MINNEAPOLIS — A 2020 Old Dominion University graduate and award-winning poet was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent Wednesday, an incident that has ignited national protests and pitted local officials against the Department of Homeland Security.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, died after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired into her vehicle in a residential neighborhood. The shooting has drawn sharp condemnation from Minneapolis leaders, who accuse the agent of a reckless abuse of power, while federal authorities maintain the agent acted in self-defense.
The incident occurred less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed in 2020, deepening a community’s tensions with law enforcement.
A Virginia Connection
Good graduated from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, with a degree in English. In 2020, she won an undergraduate prize from the Academy of American Poets for her work.
In a statement, ODU President Brian O. Hemphill mourned her death. “May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” Hemphill said. “My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”
Friends and family remember Good as a writer and devoted mother of three children. Originally from Colorado, she had moved to Minneapolis from Kansas City last year. Her ex-husband told The Associated Press she had just dropped her 6-year-old son off at school moments before the fatal encounter.
Dueling Narratives of the Shooting
Accounts of the moments leading to Good’s death diverge sharply. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the incident an “act of domestic terrorism,” stating that Good “weaponized her vehicle” and tried to run over an officer.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey forcefully rejected that claim. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bullshit,” Frey said at a news conference.
An eyewitness who recorded the incident told NPR that agents gave Good conflicting commands, with one telling her to drive away while another ordered her out of the car.
The Agent Involved
The ICE agent who fired the shots was identified by NPR as Jonathan Ross, who was cross-referenced with court records.
Noem noted the agent had been previously injured in a similar incident in June. According to NPR’s reporting, court records from that case in Bloomington, Indiana, confirm Ross was the agent involved when a suspect dragged him with a car during an arrest attempt.
A Community Demands Answers
The FBI is now leading the investigation into the shooting. Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced it had withdrawn from a planned joint inquiry after the U.S. Attorney’s Office gave the FBI sole authority, a move that the state agency said would restrict its access to evidence.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison questioned the decision, telling NPR that public confidence would be better served by an independent investigation. In the hours after Good’s death, a fundraiser for her family surpassed $500,000, the BBC reports, as vigils and protests took place across the country.
