Who was the woman killed by ICE in Minneapolis?

The woman who was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis has been identified as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who recently moved to the city.

He is an award-winning poet and a hobby guitarist, and according to Minnesota Senator Tina Smith, a US citizen.

City leaders said Good is a legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities. But the Trump administration has called him a “domestic terrorist”.

Good’s death sparked protests across the country, with many people holding signs that read “Justice for Renee”.

His mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that his daughter was “probably scared” during the confrontation with the officers who saw her shot and that he was “one of the nicest people I know”.

“He’s very compassionate,” Ganger told the daily. “He took care of people his whole life. He was loving, forgiving and caring. He was a wonderful person.”

His father, Tim Ganger, told The Washington Post that “he had a good life, but a hard life.”

A fundraiser for Good’s family, set with a target of $50,000 (£37,000), raised more than $370,000 in 10 hours.

On what appears to be Good’s Instagram account, which has since been made private, Good describes herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom”, who “experiences Minneapolis”.

Originally from Colorado Springs, he moved to Minneapolis last year from Kansas City.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that she once hosted a podcast with her second husband, Tim Macklin, who died in 2023. They had a son, who is now six, Macklin’s father told the newspaper.

She has two other children with her first husband, who spoke to the US media on the condition that her name not be used. He said Good was not an activist, and that he was a devout Christian who went to Northern Ireland on youth missions when he was young.

According to the Associated Press news agency, she previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union, but has primarily been a stay-at-home mom in recent years.

Good studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 2020 he won an undergraduate prize from Academy of American Poets for his piece titled On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.

“When he’s not writing, reading, or talking about writing, he’s having movie marathons and making messy art with his daughter and two sons,” his biography from the prize reads, as quoted by US media. It seems to have 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 his sudden death was “another clear example that fear and violence have become the norm in our country”.

“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” wrote Old Dominion University President Brian Hemphill.

Several state leaders said Good was at the scene of an ICE raid in south Minneapolis as a legal observer — a volunteer who monitors police and security forces during protests and operations. Their purpose is to help maintain calm, prevent misbehavior and ensure that legal rights are respected.

Good’s mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was “not part of anything” involving challenging ICE agents.

But White House officials, including the president, said Good not only observed, but also interfered with the work of officials.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had been “stalking and obstructing their work” throughout the day by “blocking them” with his car and “yelling at them”.

Good “armed his car”, Noem told reporters, and then tried to run over one of the officers “in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to the agents, an act of domestic terrorism”.

The ICE agent feared for his life, Noem said, and “fired defensive shots”.

This story was supported by Trump, who wrote in Truth Social that “the woman who drove the car was not good, obstructed and resisted”.

He called him a “professional agitator” who was “brutal, willful (sic), and violent” ran into an ICE officer.

But the mayor of the city said that the agent who shot Good acted carelessly.

“I saw the video myself, I want to tell everyone directly: that is stupid,” said Jacob Frey. “It was an agent who unquestioningly used power that resulted in someone dying, being killed.”

Good reportedly lived just a few blocks from where he was killed, and the scene was about a mile from where he was killed George Floyd was killed in 2020 of a city police officer, sparking protests against racism around the world.