9:30 am Wednesday, January 7th, a Honda Pilot, surrounded by ICE agents, attempted to flee as an agent approached, resulting in the agent firing at least two shots (later determined to be 3) at the driver, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara. The driver, now identified as Renee Nicole Good, 37 year old mother of three, was alone in the car and received CPR at the scene, but died at the hospital of a gunshot wound to the head. The shooting comes as President Trump sent 2,000 ICE agents to Minnesota, what some in his administration called “the largest immigration operation ever” to investigate Somali immigrants, after many have been charged in connection with fraud. 

With each passing day as this story develops, Minnesotans and the nation have become more and more divided over ICE intervention and the details of this shooting. The Trump administration claims the officers approached the car after the driver blocked the road, and only fired as the driver was allegedly attempting to run him over. The President says the act “seems” like “self defense”, with his Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noam stating that the officer “…went to the hospital” and “has been released,” implying he was indeed struck by the vehicle. Noam went so far as to call Good’s actions an “act of domestic terrorism.” Renee’s mother and ex husband have both separately challenged claims that Good was an activist or intentionally obstructed ICE, although she was a part of a community watchdog organization aimed at observing ICE patrols, as corroborated by Michelle Gross, president of the Minnesota-based Community United Against Police Brutality. Her partner Rebecca Good recently shared a statement claiming that they were there “to support our neighbors.” Based on the position of the car and the newly released video depicting Good and her partner arguing with ICE agents, it does seem that Good was not there by accident. Still, this has not settled the discussion over whether or not deadly force was necessary in this situation. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey called the Trump administration’s version of events “bullshit,” echoing many democrats’ evaluation of the video as obvious fault of that of the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, who was dragged by a car in a similar incident last year. In response, Governor Walz of Minnesota has pushed for a joint investigation, but Minnesota authorities have seemingly been pushed out of the case, leaving only the FBI to investigate. 

Former acting ICE Director John Sandweg stated “whenever something like this happens, the initial information you get is just not accurate.” Further he called out both sides for rushing to judgement, specifically “the DHS statement” which he deemed “particularly irresponsible”. Sandweg also pointed to the shortened training time for ICE agents prompted by the some 12,000 new hires, warning that “when you’re putting officers on the street where you have lowered the standards and you have shortened the training, you increase dramatically the risks of incidents like this.” It should be noted though that the agent involved was a 10-year veteran of the department. Only time and further investigation will tell what really happened.

Now on a personal note, I was unsure if I should or could write about this shooting. In many ways I felt too close to it. I’ve lived in Minnesota for my whole life and as a U of M graduate, I called Minneapolis my home for four years. I have friends in Minneapolis. I worry for the city, because I’ve seen what violence and protests have done to it before after the death of George Floyd in 2020. Many have drawn this parallel, but there is a raw feeling that comes with it; an aversion to the whole nation looking upon us with invasive interest, seemingly more concerned with using the event as a political talking point rather than making an honest effort to grieve a tragedy. This is a tragedy, no matter which side of the political spectrum you are on. Children have lost a mother, and a community is upended. I, like many, are outraged at the recent fraud uncovered in our state, but deploying ICE to arrest Somali residents, many of whom are naturalized citizens, is not the solution to that problem. I cannot help but see this situation as preventable if cooler heads had prevailed and ICE had not been sent to make an example of Minnesota. Never did I think we’d be at a place where the governor would be ready to deploy the national guard in response to federal forces.

  It is so strange to see the Minnesota I grew up in change so much over a decade. We were once seen as a sleepy state where people were kind to each other and so often parodied for our disarming accents and abnormal tolerance to the cold. I used to think that somehow in our little part of the world that things like shootings and protests couldn’t happen here. But they can and do. Something is deeply wrong with our country: we’ve stopped listening to each other. Our state needs to heal. Our country needs to heal. And the only way we can do that is by taking pride in our communities and putting our faith in others. I am American, and I am a Minnesotan, and despite no longer being sure what either means anymore, I trust that they can mean something good one day.