Renee Nicole Good Renee Good has long, blonde, curly hair and is wearing a red off-the-shoulder top. The ocean is in the background.Renee Nicole Good

Renee Nicole Good was an award-winning poet

The woman shot dead by a federal immigration agent in the US state of Minneapolis has been identified as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had just moved to the city.

She was a prize-winning poet and a hobby guitarist, who city leaders have said was there as a legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities.

But the Trump administration has called her a “domestic terrorist”.

Good’s death has sparked protests across the country, with many people holding signs that read “Justice for Renee”.

Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was “probably terrified” during the confrontation with officers that saw her fatally shot and that she was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known”.

“She was extremely compassionate,” Ganger told the daily newspaper. “She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

Her father, Tim Ganger, told the Washington Post that “she had a good life, but a hard life”.

A fundraiser for Good’s family, which was set up with a target of $50,000 (£37,000), raised more than $1.4m a day after it was created.

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A US citizen, Good was originally from Colorado Springs.

In what appears to be her Instagram account, which has now been made private, she described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom”, who was “experiencing Minneapolis”.

She had two children, who are now teenagers, with her first husband. Speaking to US media on condition that his name was not used, that man said that Good was not an activist and that she was a devoted Christian who went to Northern Ireland on youth missions when she was younger.

Good hosted a podcast with her second husband, Tim Macklin, who died in 2023. They had a son together, who is now six years old, Macklin’s father told the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Her third marriage was to Rebecca Good, with whom she moved to Minneapolis just last year, from Kansas City, a neighbour told the Washington Post.

“On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Rebecca Good said in a statement to Minnesota Public Radio 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,” she said. “Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.”

Later, in a statement issued to The Guardian, other family members asked the public to place their focus on “humanity, empathy, and care for the family most affected” amid the heated political discourse surrounding her death.

“There’s been so much hateful rhetoric back and forth, and what’s been missed is painting a picture of who Renee was,” Good’s sister-in-law Jessica Fletcher told the newspaper.

Good had previously worked as a dental assistant and at a credit union, but had mainly been a stay-at-home mum in recent years, according to the Associated Press.

Getty Images People gather at a memorial for Good. there are candles, flowers and a big cross.Getty Images

People have left flowers, candles and messages at a make-shift memorial for Good in Minneapolis

Good studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 2020 she won an undergraduate prize from the Academy of American Poets for her piece entitled On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.

“When she is not writing, reading, or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons,” her biography from the prize reads, as quoted in US media. It seems to have now been removed.

Good graduated the same year from the university’s College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English.

Its president said in a statement that her sudden death was “yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation”.

“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” Old Dominion University president Brian Hemphill wrote.

Actors Mark Ruffalo and Wanda Sykes wore badges referencing ICE and Good’s death to the Golden Globe awards ceremony in LA on 11 January.

“This is for Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered,” Ruffalo told USA Today about his “BE GOOD” pin.

Getty Images Actor Mark Ruffalo wears a small badge which reads "Be good" on the lapel of his white tuxedo at the Golden Globe awards on 11 January. He holds up two fingers of his left hand to make the widely-recognised peace sign. Getty Images

Actor Mark Ruffalo criticised President Trump’s response to Good’s death

Several state leaders have said that Good was at the scene of an ICE raid in the south of Minneapolis as a legal observer – a volunteer who monitors police and security forces at protests and operations.

Good’s mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was “not part of anything” that involved challenging ICE agents.

But White House officials, including President Donald Trump, have said Good was not simply observing, but also interfering in the officers’ work.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had been “stalking and impeding their work” all day by “blocking them in” with her car and “shouting at them”.

Good “weaponised her vehicle”, Noem told reporters, and then tried to run over one of the officers “in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism”.

The ICE agent feared for his life, Noem said, and “fired defensive shots”.

This account was backed up by Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting”.

He called her a “professional agitator” who “violently, willfully, and viciously” ran over an ICE officer.

But the city’s mayor said the agent who shot Good had acted recklessly.

“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bullshit,” Jacob Frey said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”

Good reportedly lived just a few blocks from where she was killed, and the scene is about one mile from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a city police officer, sparking worldwide anti-racism protests.