MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Before Renee Good was fatally shot behind the wheel of her vehicle by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, the 37-year-old mother of three dropped off her youngest child at an elementary school in Minneapolis, the newest city she called home.
While Trump administration officials continued Thursday to paint Good as a domestic terrorist who attempted to ram federal agents with her Honda Pilot, members of her family, friends and neighbors mourned a woman they remembered as gentle, kind and openhearted.
Good, her 6-year-old son and her wife only recently relocated to Minneapolis from Kansas City, Missouri. The family settled on a quiet residential street of older homes and multifamily buildings, some front porches festooned with pride flags still twinkling with holiday lights. A day after her death, neighbors had grown weary of talking to reporters. A handwritten sign posted to one front door read “NO MEDIA INQUIRES” and “JUSTICE FOR RENEE.”
Far from the worst-of-the-worst criminals President Donald Trump said his immigration crackdown would target, Good was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado who apparently was never charged with anything beyond a single traffic ticket.
In social media accounts, she described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” She said she was currently “experiencing Minneapolis,” displaying a pride 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 Good was no activist and he never knew her to participate in a protest of any kind. He said she was headed home before the encounter with a group of ICE agents on a snowy street.
State and local officials and protesters have rejected the Trump administration's characterization of the shooting, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying video recordings show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”
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.
The entire incident was over in less than 10 seconds.
In another video taken immediately 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 Good's wife received no response.
On Thursday a few dozen people gathered on the one-way street where Good was killed, blocking the road with steel drums filled with burning wood for warmth to ward of a pelting freezing rain. Passersby stopped to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial with bouquets of flowers and a hand-fashioned cross.
Good's ex-husband said she was 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.
Kent Wascom, who taught Good in the creative writing program at Old Dominion, recalled her juggling the birth of her child with work and school in 2019. He described her as “incredibly caring of her peers.”
“What stood out to me in her prose was that, unlike a lot of young fiction writers, her focus was outward rather than inward,” Wascom said. “A creative writing workshop can be a gnarly place with a lot of egos and competition, but her presence was something that helped make that classroom a really supportive place.”
Good had a daughter and a son from her first marriage, who are now 15 and 12. Her 6-year-old son was from her second marriage.
Her ex-husband said she was primarily a stay-at-home mom in recent years but 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. She did not respond to calls or messages from the AP.
“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.”
Biesecker reported from Washington and Mustian from New York. Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed.
A person kneels to the ground at the makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
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)
U.S. forces have boarded another oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea. The announcement was made Friday by the U.S. military. The Trump administration has been targeting sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.
The pre-dawn action was carried out by U.S. Marines and Navy, taking part in the monthslong buildup of forces in the Caribbean, according to U.S. Southern Command, which declared “there is no safe haven for criminals” as it announced the seizure of the vessel called the Olina.
Navy officials couldn’t immediately provide details about whether the Coast Guard was part of the force that took control of the vessel as has been the case in the previous seizures. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard said there was no immediate comment on the seizure.
The Olina is the fifth tanker that has been seized by U.S. forces as part of a broader effort by Trump’s administration to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following the U.S. ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.
The latest:
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum says that she has asked her foreign affairs secretary to reach out directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Trump regarding comments by the American leader that the U.S. cold begin ground attacks against drug cartels.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News aired Thursday night, Trump said, “We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch.”
As she has on previous occasions, Sheinbaum downplayed the remarks, saying “it is part of his way of communicating.” She said she asked her Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente to strengthen coordination with the U.S.
Sheinbaum has repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s offer to send U.S. troops after Mexican drug cartels. She emphasizes that there will be no violation of Mexico’s sovereignty, but the two governments will continue to collaborate closely.
Analysts do not see a U.S. incursion in Mexico as a real possibility, in part because Sheinbaum’s administration has been doing nearly everything Trump has asked and Mexico is a critical trade partner.
Trump says he wants to secure $100 billion to remake Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, a lofty goal going into a 2:30 meeting on Friday with executives from leading oil companies. His plan rides on oil producers being comfortable in making commitments in a country plagued by instability, inflation and uncertainty.
The president has said that the U.S. will control distribution worldwide of Venezuela’s oil and will share some of the proceeds with the country’s population from accounts that it controls.
“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said Friday in a pre-dawn social media post.
Trump is banking on the idea that he can tap more of Venezuela’s petroleum reserves to keep oil prices and gasoline costs low.
At a time when many Americans are concerned about affordability, the incursion in Venezuela melds Trump’s assertive use of presidential powers with an optical spectacle meant to convince Americans that he can bring down energy prices.
Trump is expected to meet with oil executives at the White House on Friday.
He hopes to secure $100 billion in investments to revive Venezuela’s oil industry. The goal rides on the executives’ comfort with investing in a country facing instability and inflation.
Since a U.S. military raid captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump has said there’s a new opportunity to use the country’s oil to keep gasoline prices low.
The full list of executives invited to the meeting has not been disclosed, but Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend.
Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration after it said it would freeze money for several public benefit programs.
The Trump administration has cited concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families and their children. California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York states filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The lawsuit asks the courts to order the administration to release the funds. The attorneys general have called the funding freeze an unconstitutional abuse of power.
Iran’s judiciary chief has vowed decisive punishment for protesters, signaling a coming crackdown against demonstrations.
Iranian state television reported the comments from Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Friday. They came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized Trump’s support for the protesters, calling Trump’s hands “stained with the blood of Iranians.”
The government has shut down the internet and is blocking international calls. State media has labeled the demonstrators as “terrorists.”
The protests began over Iran’s struggling economy and have become a significant challenge to the government. Violence has killed at least 50 people, and more than 2,270 have been detained.
Trump questions why a president’s party often loses in midterm elections and suggests voters “want, maybe a check or something”
Trump suggested voters want to check a president’s power and that’s why they often deliver wins for an opposing party in midterm elections, which he’s facing this year.
“There’s something down, deep psychologically with the voters that they want, maybe a check or something. I don’t know what it is, exactly,” he said.
He said that one would expect that after winning an election and having “a great, successful presidency, it would be an automatic win, but it’s never been a win.”
Hiring likely remained subdued last month as many companies have sought to avoid expanding their workforces, though the job gains may be enough to bring down the unemployment rate.
December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November.
The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.
FILE - President Donald Trump dances as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
