A memorial grows Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026 on the spot where an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, 37, the previous day. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, was a poet and a mother of 3. She moved to the city with her wife and 6-year-old son almost a year ago.
Good’s wife, Rebecca Good, told the Washington Post that they had stopped to support neighbors when she was shot by the ICE agent, who has been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Star Tribune.
“On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Rebecca Good said in a statement to the Post and other media outlets on Friday.
“We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness,” the statement continues. “Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.”
Renee Good, 37, was a mother to a 15-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 12 and 6, her first husband told the Post. Online records and interviews with media outlets from family and friends paint her as a caring person and an avid writer who enjoyed movies, making art, singing and playing guitar. Her first husband described her as a devoted Christian to the Post.
She studied creative writing at Old Dominion University* in Norfolk, Virginia, graduating in December 2020. She won an undergraduate poetry prize in 2020 for her poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” which the contest judge described as “a meditation that leads the reader into the unknown.”
“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” university president Brian O. Hemphill said in a statement. “My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”
She was originally from Colorado Springs, Colo. She lived in Kansas City, Mo., with her wife before moving to Minnesota. Their former neighbor in Kansas City told the Post that the couple said they wanted to move out of the red state after President Donald Trump was elected in 2024.
Her second husband, Tim Macklin, died in 2023 and was a military veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, reported the Post. He was also a comedian with whom she co-hosted a podcast, according to a post on the Old Dominion University English department Facebook page.
A faculty member who taught her, Kent Wascom, described her to the Post as a poet who was focused on improving her fiction writing and who, unlike peers, never talked about politics.
“She was kind and talented, a working class mom who put herself through school despite circumstances that would’ve crumpled the pathetic rich boy politicians who sadistically abetted her murder,” Wascom said in an X post.
Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom and sh*tty guitar strummer from Colorado” who is “experiencing Minneapolis” on what appears to be her now-private Instagram page.
Good’s life was honored by thousands at a vigil Wednesday in Minneapolis. The site of her killing has become a memorial to her, where people have placed candles and flowers.
*Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the name of the university.
This story was originally produced by Minnesota Reformer, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
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