A photo of Renee Macklin Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the day on Wednesday, is taped to a light post near the site where she was killed at 34th Street and Portland Avenue.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Renee Macklin Good’s wife, Becca Good, said that the 37-year-old poet and mother of three was made of sunshine.
“She literally sparkled,” Becca Good said in a statement. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time.”
But behind that light was a well of deep values that Macklin Good lived by, including a conviction that every person — regardless of “where you come from or what you look like” — deserves compassion and kindness.
“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” Good said.
Those were the values that brought the Goods to stop during an ICE operation in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Though they were relatively new in town, Becca Good said they wanted to support their neighbors.
“We had whistles,” she said. “They had guns.”
An offering at the memorial for Renee Good in Minneapolis on Friday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Bystander videos show a federal agent grabbing the handle of Good’s car and demanding she open the door. As she begins to pull away, footage shows another officer — since identified as Jonathan Ross — pointing his gun at her and firing through the windshield of the car.
A video taken by Ross that began circulating Friday also shows Macklin Good saying to the agent, “That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you.”
The Trump administration has cast Macklin Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run over federal agents, though that is not supported by eyewitness accounts or footage from the scene.
Her presence made ‘folks feel good’
Macklin Good was born in Colorado Springs as Renee Nicole Ganger. She graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia in her early 30s, with a degree in English. In 2020, she won a prize from the Academy of American Poets for a poem called “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
MPR newscaster and poet Emily Bright reads Renee Macklin Good’s poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
While at Old Dominion University, she took a fiction workshop with associate professor Kent Wascom. That class with Macklin Good was the first class he taught there.
He said he could still clearly remember how her warmth and positivity shaped the experience for everyone as they shared their own writing with the class.
“She was incredibly warm with her peers, generous with their work, and was just a bright and engaging presence that made folks feel good,” he said. “When the temptation to offer a biting critique might have fallen on another student, she was there with something kind to say, something positive to say about the work or something insightful that might be helpful.”
He said at the time that she was taking his class, she was pregnant with her son. It was the early days of the pandemic too, and despite all she was balancing, she stood out in how she continued to uplift others, even remotely.
News crews film near the memorial for Renee Good on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Friday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Along with her son, who is now six years old, she was also a mother to two other older children. Her wife described them as “extraordinary children” and said the youngest had already lost his father.
The Minnesota Star Tribune quoted Macklin Good’s mother Donna Ganger, who described her as “extremely compassionate.”
“She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate,” she said.
Macklin Good and Becca Good had moved recently to Minneapolis, in search of a new home.
When Macklin Good, her wife and their six-year-old son road-tripped to Minnesota for the chance to make a better life, the couple held hands the entire car ride, Becca Good said. Their son made drawings on the windows as the miles stretched on toward Minneapolis.
When they arrived, they found a vibrant and welcoming community and a “strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other.” Becca Good said she finally found peace and safe harbor.
But “that has been taken from me forever.”
A woman prays the rosary during a vigil for Renee Good, a woman who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the day on Wednesday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Each night since Macklin Good was killed, thousands of people have shown up to protest ICE and hold candles in support for Macklin Good and her family, locally and in other cities. Online, a GoFundMe that aimed to raise $50,000 in support of the family, has surpassed $1.5 million and has since closed.
The support has come in from out of state and out of the country.
“I’m sorry that you lost your life so senselessly simply because you were brave enough to stand up for your neighbors,” one donation read. “Please rest in peace knowing that we will take it from here. Tyranny will not stand, Good will prevail.”
“Renee, your death weighs heavily on my heart. You stood up for your neighbors and for immigrants like me, a Somali who knows how much that protection matters. I am heartbroken for your children, who must now live without you,” another read.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, we all know the truth and I hope you get justice,” read another.
Becca Good expressed gratitude for the wave of support and called for honoring Macklin Good by living her values and coming together “to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”
“The kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind,” Becca Good said.
“In fact, kindness radiated out of her.”
Here’s the full statement from Becca Good:
First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.
This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.
Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.
Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.
Like people have done across place and time, we moved to make a better life for ourselves. We chose Minnesota to make our home. Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles.
What we found when we got here was a vibrant and welcoming community, we made friends and spread joy. And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.
We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.
On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.
Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.
We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.
Belle talks about the right wing propaganda being generated to discredit the woman shot by ICE in Minnesota, Renee Good. It was not even a good fake hit piece as Belle describes it. I posted a few weeks ago about Russian and other enemy off the US countries posting stuff that is not true so that once it is circulated it discredits the real news in peoples minds. Ron fell for that himself.
Ron watches YouTube clips in the morning with his coffee. Yesterday he was listening to what he thought was a financial newsgroup called Buffet Unfiltered. That site reported that Deutsche Bank had called in tRump’s loans and seized tRump Towers. I questioned it because no other news source reported anything and I felt with news that important they would have. Today they reported how underwater on loans and to creditors tRump was, again that is believable but not the way Ron was telling me was being reported. So I again warned him about misleading propaganda. He asked me who to check the stuff out. I showed him how to both search out the group, which on their YouTube about page said they were fictional dramatizations, then I showed him how to search new groups like ground news for the story reported. Now he is upset these groups do this. But it was a good lesson for both of us. I post a lot of what I think is real news. However I have made mistakes and posted stuff not true or quite accurate. Thankfully the people who come here are smart and have pointed these out to me and I can correct or take the posts down. Thank you for helping keep this site as honest and correct as it is important to me. Hugs
Russia has compromised each and every Republican in Congress. Not one of them stands up for the US or our NATO/EU allies.
All things they tried to use to bludgeon the Democratic Party members and presidents. It is all gone when a thug mob boss wannabe of their own threatens them with the loss of their elected positions that gives them personal wealth. Hugs
Jonathan Ross was not going to let an LGBT mother just drive away without submission. He performed the ‘scared cop’ persona for a few seconds, then code switched back with “fcuking bitch” and walked away.
The lawless tRump and criminal gang Gestapo thugs in ICE do not want to be held accountable. They are demanding they have the right to lie and you must believe it. They think they would be allowed to get away with everything and anything to harm and terrorize people if no can see what they do. So they try to convince you it is a crime to record them. It is not a crime. But remember how racist cops tried to do the same thing after the George Floyd murder? We must not let them take our rights away from us and we must fight against the tyrannical dictatorship of a lawless government ruling a powerless public. Hugs
The Trump Administration Says It’s Illegal To Record Videos of ICE. Here’s What the Law Says.
The Trump administration believes you don’t have the right to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in public. This stance is both factually wrong and an attempt to chill free speech by conflating it with violence.
At a July 2025 press conference in Tampa, Florida, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said, “Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it’s videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations, encouraging other people to come and to throw things, rocks, bottles.”
In September 2025, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online” a form of doxing. She added, “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
These aren’t idle threats. The Trump administration strong-armed Apple into removing an app from its mobile store that tracked ICE activity and threatened criminal investigations into its creators.
The most aggressive application of this policy has come in Chicago under “Operation Midway Blitz,” where ICE officers have relentlessly targeted protesters, reporters, and clergy engaged in protected First Amendment activity.
In October, a group of journalists and protesters filed a lawsuit alleging “a pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press and civilians.”
In court filings, the plaintiffs stated that federal officials’ own testimony illustrated their point. For example, when ICE field director Russell Hott was asked if he agreed “that it’s unconstitutional to arrest people for being opposed to Midway Blitz,” he answered “No.”
“Similarly, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Greg] Bovino testified that he has instructed his officers to arrest protesters who make hyperbolic comments in the heat of political demonstrations, even though such statements—which do not constitute true threats—are protected speech,” the motion argued. (Hott and Bovino’s depositions were filed under seal, and those comments were later redacted in a corrected filing by the lawsuit plaintiffs, but not before others took screenshots of them.)
Based on voluminous evidence that feds in Chicago ignored her previous orders to curb their use of force, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction against DHS in early November 2025, saying the government’s conduct “shocked the conscience.”
Ellis found much of the officials’ testimony not credible. Bovino, for instance, testified that he never used force against a protester he was filmed tackling, and in another instance, Ellis said, he lied about being hit with a rock before firing tear gas at demonstrators. Nor did evidence support the government’s claims that federal officers issued warnings before firing less-than-lethal projectiles at those protesters.
“Describing rapid response networks and neighborhood moms as professional agitators shows just how out of touch these agents are, and how extreme their views are,” said Ellis.
The Trump administration responded by calling Ellis an “activist judge,” but it is squarely wrong when it comes to recording and protesting the police. Cato Institute senior fellow Walter Olson points out that, “While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the sevenfederalcircuitsthathavedoneso…all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.”
Likewise, federal circuits have upheld the right to use vulgar language to oppose police without fear of retaliation, and to warn others of nearby police checkpoints or speed traps.
As Olson writes, the administration’s “attempt to alter reality by establishing new legal facts on the ground” ultimately serves as a green light for informal repression. “If the agents come to believe that they have blanket immunity [for] whatever they do, or that citizens have no right to record them, they are more likely to take aggressive informal action, such as grabbing phones or taking news reporters into custody on charges of obstruction (perhaps later quietly dropped).”
It’s not hard to find examples of this rotten agency culture in practice. In late October 2025, ICE officers broke out the window of a U.S. citizen’s car and detained her for seven hours after she followed and photographed their unmarked vehicles. DHS accused her of reckless driving, attempting to block in officers with her car, and resisting arrest—all claims that she and her lawyer deny. Prosecutors did not charge the woman with a crime.
Recording government agents is one of the few tools citizens have to hold state power accountable. Any attempt to redefine observation as “violence” is not only unconstitutional—it’s authoritarian gaslighting. When a government fears cameras more than crimes, it isn’t protecting the rule of law. It’s protecting itself.
From coast to coast, Americans are being harassed, assaulted, injured, and even murdered by sneering masked thugs hired to attack their countrymen as part of a vengeance presidency that is obsessed with hurting people for sport.
Portland Avenue and 34th Street in South Minneapolis where City of Minneapolis officials have confirmed an ICE agent shot an observer. A neighbor who saw what happened told local MPR news: “She was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in — like, his midriff was on her bumper — and he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times,” (Photo: Chad Davis)
Under wannabe dictator Donald Trump, the federal agencies of the United States tasked with keeping the nation safe are rapidly becoming a grave threat to the physical safety of the American people, as trigger-happy officers open fire on those they’re supposed to be protecting with increasing frequency in communities across the country.
Then, on October 5th, 2025, agents shot thirty-one-year-old Marimar Martinezin Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood. Martinez was not seriously injured and was thus able to drive away. Although she committed no crime, Trump’s minions charged her and a companion for assault and attempted murder. But prosecutors were forced to drop all charges against both of them only a few weeks later, with her attorney stating: “These agents jumped out and shot Ms. Martinez, a U.S. citizen, whose only crime was warning her fellow community members that ICE was in the neighborhood… That is not a crime. She didn’t deserve to be shot.”
Today, officials at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis said that “armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders.” MPR News spoke to a school official about the incident, who related on condition of anonymity: “The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down… They don’t care. They’re just animals… I’ve never seen people behave like this.”
Also today, right here in the Pacific Northwest, CBP agents opened fire on a man and woman believed to be a married couple in the parking lot of Adventist Medical Center Pavilion in southeast Portland. Here’s more from The New York Times: “The driver of the vehicle that federal officials fired into drove off after the shooting, local officials said, and the victims were found by the police more than two miles away, with gunshot wounds. Emergency medical technicians who rushed the victims to hospitals described both as Spanish speakers in conversations captured by emergency radio broadcasts. The woman had a gunshot wound to the chest, an E.M.T. told a dispatcher. The man was described as having two gunshot wounds.
Details about this latest shooting in Portland are still coming into focus. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) posted a statement to Twitter about the shooting which was subsequently deleted — and that leads us to worry that the investigation may already have been compromised by political interference from Trump’s regime.
“This violence in our community is devastating,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said. “These are not statistics. These are human beings. Portland is not a training ground for militarized agents. When the administration talks about using ‘full force,’ we are seeing what that means on our streets. The consequences are not abstract. They are felt in hospital rooms, in living rooms, in the quiet moments when families try to make sense of what happened. We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time is long past.”
“That is why we are calling on ICE to halt all operations in Portland until a full and independent investigation can take place. Our community deserves answers. Our community deserves accountability. And most of all, our community deserves peace.”
“We are all shaken and outraged by another terrible, unnecessary violent event instigated by the reckless agenda of the Trump administration, this time in our own state, in our largest city, coming just one day after the tragedy in Minnesota,” said Governor Tina Kotek, the chief executive of Oregon.
“While details remain limited, one thing is clear: when a president endorses tearing families apart, and attempts to govern through fear and hate rather than shared values, he fosters an environment of lawlessness and recklessness.”
“I am aligned with Mayor Wilson: the priority right now is a full, completed investigation, not more detentions,” the governor added. “The Attorney General, district attorneys, and I have been clear about our concerns with the excessive use of force by federal agents in Portland, and today’s incident only heightens the need for transparency and accountability. Oregonians deserve clear answers.”
“There are those who want to cause chaos. But Oregonians know how to stand up and speak out, peacefully. We must remain united in peaceful opposition to efforts to tear our communities apart and turn against one another. We will not take the bait.”
“I am grateful to the first responders who have been on the frontline of today’s events. The state will continue to support Portland, and stand united with Minnesota.”
“Huge concern about a reported shooting of two individuals by federal agents outside Portland Adventist Hospital,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Oregon’s junior United States Senator. “My team and I are closely monitoring this situation and are working hard to get answers. I will share any updates as I learn more.”
The Preamble to the United States Constitutions explicitly refers to “domestic tranquility.” That’s how important it was to the Framers that the people of this country be able to live peacefully and prosperously, without fear of social disorder or unrest. Domestic tranquility is a key objective of our plan of government, and the federal government is supposed to meet that objective by enforcing the laws with great care and discretion.
Obviously, that’s not happening right now.
And that’s fine with the people who worship Trump.
What happens when law enforcement officers attack the very people they’re supposed to protect? What then? People are trying to go about their lives in this country and they’re ending up killed or injured because trigger-happy agents full of testosterone have been told they can be as brutal, aggressive, and careless as they want to anyone they happen to come across — and they won’t be held accountable or punished.
This is not “law and order,” this is oppression and systemic violence. Trump has decreed it and Republicans at every level — federal, state, and local — are enabling it.
Renee Nicole Good was murdered on-camera. The footage is widely available. It’s ghastly and horrific. We can see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears that we are being lied to on repeat about yesterday’s tragic events.
That’s exactly what Trump-controlled federal agencies are doing.
With Trump’s kakistocratic regime, no American is safe. This is a government of the least qualified and most unscrupulous individuals in the land. It’s the worst government in modern American history by a lot, and the terrible people who are in it seem determined to staking a claim to being the very worst government of all time.
It is our patriotic duty and moral responsibility — all of us who are loyal to the Constitution and to the values of freedom, inclusion, peace, and tolerance — to fiercely oppose this regime and all the evils it is trying to inflict on our country.
In memory of Silvero Villegas-Gonzalez and Renee Nicole Good and everyone else who has died at the hands of the thugs working for Donald Trump, we will carry on.
When I first posted this I was rushing to do a lot of things. I failed to post the entire article. So this is try two to see if I can do it correctly this time. Here is the rest of the story. Hugs.
There are videos at the web page of the article linked below. Sorry I do not trust or give credit to the words / stories from the government. It is just sending the message to ICE thugs that the government have their backs when they terrorize, harass, and kill people. Instant obedience to their self created authority / power grab is what they want. Let’s not give it to them, but do try to stay safe when using your right to protest. Hugs
Federal immigration agents shot and wounded two people in a vehicle outside a hospital in Portland on Thursday, a day after an officer fatally shot a woman in Minnesota, authorities said.
The shooting drew hundreds of protesters to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building at night, and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield vowed to investigate “whether any federal officer acted outside the scope of their lawful authority” and refer criminal charges to the prosecutor’s office if warranted.
The Department of Homeland Security said the vehicle’s passenger was “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” who was involved in a recent shooting in the city. When agents identified themselves to the occupants during a “targeted vehicle stop” in the afternoon, the driver tried to run them over, the department said in a statement.
“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot,” it said. “The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”
There was no immediate independent corroboration of that account or of any gang affiliation of the vehicle’s occupants. During prior shootings involving agents from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns in U.S. cities, including the fatal one Wednesday in Minneapolis, video evidence has cast doubt on the administration’s characterizations of what prompted the shootings.
Law enforcement officials work the scene following reports that federal immigration officers shot and wounded people in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Trump and his allies have consistently blamed the Tren de Aragua gang for being at the root of violence and drug dealing in some U.S. cities.
According to the Portland Police bureau, officers initially responded to a report of a shooting outside Adventist Health hospital at 2:18 p.m. Thursday.
A few minutes later, police received information that a man who had been shot was asking for help in a residential area a couple of miles away. Officers went there and found a man and a woman with gunshot wounds. Officers determined that they were injured in the shooting with federal agents, police said.
Law enforcement officials work the scene following reports that federal immigration officers shot and wounded people in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Their conditions were not immediately known. Portland police said officers applied a tourniquet to one of them.
City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said during a meeting that “as far as we know, both of these individuals are still alive, and we are hoping for more positive updates throughout the afternoon.”
At a nighttime news conference, Police Chief Bob Day said the FBI was leading the investigation and he had no details about the events that led to the shooting.
Mayor Keith Wilson and the City Council called on ICE to end all operations in Oregon’s largest city until a full investigation is completed.
Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez, center, speaks to the media following reports that federal immigration officers shot and wounded people in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
“We stand united as elected officials in saying that we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts,” they said in a statement. “Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences.”
Wilson also suggested at a news conference that he does not necessarily believe the federal government’s account of the shooting: “There was a time we could take them at their word. That time is long past.”
Democratic State Sen. Kayse Jama, who lives near where it took place, said Oregon is a welcoming state — but he told federal agents to leave.
“You are not welcome,” Jama said. “You need to get the hell out of Oregon.”
The city officials said “federal militarization undermines effective, community‑based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region. We’ll use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
They urged residents to show up with “calm and purpose during this difficult time.”
Several dozen people gathered in the evening near the scene where police found the wounded people.
“It’s just been chaos,” said one, Anjalyssa Jones. “The community is trying to get answers.”
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, urged protesters to remain peaceful.
“Trump wants to generate riots,” he said on the social platform X. “Don’t take the bait.”
___
Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed.
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