People gather for a vigil after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman earlier in the day, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The woman shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday was Renee Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had recently moved to Minnesota.
She was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado and appears to never have been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a traffic ticket.
In social media accounts, Macklin Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” She said she was currently “experiencing Minneapolis,” displaying a pride flag emoji on her Instagram account. A profile picture posted to Pinterest shows her smiling and holding a young child against her cheek, along with posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.
Her ex-husband, who asked not to be named out of concern for the safety of their children, said Macklin Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school Wednesday and was driving home with her current partner when they encountered a group of ICE agents on a snowy street in Minneapolis, where they had moved last year from Kansas City, Missouri.
Video taken by bystanders posted to social media shows an officer approaching her car, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. When she begins to pull forward, a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range.
In another video taken after the shooting, a distraught woman is seen sitting near the vehicle, wailing, “That’s my wife, I don’t know what to do!”
Calls and messages to Macklin Good’s current partner received no response.
Trump administration officials painted Macklin Good as a domestic terrorist who had attempted to ram federal agents with her car. Her ex-husband said she was no activist and that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind.
He described her as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger. She loved to sing, participating in a chorus in high school and studying vocal performance in college.
She studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia and won a prize in 2020 for one of her works, according to a post on the school’s English department Facebook page. She also hosted a podcast with her second husband, who died in 2023.
Macklin Good had a daughter and her son from her first marriage, who are now ages 15 and 12. Her 6-year-old son was from her second marriage.
Her ex-husband said she had primarily been a stay-at-home mom in recent years but had previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union.
Donna Ganger, her mother, told the Minnesota Star Tribune the family was notified of the death late Wednesday morning.
“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger told the newspaper. “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.”
Ganger did not respond to calls or messages from the AP.
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