WASHINGTON — The wife of Renee Nicole Good, the woman shot and killed in her car by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, says the couple had stopped to support their neighbors on the day of the shooting and described the mother of three as leaving a legacy of kindness.
“We had whistles. They had guns,” Becca Good said in a written statement Friday that was provided to Minnesota Public Radio.
The statement was her first public comment about the death of Renee Good, 37, who was killed Wednesday after three Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounded her Honda Pilot SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from the couple’s home. Video taken by bystanders show an officer approaching the SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.
The vehicle begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
Trump administration officials have painted Renee Good as a domestic terrorist who tried to run over an officer with her vehicle. State and local officials in Minneapolis, as well as protesters, have rejected that characterization.
Becca Good has not responded to calls and messages from the Associated Press. Her statement provided no further detail about the day of the shooting and instead focused on memorializing her wife.
The couple had only recently moved to Minneapolis and were raising Renee Good’s 6-year-old son from a previous marriage.
Becca said Renee was a Christian who “knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.”
She thanked the people all across America and the world who had reached out in support of their family.
“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled,” Becca Good wrote. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”
Far from the worst-of-the-worst criminals President 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 the two now-teenage children he had with Renee Good while they were married, told the AP on Wednesday that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind.
Becca Good said the couple, who had previously lived in Kansas City, Mo., had settled in Minneapolis after an “extended road trip.” She said people they encountered in the Twin Cities had provided a strong sense that “they were looking out for each other.”
“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,” Becca wrote. “I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”
Biesecker writes for the Associated Press.
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