A Life in the Crossfire: Remembering Renee Nicole Good After a Minneapolis ICE Shooting

The call that came into Minneapolis emergency dispatchers on the afternoon of February 15, 2023, was, tragically, not uncommon. A woman was reportedly in distress, behaving erratically, and possibly armed with a knife near the city's Little Earth community. The response that unfolded, however, would end a life and ignite yet another complex debate about law enforcement, mental health, and the people who slip through the cracks of both systems. That woman was 35-year-old Renee Nicole Good.

Who Was Renee Nicole Good?

To reduce Renee Good to the circumstances of her death is to miss the person she was. Born in 1987, Renee was a mother, a daughter, and a sister deeply connected to her Native heritage as a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Those who knew her describe a woman with a creative spirit—she enjoyed making traditional beadwork, a craft requiring immense patience and precision. She was a person who loved her family, particularly her son.

But Renee's life was also marked by significant struggles. She battled with mental health issues for years. Her family had sought help for her multiple times, navigating a system that often feels fragmented and inadequate for those in acute crisis. On that Wednesday in February, those internal struggles manifested in a very public and dangerous way, setting in motion a chain of events that would prove fatal.

The Day of the Shooting: A Timeline of a Crisis

According to official accounts from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), the investigation agency that handles police shootings, the incident began around 2:30 PM. Calls reported a woman, later identified as Good, near the intersection of Cedar Avenue and East 24th Street. She was said to be armed with a knife and was acting in a threatening manner.

Minneapolis police officers and Hennepin County sheriff's deputies responded. Body camera footage, released weeks later, shows the tense encounter. Officers attempted to de-escalate the situation from a distance, issuing commands for Good to drop the knife she was holding. The footage shows Good advancing toward the law enforcement personnel, who continued to retreat and give commands.

The situation escalated when a federal officer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrived on the scene. This officer was part of a specialized tactical team often called upon by local agencies for support. The BCA report states that Renee Good moved toward the ICE officer with the knife. The officer then fired his weapon, striking Good. Despite immediate medical attention, she was pronounced dead at the scene. No law enforcement personnel were injured.

The Complicated Role of ICE

The involvement of an ICE officer immediately added a layer of complexity and controversy to the shooting. The presence of federal immigration agents in a local mental health crisis call raised immediate questions for community advocates and Good's family. Why was an ICE officer, whose primary mandate involves immigration enforcement, the one to fire the fatal shot during what began as a local police response?

Authorities explained that the ICE officer was part of the Special Response Team (SRT), a unit sometimes requested for its specialized equipment and training in high-risk situations. However, this explanation did little to quell concerns. For many in Minneapolis, particularly in communities of color and immigrant communities, ICE represents a source of fear and trauma. Their involvement in a incident unrelated to immigration enforcement underscored deep-seated worries about the militarization of police response and the blurring of lines between different law enforcement agencies.

A Family's Grief and a Community's Questions

In the wake of the shooting, Renee Good's family was left grappling with profound loss and unanswered questions. They did not dispute that Renee was in crisis. Their anguish centered on the response. They asked why, after years of them seeking mental health care for her, the ultimate response was a lethal confrontation with law enforcement.

"We called for help for my sister for years," one family member stated to local media. "We needed a doctor, a social worker, someone trained in mental health. She needed help, not a bullet." This sentiment echoes a national rallying cry for crisis intervention models that send medical and behavioral health experts to mental health calls, rather than, or at least alongside, armed police.

The community around Little Earth, a housing complex with a strong Native American presence, also felt the impact. Here was another death of a Native person in an encounter with police, a reminder of the disproportionate rates at which Indigenous people are killed by law enforcement. Vigils were held, with community members honoring Good's life and demanding transparency and change.

The Investigation and it's aftermath.

The BCA's investigation followed the standard protocol for officer-involved shootings. The findings were presented to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for review. In December 2023, the County Attorney announced that no criminal charges would be filed against the ICE officer, determining that the use of deadly force was justified under Minnesota law, which allows it to protect an officer or another from death or great bodily harm.

For many, this outcome was both expected and deeply unsatisfying. It highlighted how the legal standard for justifying an officer's use of force is often narrowly focused on the immediate moment of perceived threat, not on the broader circumstances that led to that moment. The decision did not address the systemic questions about mental health response or ICE's role.

The Broader Conversation: Crisis Response in America

The death of Renee Nicole Good is a specific tragedy with universal themes. It forces a conversation about how American cities respond to mental health emergencies. Minneapolis, like many cities, has been exploring alternative response models. The case added urgency to those discussions, with advocates pointing to it as a textbook example of a situation where a behavioral health crisis team might have achieved a different outcome.

It also raises questions about inter-agency collaboration. When should federal agents with a specific enforcement focus be deployed to assist with local, non-federal crises? What training do they receive in de-escalation and mental health crisis intervention compared to local officers?

Remembering Renee

Over a year later, the legal case may be closed, but the human story remains open. Renee Nicole Good was more than a statistic in a news cycle about police shootings. She was a person with deep roots, a creative heart, and a family that loved her. Her life was challenging, and her death was violent and traumatic.

Her story is a painful reminder of the intersecting gaps in our social safety net and our public safety systems. It underscores the critical need for robust, accessible, and culturally competent mental health services. It challenges communities and their leaders to fundamentally rethink what "help" looks like when someone is in profound psychological pain. Until those systems change, the memory of Renee Good, and others like her, hangs over every crisis call, a testament to what can be lost when the only tool left is force.