Video captures US agent fatally shooting driver, sparking outrage

Thursday, 8 January 2026

Warning: Video below contains graphic footage

A US agent has been filmed fatally shooting a driver during the latest immigration crackdown on a major American city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials — a shooting that the Trump administration said was an act of self-defence but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.

The woman was shot in front of a family member during a traffic stop in a snowy residential neighbourhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about 1.6km from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020. Her killing quickly drew a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters.

The driver was identified as Renee Nicole Good, 37, whose mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune her daughter was “probably terrified”.

“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger said. “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.”

Good’s former father-in-law Timmy Ray Macklin Sr told The Telegraph she had been “murdered” by the ICE agent.

“It is horrible, it’s murder. Everybody is terribly shocked right now,” he said. “She was a good, outgoing person. I didn’t agree with a lot of her ways, but it’s really sad to see these things happen.”

Competing narratives

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while visiting Texas, described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”

US President Donald Trump echoed that assessment in a post on his Truth Social platform. “The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, wilfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defence,” he said.

But Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey blasted that characterisation as “garbage” and criticised the federal deployment of more than 2000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.

“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.”

“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defence. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit,” the mayor said.

Frey said he had a message for ICE: “Get the f… out of Minneapolis.”

The Democratic Party said on social media: “ICE shot and killed a woman on camera today. We all saw the video. The Trump administration is lying.”

A shooting caught on video

Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.

The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and 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, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It was not clear from the videos if the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop. Witnesses screamed obscenities, expressing shock at what they’d seen.

After the shooting, emergency medical technicians tried to administer aid to the woman.

“She was driving away and they killed her,” said resident Lynette Reini-Grandell, who was outdoors recording video on her phone.

The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the Minneapolis driver, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.

The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced Tuesday that it had launched the operation, which is at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Noem confirmed on Wednesday that DHS had deployed more than 2,000 officers to the area and said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.

A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there, including Gregory Bovino, a senior US Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.

In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota,” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.

Governor calls for calm

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he was prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He said a family member of the driver was there to witness the killing, which he described as “predictable” and “avoidable”. He also said like many, he was outraged by the shooting, but he called on people to keep protests peaceful.

“They want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot,” the governor said during a news conference. “If you protest and express your First Amendment rights, please do so peacefully, as you always do. We can’t give them what they want.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone. He said she had been shot in the head.

“This woman was in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue. … At some point a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off,” the chief said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”

There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot the driver. Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.

“Keep in mind that this is an investigation that is also in its infancy. So any speculation about what has happened would be just that,” Jacobson told reporters.

The shooting happened in the district of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, who called it “state violence,” not law enforcement.

For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighbourhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilise in the event of an immigration enforcement surge.

From houses of worship to mobile home parks, they have set up very active online networks, scanned license plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noisemaking devices to alert neighbourhoods of any enforcement presence.