Renee Good didn't have to die, but be honest about ICE shooting | Opinion

My home state of Minnesota, a beautiful place full of hardworking, kind people, continues to be at the center of the national spotlight − and not for those good reasons.

This time, it is due to the death of Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7. She was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent as she appeared to attempt to drive through a group of ICE agents in her vehicle. Good, a mother of three, was a poet and a new resident of the North Star State.

About 2,000 federal agents were deployed to Minneapolis on Jan. 6 as part of the Trump administration’s most recent immigration enforcement initiative.

I am saddened and angry by what I am seeing unfold in Minnesota. After reviewing video clips, I think two things can be true at once: ICE must review this incident carefully to determine if lethal force was necessary. And Good appears to have purposefully driven into officers, violating the law by obstructing a federal enforcement operation, and faced an immediate, fatal consequence.

ICE shooting is tragic, but preventable

I'm grieved to see the death of a mother, but I am also disappointed that neither Republican nor Democratic leaders − from President Donald Trump to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz − took a moment before issuing inflammatory, reactive remarks.

I'm especially frustrated that Minnesota lawmakers immediately condemned ICE officers for attempting to restore law and order to Minneapolis. It seems like they learned little from the costly aftermath of George Floyd's murder and are eager to whip up Minnesotans into a riotous state of reactive, angry people to defend their progressive ideology.

Video angles of the incident have allowed for multiple interpretations of the incident. I will go ahead and give mine. Good is trying to flee the scene in her vehicle and appears to attempt to ram her car into an officer, who is trying to enforce federal law. The ICE officer then draws his gun and shoots her − fatally.

Amy Swearer, senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom and a Second Amendment expert, posted on X that she thinks it was "obviously a legally justified use of deadly force by a law enforcement officer."

Again, this is awful, but it is disingenuous at best to frame what happened simply as though Good was a mother killed by an ICE officer as she was out for a leisurely Sunday drive. Good was directly interfering with federal law enforcement operations and posed a threat, namely because she was driving a massive vehicle.

This does not mean that she "deserved" to die or that the ICE agent should have employed lethal force. It just means I can see how the agent fired upon her car, and I am struggling to understand why Good was interfering with ICE agents.

This was entirely preventable. The best way to prevent being shot at by a federal agent is not to interfere in their duties while they are actively trying to enforce the law. In order to maintain law and order, law enforcement must maintain authority, or we will soon live in a lawless land.

Democrats need to embrace law and order

Not surprisingly, Minnesota's Democratic lawmakers have not come to the defense of the officers trying to enforce the law; they immediately condemned ICE.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the video of the killing showed "an agent recklessly using power." Gov. Walz, under intense scrutiny for fraud in his state, ratcheted things up a notch and issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard to mobilize to protect Minnesotans from a "rogue federal agent."

A CNN podcast headline says it all: "Outrage In Minneapolis After ICE Agent Shoots Woman In Car."

I'll be honest: I'm outraged, too. I am outraged that Good died. But I am also outraged that Minnesota's elected leaders immediately sided against federal law enforcement. That's not a safe message for Minnesotans prone to rioting at a cost of millions of dollars in damage.

Minnesota lawmakers' rhetoric about law and order has been unwise. In September 2025, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul over their sanctuary policies that interfered with the federal government’s enforcement of its immigration laws.

On social media, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, leading candidate for one of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seats, recently urged Minnesotans to “put your body on the line” to stop ICE agents from “kidnapping” people. Perhaps Good thought she was doing that. I don't know. But it isn't sound advice from an elected official.

What happened to Good is terrible. But ICE agents have not gone "rogue." They are enforcing existing immigration law. Minnesota Democrats would be wise to support these efforts, not resist them and even encourage citizens to push back.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.