Here are two profiles – one by her local paper and another by the BBC
‘She was an amazing human being’: Mother identifies woman shot, killed by ICE agent
Renee Nicole Good, 37, lived in Minneapolis with her partner just blocks from where she was shot.
January 8, 2026 at 1:06AM
A poster showing a photograph of Renee Nicole Good, 37, hangs on a lamppost at the site where she was shot and killed by a federal agent while she was in her vehicle in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7. (David Guttenfelder/The New York Times)
The woman shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, was identified by her mother as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good.
Good died just a few blocks from where she lived. A woman who answered the door at Good’s home declined to comment.
Donna Ganger told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter lived in the Twin Cities with her partner. Ganger said the family was notified of the death late Wednesday morning.
“That’s so stupid” that she was killed, Ganger said, after learning some of the circumstances from a reporter. “She was probably terrified.”
Ganger said her daughter is “not part of anything like that at all,” referring to protesters challenging ICE agents.
“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” she said. “She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”
An Instagram account that appears to belong to Good describes her as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado; experiencing Minneapolis, MN.”
Good had previously been married to Timmy Ray Macklin Jr., who died in 2023 at the age of 36. Macklin’s father, Timmy Ray Macklin Sr., was shocked to hear the news that Good had been shot and killed.
He said Good and his son had a child who is now 6 years old.
“There’s nobody else in his life,” Macklin said. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come and get my grandchild.”
Macklin added that Good had two additional children who he believed lived with her extended family.
In 2020 while studying creative writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., Good was awarded the school’s undergraduate poetry prize for “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
A mini-bio on the English Department’s Facebook page said Good, known then as Renee Macklin, was from Colorado Springs and hosted a podcast with her husband, Tim Macklin.
“When she is not writing, reading or talking about writing,” the post continued, “she has movie marathons and makes messy art.”
‘She was an amazing human being’: Mother identifies woman shot, killed by ICE agent
Thousands gather to memorialize woman killed by ICE agent in Minneapolis
Megan Kocher posted on social media that “I met Renee and her wife just a few weeks ago. She fed me tea and cookies at her house while we talked about school stuff.”
Kocher described Good as “such a warm and loving mother. This is tragic beyond words.” She declined to comment further.
Speakers at an evening vigil disclosed few details of Good’s life but were resolute in honoring her as a good neighbor who was protecting others.
“She was peaceful, she did the right thing,” said Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of CAIR-MN. “She died because she loved her neighbors.”
A speaker who only identified himself as Noah rejected Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s portrayal of Good as a domestic terrorist and said instead that Good was present on Portland Avenue on Wednesday “to watch the terrorists.”
As they walked around the block, hundreds of people chanted Good’s name.
Mary Radford, 27, was just getting home from work around 7 p.m. and struggled to find a place to park as hundreds of people descended on the neighborhood to mourn Good.
Radford lived next to Good and saw her and her young son often when walking their Australian shepherd Hazelnut, who she said gets excited every time they walk by Good’s house.
“It’s a beautiful family. They have a son. He’s very sweet. He loves our dog. He always has to go run up and pet and play with her,” she said. “They’re always outside playing.”
The Goods moved in pretty recently, Radford said, but they had “wonderful conversations.”
“We’re gonna miss seeing them — forever,” she said. “It is so painful to think about how he’s gonna fare in his life. And I just can’t even imagine what that family is going through.”
Radford said through tears that Good was a good neighbor, though their time as neighbors was tragically brief.
“I wish I could have known her more.”
Kim Hyatt and Elliot Hughes of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.
Source: BBC
Who was Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by ICE?
ByTiffany Wertheimer
- Published2 hours ago
The woman shot dead by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis has been identified as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had just moved to the city.
She was a prize-winning poet and a hobby guitarist, who was there as a legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities, city leaders have said.
But the Trump administration has called her a “domestic terrorist”.
Good’s death has sparked protests across the country, with many people holding signs that read “Justice for Renee”.
Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune, external that her daughter was “probably terrified” during the confrontation with officers that saw her fatally shot and that she was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known”.
“She was extremely compassionate,” Ganger told the daily. “She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”
Her father, Tim Ganger, told The Washington Post that “she had a good life, but a hard life.”
A fundraiser for Good’s family, which was set up with a target of $50,000 (£37,000), raised more than $370,000 in 10 hours.
- US immigration agent fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis
- Published3 hours ago
In what appears to be Good’s Instagram account, which has now been made private, Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom”, who is “experiencing Minneapolis”.
A US citizen, Good was originally from Colorado Springs and had moved to Minneapolis just last year from Kansas City.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that she used to host a podcast with her second husband, Tim Macklin, who died in 2023. They had a son together, who is now six years old, Macklin’s father told the newspaper.
She had two other children with her first husband, who spoke to US media on condition that his name was not used. He said that Good was not an activist, and that she was a devoted Christian who went to Northern Ireland on youth missions when she was younger.
According to the Associated Press news agency, she had previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union, but had mainly been a stay-at-home mum in recent years.
Good studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 2020 she won an undergraduate prize from the Academy of American Poets, external for her piece titled On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.
“When she is not writing, reading, or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons,” her biography from the prize reads, as quoted in US media. It seems to have now been removed.
Good graduated the same year from the university’s College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English.
In a statement, its president said her sudden death “is yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation”.
“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” Old Dominion University President Brian Hemphill wrote.
Several state leaders have said that Good was at the scene of an ICE raid in the south of Minneapolis as a legal observer – a volunteer who monitors police and security forces at protests and operations. Their aim is to help maintain calm, deter misconduct and ensure legal rights are respected.
Good’s mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was “not part of anything” that involved challenging ICE agents.
But White House officials, including the president, have said Good was not simply observing, but also interfering in the officers’ work.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had been “stalking and impeding their work” all day by “blocking them in” with her car and “shouting at them”.
Good “weaponised her vehicle”, Noem told reporters, and then tried to run over one of the officers “in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism”.
The ICE agent feared for his life, Noem said, and “fired defensive shots”.
This story was backed up by Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting”.
He called her a “professional agitator” who “violently, willfully [sic], and viciously” ran over an ICE officer.
But the city’s mayor said the agent who shot Good had acted recklessly.
“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bullshit,” Jacob Frey said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
Good reportedly lived just a few blocks from where she was killed, and the scene is about one mile from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a city police officer, sparking worldwide anti-racism protests.
Martin Plaut 