”
"Renee was not the enemy"
Friends and former teachers remembered the late woman as a deeply caring person who once studied creative writing at Old Dominion University.
Professor Kent Wascom recalled her juggling the demands of school, work, and motherhood. “What stood out to me in her prose was that, unlike a lot of young fiction writers, her focus was outward rather than inward,” he said. “Her presence helped make that classroom a really supportive place.”
As outrage grows, so do calls for accountability. Protesters gathered at the spot where Good was killed, lighting fires in steel drums to stay warm in the freezing rain. A makeshift memorial with flowers and signs reading "JUSTICE FOR RENEE" appeared nearby.
Many critics argue that under the Trump administration’s intensified crackdown on immigration, ICE is growing more aggressive, with Good’s death marking the ninth ICE-involved shooting since September.
While officials defend the agency’s actions as being based on "strength" and "power," legal experts and human rights advocates argue that this approach goes against federal guidelines and the Constitution.
Per The Guardian, a 1985 Supreme Court ruling in Tennessee v. Garner states that deadly force may only be used if there is an immediate threat of death or serious injury, a threshold many say was not met in Good’s case.