Despite freezing temperatures on Sunday, hundreds gathered on the University of Iowa Pentacrest and marched to the Ped Mall for a rally in response to the killing Renee Nicole Macklin Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis four days earlier. Good was serving as a legal observer of ICE and Border Patrol agents sent to Minneapolis by the Trump administration last week.
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and an award-winning poet, was shot and killed while in her family SUV, a few blocks from her home. Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school. Volunteer ICE monitors were in the neighborhood to document agents’ actions, and possibly provide support to students and families at a dual-language elementary school. Becca Good, Renee’s wife, was with her, but not in the SUV when Ross shot Renee. Their dog was in the backseat.
After the shooting, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed Good had been blocking the street to stop ICE vehicles from moving forward, but video from the scene showed ICE SUVs easily driving around Good’s vehicle. Videos have also demonstrated that the major claims made by the Trump administration about what happened on Jan. 7 are false.
Multiple ICE agents approached Good’s SUV, as she was attempting to make a U-turn. A video taken by Ross shows Good speaking to Ross through the open driver’s side window. He had been behind her vehicle, videoing the license plate, before walking to the front of the SUV.
“That’s fine, dude,” she said calmly, with a smile. “I’m not mad at you.”
Other videos then show an ICE agent yelling at Good to get out of her vehicle, and trying to open the driver’s door. The SUV moves forward slowly, as Good tries to complete the turn she’d been making.
Ross’ video also shows him easily stepping away from the front of the SUV as it slowly moves forward. He fires three shots at Good. The fatally injured Good drives off, going less than a block before crashing.
“Fucking bitch,” Ross can be heard saying on the video after the crash.
A bystander who identified himself as a doctor ran towards the SUV, saying he wanted to help. ICE agents would not let him. It took six minutes for paramedics to arrive. After performing CPR on Good, who had been shot in the face, for seven minutes, the EMT put her in their ambulance. Good was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
The Trump administration and its supporters immediately began claiming the shooting was justified, alleging Good had been attacking ICE agents in what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called an act of “domestic terrorism.” Trump himself offered the most extreme and factually distorted justification for the killing of Renee Good.
“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer,” the president posted on his social media account.
It was obvious as soon as the first videos became public almost immediately after the shooting — and before Trump posted — that no one had been run over, and none of the ICE agents were injured.
“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly — that is bullshit,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said about claims the shooting was justified during a news conference on Jan. 7.
In the following days, careful analyses of the available shooting-scene videos published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the international investigative research collective Bellingcat and others have shown that none of the ICE agents were in danger. Ross was able to step beside the SUV as he fired at Good. None of that analysis has stopped the Trump administration and its supporters from continuing to defame Good and her wife, and claiming that Ross did what was necessary to protect himself and his fellow ICE agents.
Renee Nicole Macklin Good grew up in Colorado, and later studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia, where she received the 2020 Academy of American Poets prize for her poem, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” Old Dominion President Brian Hemphill said in a statement hours after Good was killed.
Renee and her wife Becca Good previously lived in Kansas City. After President Trump’s reelection in November 2024, they began considering moving from Missouri, a state dominated by conservative Republicans, to somewhere more welcoming to same-sex couples. At the end of December, they settled in Minneapolis.
There were more than 1,000 “ICE out for Good” protests against ICE and the Trump administration across the country over the weekend in response to the killing, but the one in Iowa City had a more personal connection to what happened on Jan. 7 than most. Renee never lived in Iowa City, but Becca did, and members of her family still do. Her niece, who has asked that her name not be used out of concerns over privacy and safety, attended both the noon rally and a candlelight vigil in front of the Old Capitol on Sunday night.
The hundreds gathered at the Pentacrest at noon on Sunday the hundreds to protest ICE and honor Good’s memory marched to the Weatherdance Fountain Stage on the Ped Mall for a 90-minute rally.
Iowa City musician and music educator Lyndsey Scott led the people in song, and Rev. Nora Boerner, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, led them in prayer. Rev. Boerner, who is from Minneapolis, also talked about the impact of seeing the killing occur in a place she knows well.
“I first got the call to ministry a half-a-block from where George Floyd was killed and less than a mile from where Renee was also killed,” she said. Boerner told the crowd that is normal to have trouble processing such a traumatic event, and that it was important for members of the community to support each other at such a time.
Rev. Heecheon Jeon, lead pastor at Iowa City First United Methodist Church an immigrant from South Korea, also spoke at the rally.
“As an immigrant pastor, I was traumatized by this, so I had to come here,” he began. “I had to come here and stand with you, because we are Americans who have a dream that this is a democratic country. With human rights. With human dignity.”
Jeon referred to the Trump administration’s refusal to hold ICE agents accountable, as they engaged in increasingly violent, and likely illegal, behavior. The president and other top Trump administration officials have already declared Ross’s killing of Good to be legal, and DHS and the FBI are refusing to cooperate with Minnesota and Minneapolis law enforcement officials, hampering their investigation and likely preventing any attempt to hold Ross accountable at the state level from succeeding.
“So we stand here, not because we have to, but because we choose to,” Jeon said. “Because something deep in our hearts knows that another world is possible, refuses to surrender to the world as it is. We stand here, because our beloved sister, friend, poet, mother of three, Renee Nicole Good was killed by ICE, an agency of our own government.”
“But her name will thunder louder than their paperwork.”
The most powerful speaker at the Sunday rally was Mazahir Salih, a member of the Iowa City Council and the executive director of the Immigrant Welcome Network of Johnson County. An immigrant herself, Salih became the first Sudanese-American woman elected to office in the United States, when she won a seat on the Iowa City Council in 2017.
“I am also here as a community member, a neighbor and someone who believes deeply that public safety, dignity and accountability belong to all of us,” Salih said, her voice heavy with emotion. “We gather here today with heavy hearts to honor the life of Renee Good … We are here also to remember others who have been shot, killed or who have died in detention during immigration enforcement.”
Good’s death was the ninth time since September that ICE agents have shot someone. This figure does not reflect the number of people agents have shot with so-called “less than lethal” munitions, or debilitated with chemical agents such as gas and pepper spray. The day after Good was shot and killed, Border Patrol agents in Portland as part of DHS’s expanded immigration enforcement shot two people.
“This tragedy is not just about one person or one city. It reflects something much larger and much more troubling,” Salih said. “It reflects an escalation in enforcement practice that is increasingly aggressive, militarized, and increasingly disconnected from community safety and accountability.”
“When an enforcement agency operates with unchecked power, the harm does not stop at immigration status. It spreads out. It creates fear, it traumatizes families, it destabilizes neighborhoods and it erodes trust between communities and the very systems that are supposed to protect them.”
“Fear travels fast,” Salih continued. “What happened in Minneapolis does not stay in Minneapolis. It reaches Iowa City, it reaches Johnson County, it reaches families who are afraid to leave their homes, parents who are afraid to take their children to school, workers who are afraid to show up for their jobs and neighbors who begin to wonder whether anyone is truly safe.”
“This is not what safety looks like. And this is not the country I came to.”
At 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, more than 200 people gathered on the Pentacrest for a candlelight vigil in memory of Renee Good. Becca Good’s niece read out a statement Becca released earlier in the day.
First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out, across the country and around the world, to support our family. The kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute, because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Mackin 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 must 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 an essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other and keep each 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 finally found peace and safe harbor that has been taken away 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, Jan. 7, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles, they had guns. Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children. The youngest is just 6 years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world. That the people who did this 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.
That statement was intended for everyone, and was quoted by news organizations across the country, but the statement read on the Pentacrest had three extra words added by Becca Good for listeners in Iowa City, as a personal nod to her old hometown.
“And go Hawks,” Good, a longtime UI fan, added.
President Trump continued to lie and baselessly defame Renee Good, as he spoke to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. The president was asked if he believed the use of deadly force was justified after watching video footage of the shooting.
“It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement,” Trump said. “The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement. You saw that. They were harassing, they were following for days and for hours. And I think frankly they’re professional agitators. I’d like to find out and we are going to find out who’s paying for it.”
The reporter followed up with a question that assumed the president’s basic allegation, and asked if being disrespectful warranted the use of lethal force.
“Law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff,” he replied. “What that woman and what her friend, and what their other friends were doing to law enforcement, not just ICE, law enforcement, is outrageous.”
Trump never used Renee Good’s name, and never acknowledged that the videos from the scene clearly show what he has been saying isn’t true.
