News

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18152

Protests broke out in Minnesota and beyond on Wednesday after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman identified by her mother as Renee Nicole Good.

Good's mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that the family was notified of her death Wednesday morning. Good was a 37-year-old US citizen, Minneapolis resident, and mother.

As the newspaper reported:

"That's so stupid" that she was killed, Ganger said, after learning some of the circumstances from a reporter. "She was probably terrified."

Ganger said her daughter is "not part of anything like that at all," referring to protesters challenging ICE agents.

"Renee was one of the kindest people I've ever known," she said. "She was extremely compassionate. She's taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving, and affectionate. She was an amazing human being."

The deadly shooting came shortly after President Donald Trump sent over 2,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities, similar to other invasions of Democrat-led US communities by immigration teams carrying out the Republican's mass deportation agenda.

Trump and the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, have claimed that the woman was trying to run over the agent with her vehicle, which DHS called "an act of domestic terrorism," but videos circulating online and witness accounts to reporters have undermined those statements.

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"They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video... myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bullshit," said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. "This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying—getting killed."

The Democratic mayor also told ICE to "get the fuck out of Minneapolis," a sentiment shared by various politicians and residents.

The federal agent shot Good on Portland Avenue, where protesters remained "long after ICE agents left, chanting and yelling at law enforcement officers as they set up metal barriers around the scene," according to the Star Tribune. "Law enforcement closed off several blocks of Portland Avenue as hundreds gathered at the scene of the shooting throughout the early afternoon. Dozens of local police watched from the street, and a crew of state troopers in fluorescent green showed up shortly before 1:30 pm."

As CNN reported, some protesters at the scene threw snowballs at law enforcement. Later Wednesday, the network detailed, residents and activists held "a vigil around a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles on a patch of snow."

"Say it once. Say it twice. We will not put up with ICE," vigil attendees chanted. They also chanted the victim's name.

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In Minneapolis, protesters also gathered outside the Hennepin County Courthouse and chanted, "ICE out now!"

Good's killing has also drawn demonstrations and denunciations beyond Minnesota, including at Foley Square in Manhattan—which, as WABC noted, "sits between the federal courthouse and 26 Federal Plaza," which is DHS headquarters in New York City.

NYC's newly inaugurated democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said that "the news coming out of Minneapolis is horrific. This is one part that has been a year full of cruelty, and we know that when ICE agents attack immigrants, they attack every one of us across this country."

"This is a city and will always be a city that stands up for immigrants across the five boroughs," Mamdani said of New York, pledging that "we are going to adhere to" local sanctuary city policies.

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There were also multiple protests planned for the Chicago area, which was recently targeted by Trump's immigration agents.

"Today, the Little Village Community Council, alongside community members, faith leaders, and allies, gathers in solidarity and grief to denounce the killing of a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, an innocent US citizen whose life was taken during an encounter involving ICE agents," said the council's president, Baltazar Enriquez, in a statement.

"We are outraged," Enriquez added. "Today's gathering includes candles, prayers, and support from the faith community, honoring the life that was lost and all families harmed by unjust enforcement practices. We call on the people of Chicago to stand together—to demand justice, to protect one another, and to insist on a nation where no one is killed for existing, for migrating, or for being brown."

Little Village was among the Chicago neighborhoods stormed by federal immigration agents last year. Others include Brighton Park, where a Border Patrol agent shot and injured a woman, and suburban Franklin Park, where an ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez.

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Democratic members of Congress from coast to coast—including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.)—condemned Good's killing as "murder" and demanded that the agent be prosecuted.

"ICE shouldn't be allowed to act with impunity after shooting and killing a woman in Minneapolis," said US Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (D-Mass.) "This rogue agency's escalating presence brings more and more danger to our communities. Donald Trump and ICE must be reined in by Congress and the courts before more people get hurt."

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said that "it is clear from that video that an ICE federal agent just shot a woman four times in cold blood. Abolish ICE now."

Tlaib later added that "an ICE agent fired multiple shots at Renee Nicole Good, murdering her at point blank range."

A fellow progressive in the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), "just offered a subpoena in the Oversight Committee for all information from DHS related to her murder today in Minneapolis," Tlaib noted. "Republicans blocked it. We need answers."

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