Whistles, then gunfire: How the deadly ICE shooting unfolded in Minneapolis

(CNN) — Renee Nicole Good’s final moments were spent in her maroon Honda Pilot, her son’s stuffed animals peeking out from the glove compartment. She had stopped in the middle of a tree-lined south Minneapolis street and motioned for unmarked government vehicles to drive past.

Whistle blasts pierced the early January chill in a now-familiar community response employed by activists in US cities to alert neighbors to the presence of immigration officers. For several minutes, Good partially blocked traffic on the street. Some unmarked government vehicles idled; others drove around.

“Go home,” a bystander yelled.

On a snowy residential street Wednesday morning, Good crossed paths with a 10-year Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer and Iraq War veteran named Jonathan Ross, who was dragged about 100 yards six months prior by a driver during an immigration operation in a Minneapolis suburb.

“I was fearing for my life,” Ross testified during the December trial of an undocumented immigrant who was behind the wheel.

Good and Ross – whose brief confrontation Wednesday ended with him firing his weapon at least three times as she attempted to drive away – are now at the center of furious debate over the Trump administration’s building immigration crackdown, each side angrily assigning blame to the other. Videos of the incident are still emerging, and there’s more to be learned.

Good, 37, had dropped off her 6-year-old son at school before she was mortally wounded, according to witnesses and city officials. A US citizen, Good was described as a poet and loving mom.

Ross joined ICE in 2015. He works in fugitive operations in the Minneapolis area and as part of a special response team. Before joining ICE, he served in Iraq with the Indiana National Guard, then became a US Border Patrol agent in 2007.

Now, their fleeting yet violent encounter has made them unwitting symbols of a dark and uncertain time in the nation’s history.

More than five years after George Floyd’s killing

“Get the f**k out of my neighborhood,” a bystander shouted at an armed federal officer in a mask and body armor as he walked behind Good’s SUV holding up his cellphone.

The agent, later identified as Ross, pointed his camera at an onlooker later identified as Good’s wife, Becca Good, who pointed her cellphone back at him.

In a deeply divided country, that moment on Portland Avenue became a stark example of the unending political finger pointing over President Donald Trump’s militarized immigration crackdown in some US cities – and would foreshadow the heightened tensions in the days to come.

Federal officials, including Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, quickly accused Good of trying to use her vehicle to kill or harm ICE agents. She called it an “act of domestic terrorism.”

But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and state officials pushed back, blasting the actions of the officers. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the shooting “totally predictable” and “totally avoidable.”

“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying,” Frey said. He demanded ICE “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

The shooting occurred more than five years after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police not far from where Good died – which sparked riots and a movement for racial justice in a city still struggling to heal.

Car crashes – many captured on dramatic video – have been a hallmark of the Trump administration’s crackdown, including collisions between federal officers and suspects trying to get away and alleged “ramming” assaults involving pro-immigration activists. Some crashes have led to shootings, injuries and death.

The incident in which Ross was dragged by an undocumented immigrant on June 17, 2025, occurred when the suspect fled during a traffic stop, pulling the officer along by his right arm. The suspect was convicted in December of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon and resulting in bodily injury.

The ICE veteran, who repeatedly fired his Taser at the driver in the June assault, sustained a cut to his right arm that required 20 stitches, according to court records. A cut to his left hand took 13 stitches.

Whistles and then gunfire

“On Wednesday … we stopped to support our neighbors,” Good’s wife said in a statement to Minnesota Public Radio.

“We had whistles. They had guns.”

Aidan Perzana, the father of a month-old baby, woke up to the sound of whistles and honking vehicles. He looked out his window and saw ICE officers approaching the maroon SUV outside his home.

Lynette Reini-Grandell, an English professor and poet, was walking along Portland Avenue at the time, like others, recording video of the situation playing out in broad daylight.

“The tension had been building for so long … but it wasn’t real until I heard the gunfire,” she told CNN Thursday.

Reini-Grandell had been outside a nearby elementary school earlier Wednesday following reports of ICE officers in the area.

“The staff and administration were asking people in the community to come and essentially watch while the kids were getting off the school buses … because ICE vehicles had been circling the school all morning,” she said. “They were afraid that parents were going to be yanked and there was going to be horrible disruptions to the kids.”

In US cities targeted by ICE, parents, teachers, clergy and community organizers have started informal networks to intervene as immigration raids unfold, including blowing whistles and honking car horns to warn others. Activists say they’re creating accountability for the actions of agents; critics call it obstruction.

CNN has been unable to determine whether Good was involved in such a network. What little is known about her comes largely from her wife’s statement – and what was captured within the frames of several cameras during her final moments.

When Reini-Grandell returned to Portland Avenue from checking on reports of ICE agents outside a school, the confrontation that ended with Good’s death was escalating.

‘I’m not mad at you’

The cellphone video captured by Ross offered the closest glimpse into the pivotal moments before he fatally shot Good. A DHS official confirmed the video, obtained by CNN, was recorded by the agent. The footage was originally obtained by conservative Minnesota media outlet Alpha News.

It opens with Ross walking in front of the maroon SUV driven by Good, who had stopped the vehicle perpendicular to the street, obstructing traffic. He doesn’t say anything as he walks across the front of the Honda toward the driver’s side.

As he rounds the vehicle, Good is seen with her window down. She looks directly at the officer.

“That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you,” Good can be heard saying in the video. The victim’s wife, standing outside the SUV, says to Ross: “show your face.”

He does not respond. His reflection can be seen in the car window. He holds his phone and keeps moving.

The ICE officer walks around to the back of the SUV, according to the video. Becca Good, who was a passenger in the vehicle and stepped outside before the shooting, tells the officer, “We don’t change our plates every morning, just so you know. This will be the same plate when you come talk to us later,” in a possible reference to reports immigration officers have swapped license plates during enforcement actions.

She holds the cellphone up to Ross’s face.

“You wanna come at us? You wanna come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy,” Becca Good tells Ross.

‘Drive, baby. Drive!’

A pair of ICE officers are seen in a separate video approaching Good’s SUV. One officer attempts to open the driver’s side door, pulling on the handle. “Get out of the car,” the officers say repeatedly.

“Get out of the f**king car.”

Becca Good tries to get back in the SUV, but the door is locked.

She is then heard telling Renee Good, “Drive, baby. Drive!”

Renee Good backs up her SUV slightly, according to the videos. She then starts to pull away. In Ross’ video, she turns the steering sharply toward the right, away from the officers.

“She backed up and turned her wheels away from them to drive down the road,” Perzana recalled.

The car moves forward, and Ross, in his recording, cries out, “Whoa!” The video does not show if the SUV made contact with Ross. The camera angle jerks up to the sky.

Good accelerates and appears to clip the officer with her vehicle before he opens fire, according to one video. A separate video with a different angle doesn’t capture that possible contact. Instead, the officer is seen moving away from the front of the vehicle and toward the driver’s side.

Three gunshots explode in rapid succession, according to multiple videos reviewed by CNN. In Ross’ video, the shooting is not visible, but the shots are heard as the phone camera in his hand jostles further and then faces the house behind Ross. Bystanders can be seen outside the house.

The officer first shoots into her windshield and then at close range through the open driver’s side window, other videos show.

Ross’ camera captures the SUV as it barrels forward. Someone can be heard saying, “fucking bitch.” The impact of the SUV crashing into a parked car and wooden pole can be heard as the camera pans down to the street.

Becca Good can be seen running down the street to the driver’s side of the crashed SUV, staggering back after a while, covered in her wife’s blood.

‘You guys just killed my wife’

Tyrice Jones, 35, was in his apartment when he heard gunshots and a crash. He went outside and saw the SUV driven by Good had struck the light pole in front of his building.

Jones saw a woman who identified herself as Good’s wife. She sat in the snowy front yard of his building, crying alongside her black Labrador, he said.

“You guys just killed my wife!” she shouted.

A man is heard in one bystander video asking ICE officers if he can check the victim’s pulse.

“No! Back up. Now!” one officer shouts.

“I’m a physician,” the man says.

“I don’t care,” the officer responds.

“We have medics on scene,” another officer says.

“Where are they?” a woman is heard shouting. “You killed my f**king neighbor.”

Jones captured video of ICE agents at the driver’s seat of Good’s SUV as bystanders berate the officers. Within minutes, officers lift Good from the driver’s seat and place her on the ground. Jones’ video later shows several people carrying her by arms and legs to the end of the block.

Emily Heller, 39, who said she had been home making breakfast at the time of the shooting, told CNN it took at least 15 minutes before an ambulance responded. The street was clogged with ICE vehicles, forcing emergency personnel to approach the victim on foot, without a stretcher, according to Heller.

“They were with her for a few minutes and then they carried her limp body away — by her limbs,” she told CNN.

“My life is forever changed from having witnessed this,” Heller added.

Becca Good, in her statement to Minnesota Public Radio, wrote: “Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father.”

“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.”

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CNN’s Chelsea Bailey, Holmes Lybrand, Justin Lear, Sarah Dewberry, Jeff Winter, Emma Tucker, Diego Mendoza, Robert Kuznia, Amanda Musa, Whitney Wild and Chris Lau contributed to this report.