A quiet Minneapolis morning ended in shock and sorrow when a woman was shot dead by an ICE agent on a residential street — a moment neighbours say will haunt them for a long time.
The woman has been identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good, a US citizen and mother of three who had recently moved to Minnesota.
In a post on X, the homeland security department (DHS) said the person was a “domestic terrorist” who “weaponized her vehicle” and attempted “to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them”.
The department claimed several ICE officers were hurt, but said that they were expected to make “full recoveries”.
"An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers,” the DHS post said.
'Good posed absolutely no threat at all': WitnessWitnesses who saw the shooting unfold say the woman posed no threat and was simply trying to drive away when gunfire erupted. What followed, they describe, was chaos, disbelief and a crushing sense of helplessness as her vehicle crashed into parked cars and federal agents ordered residents to stand back.
The woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Betsy, said she returned home from walking her dog when she heard horns and whistles nearby on Portland Avenue and walked over to see what was happening, as per MPR.
“What I saw when I came around the corner was a maroon SUV and a cluster of vehicles in the street, including what appeared to me to be federal officers kind of out and surrounding the vehicle, as well as a number of neighborhood witnesses on the sidewalk,” she said.
Betsy said that as she walked closer, she saw “what appeared to me to be a federal agent. He was a man wearing a black bulletproof vest, and he was kind of yelling at the driver of the maroon SUV. She appeared to me to be trying to move her vehicle south on Portland Avenue to kind of get out of the way of the activity that was happening, and the officer was on the driver’s side of the car, like near the driver’s window.
MPR News visual journalist Ben Hovland talks about the scene: “He was yelling at her, and as she started to accelerate her vehicle to kind of go south on Portland, he reached his arm into the driver’s side of the car and fired multiple shots.”
The woman’s vehicle then crashed into parked vehicles near where Betsy was standing. Betsy said neighbours wanted to provide aid to the woman but were told to back up by federal officers. She said she did not see those agents try to help the injured woman.
Betsy said she knew and cared about her neighbours and they made her feel safe. She said she was now feeling grief and feeling unsafe “because of the immigration enforcement officers and that, like, brash disregard they’re showing for any sort of human life or dignity.”
“It was such a betrayal, and the woman who was driving the car,” she added. “I just can’t be more clear that she posed absolutely no threat at all. From what I could tell it looked like she was attempting to leave.”
Lynette Reini-Grandell, who witnessed the shooting, said there appeared to be no tension or escalation before an ICE agent opened fire on a vehicle, according to NPR.
Reini-Grandell said that when she turned, she noticed a vehicle askew in the lane with ICE vehicles and officers “pretty far behind it”. She said there were several bystanders on the street yelling at ICE officers, speaking on “Meet The Press.”
“I would say less than 60 seconds after I passed her, I heard these three pops — shot, shot, shot, pop, pop, pop — and I knew it was gunfire,” she said. “And almost immediately the crash of her hitting that parked car.”
Reini-Grandell said she did not hear any confrontation between the vehicle and officers before shots rang out.
“I didn’t even hear anything from the car. People on the sidewalks were screaming at the ICE agents ‘Get out of our neighborhood,’ that sort of thing, and we were blowing whistles,” Reini-Grandell recalled.
Venus de Mars said they arrived after the gunfire and saw EMTs performing CPR on the victim.
“The ambulances couldn’t get there because there was so much traffic,” de Mars said. “When they finally did get over there, I watched as they got whoever they were doing the CPR on onto a stretcher and put her into the ambulance and drove away. But there was no rush, there was no sirens. I already knew she hadn’t made it. It was just devastating to watch.”
Betsy and Reini-Grandell said they did not know the victim, and both said the community had been on alert since ICE arrived last month.
Social media is also saying that the woman didn't tried to attack ICE. Sharing the screenshot from the viral footage showing woman in the car and turning to opposite angle than ICE, an X user said, "No she didn't, and here's the evidence. She's turning the front wheels of her car to the right, away from the ICE officer on her left. If she was trying to run him over, why would she turn in the other direction?"
A user on TikTok also pointed out the footage where she was breaking down frame-by-frame and revealing that ICE agent wasn't in danger.
Wednesday’s shooting marked a dramatic escalation in the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major American cities under the Trump administration.
The killing of the Minneapolis motorist was at least the fifth in a handful of states since 2024.