Renee Good's family reveals she randomly encountered ICE and stopped to observe

Renee Nicole Good wasn't following ICE agents "all day" before she was killed — she had just dropped her son off at school in the morning when she randomly encountered them, her family maintains.

Attorneys for Good's family assert that the 37-year-old poet and mother-of-three fatally shot by an ICE officer last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was acting within her rights as a legal observer. They said in a statement to USA TODAY that Good and her wife, Becca, came across the ICE operations on their way home, and decided to stop and "observe with the intention of supporting and helping their neighbors."

Related: Who was Renee Nicole Good? Remembering the Minneapolis poet and mother killed by ICE

"We want to thank everyone who has reached out in support of Renee and our family. The kind of unending care we’ve been given during this time is exactly the kind that she gave to everyone," Good’s family said. "Nae was the beautiful light of our family and brought joy to anyone she met. She was relentlessly hopeful and optimistic which was contagious. We all already miss her more than words could ever express."

Good was killed after the DHS deployed roughly 2,000 federal agents in the state as part of an aggressive crackdown on supposed fraud, during what Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called “targeted operations" near East 34th Street and Portland Avenue.

Noem alleged that Good was a "paid agitator" that had been following agents "all day" (Good was killed before 10 a.m. local time). Noem claimed that "rioters began blocking ICE officers" and that Good "weaponized" her vehicle by attempting to run over agents, labeling Good's actions as "domestic terrorism" and those of the officers as "self defense." Multiple eyewitness accounts and video footage from the incident contradict this.

The footage shows Good was attempting to leave the scene by turning right when an agent, identified as 43-year-old Jonathan Ross, circled her vehicle from the front and opened fire into her driver's seat window. The vehicle then crashed into a nearby light post, with Ross then walking away from the wreckage uninjured. Footage Ross took from his own cellphone shows that he was not in the path of the vehicle, and that he called Good a “fucking bitch" after firing.

Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have disputed the DHS account of Good's killing, with Frey dubbing it "bullshit." Both have called for a thorough investigation and for ICE to withdraw its agents from the state, though neither seem likely to happen, as the FBI has since announced that it will be solely leading the inquiry into Good's death, freezing out the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Noem said over the weekend that "hundreds" more officers would be deployed to Minneapolis, nearly five times exceeding the number of police officers employed by the city (585, according to state records). In response, the city and state have filed a lawsuit against the DHS, accusing it of "inflammatory and unlawful policing tactics."

Related: We've all seen the video. Do Kristi Noem and mainstream media think we're stupid?

Good's family is represented by Chicago-based law firm Romanucci & Blandin, which is launching a civil investigation into her killing. Antonio M. Romanucci, a civil rights lawyer and one of the firm’s founding partners, also represented the family of George Floyd, securing a historic $27 million settlement in 2021.

"She was our best friend with a seemingly infinite capacity for love," Good’s family continued. "Nae-Nae gave everything she had to take care of her friends and family, and indeed people she never met. She was our protector, our shoulder to cry on, and our scintillating source of joy."