Renee Nicole Good: A Mother, a Neighbor, a Life Taken

Remembering Her Humanity in the Midst of National Outrage

Renee Nicole Good: A Mother, a Neighbor, a Life Taken

Remembering Her Humanity in the Midst of National Outrage

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #726: Saturday, January 10th, 2026.

Stop the Scroll

Before there were statements.
Before there were investigations.
Before there were arguments about authority…jurisdiction…or justification…

There was a woman named Renee Nicole Good.

And if we do not begin there…we are already lost.

Because the fastest way a society slips into cruelty is not through violence alone…but through forgetting how to see a person before seeing a problem.

Shared Recognition

Renee was thirty-seven years old.

She was a mother-the kind of role that quietly reorganizes your entire life around the needs of others.
She was a neighbor-someone whose presence belonged to a place…not a news cycle.
She was a person-with a history…relationships…ambitions…and unfinished tomorrows.

She woke up that day expecting nothing extraordinary to happen. Like most people, she was navigating the ordinary weight of modern life: responsibilities…routines…plans still in motion.

That familiarity is what makes this story land so heavily. People recognize themselves in her. Not politically…existentially.

The Deeper Truth Beneath the Outrage

What followed her death has exposed something deeper than one disputed encounter.

It has exposed how quickly institutions shift into self-protection mode, and how easily language is used to flatten a human life into a procedural event.

Words like:

• “incident”

• “operation”

• “use of force”

• “threat assessment”

These words do something important for power: they create distance.

They allow authority to speak about a life…without ever speaking to its loss.

But here is the truth many Americans feel but struggle to articulate:

A system that cannot pause to acknowledge humanity before justification is already morally compromised.

That doesn’t require certainty about every fact. It requires clarity…about values.

Why This Moment Won’t Fade

This is why Renee Nicole Good’s death has lingered in the national consciousness.

Not because it fits a narrative…but because it ruptures one.

It collides with a growing fear that many Americans carry quietly:

What if the system doesn’t need to be right-only powerful?
What if innocence is irrelevant once force is authorized?
What if explanation always comes faster than empathy?

These are not partisan fears. They are civic ones.

And…they don’t vanish…when the news cycle moves on.

What Remembering Her Requires of Us

Honoring Renee does not require rage.
It does not require certainty where none yet exists.
It does not require violence…cynicism…or despair.

It requires something harder and more sustaining:

• Insisting that humanity comes before narrative

• Demanding transparency instead of reflexive defense

• Refusing the idea that accountability is an attack

• Remembering that authority exists to protect life…not erase it

This is how democratic cultures resist decay…not through chaos…but through moral insistence.

The Line We Must Hold

Renee Nicole Good was not an abstraction.
She was not an inconvenience.
She was not a lesson waiting to be learned.

She was a life.

And…any system that cannot hold that truth…at its center…is one that will eventually lose legitimacy…not because people rebel…but because people withdraw trust.

That is how erosion begins.

And that…is why remembering her is not optional.

Reflection

Now, I want to say something quieter-and more important.

Authoritarian systems do not begin with brutality. They begin…with normalization.

They begin when:

• empathy is treated as weakness

• questioning is treated as disloyalty

• explanation replaces responsibility

• and human cost becomes “regrettable but necessary”

The most powerful form of resistance is not outrage…it is orientation.

Knowing who you are.
Knowing what you refuse to accept as normal.
Knowing that dignity is not a privilege granted by authority…but a baseline that authority must answer to.

Renee Nicole Good reminds us of that line.

And part of why you’re here…part of why this community exists…is to hold that line together…calmly…persistently…and without surrendering our humanity in the process.

That matters more than ever…now.

Now, Let’s Talk About What Happened to Renee Nicole Good

Let me ask you a question.

What would you do if you suddenly found yourself surrounded by armed federal agents?

Not because you’d done anything wrong.
Not because anyone was looking for you.
But because you happened to be near something they were doing.

Would you stay frozen?

Or…would you do what most normal human beings would do…

…get in your car and try to leave?

That’s what Renee Good did.

And…it’s why she’s dead.

Here’s what you were told.

You were told this was about safety.
You were told this was about terrorism.
You were told this was about protecting federal officers from a dangerous threat.

But…here’s what actually happened.

A woman…a mother of three…was shot and killed…by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7th.

She wasn’t the target of a raid.
She wasn’t under arrest.
She wasn’t armed.
She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.

She was trying to leave.

And everything that followed…the language…the press releases..the delays…was designed to make you forget that single, inconvenient fact.

The First Lie Is Always the Frame

Whenever power kills someone who isn’t supposed to be dead…

…the first move is not investigation.

It’s framing.

So the words came fast.

“Vehicle attack.”
“Domestic terrorism.”
“Threat neutralized.”

Those words did what they were meant to do.

They took a woman and turned her into a scenario.

They turned a killing into an incident.

They created emotional distance…before you ever had a chance to ask the most dangerous question of all:

Who was she?

Because once you know that…
The whole story changes.

Who Renee Good Was (Before They Reduced Her to a Headline)

Renee Good was a U.S. citizen.

She lived in Minnesota.
She was raising three kids.

She had people who depended on her.
People who expected her to come home.
People whose lives now have a hole that will never be filled.

She was not the subject of an ICE operation that day.

Read that again.

She was not the person ICE was looking for.

She was nearby.

Adjacent.

In the wrong place at the wrong time…inside a system that doesn’t care about nuance when fear takes over.

And when things escalated?

She didn’t charge anyone.
She didn’t threaten anyone.

She tried to leave.

The Moment That Ended Everything

Here’s where the story turns dark.

Because the shooting itself…horrifying as it is…is not the only thing that matters.

What happened after may be just as damning.

Multiple witnesses say that after Renee was shot…medical aid was delayed. At this point, I think we can all agree that has been confirmed.

People tried to help.
Emergency responders were there.
And yet time passed.

Precious minutes.

Minutes that decide whether someone lives or dies.

Why?

Because federal authority took control of the scene.

Control mattered more than speed.
Procedure mattered more than pulse.

If that detail proves true…and it’s getting harder to ignore…it means this wasn’t just a shooting.

It was a system…choosing order…over life.

“Why Does It Matter That She Was a Mom?”

You’ll hear this question from people who want to shut the conversation down.

“Why bring up her kids?”
“Why make it emotional?”
“Why not just stick to the facts?”

Here’s the answer.

Because motherhood proves impact.

It proves that this wasn’t abstract.
It proves that consequences didn’t stop….when the gunshot did.

Three children will grow up without their mother…because she tried to remove herself from danger.

That’s not emotional manipulation.

That’s reality.

And reality…is exactly what power….wants stripped out of the story.

Minneapolis Knows This Pattern-And That’s Why This Blew Up

This didn’t happen in just any city.

It happened in Minneapolis.

A city that already knows how this works.

A city that remembers being told to “wait for the investigation.”
A city that remembers narratives hardening long before facts emerge.
A city that knows how rarely accountability shows up on its own.

That’s why local leaders didn’t play along.

The mayor of Minneapolis publicly called the federal narrative “bullshit.”

That is not normal.

That only happens…when the official story collapses under its own weight.

Here’s the Part They Really Don’t Want You Thinking About

This wasn’t local police.

This was federal force.

Which means:

• Federal jurisdiction

• Federal investigation

• Federal control of information

Local authorities…sidelined.
Federal agencies…policing themselves.

That should make you uncomfortable…no matter your politics.

Because when the same system that pulls the trigger…controls the timeline…the language…and the release of evidence…

Accountability becomes optional.

And optional accountability…is how bad systems rot quietly.

Watch the Language: It’s Doing the Work

Pay close attention to how they describe what happened.

Not who died.

But what they say she did.

“Vehicle.”
“Threat.”
“Attack.”

Notice what’s missing?

Her name.
Her kids.
Her humanity.

Once someone is labeled a terrorist…everything else becomes irrelevant.

That label doesn’t just justify violence.

It preemptively discredits sympathy.

And…that’s the whole point.

Why This Story Will Refuse to Die

This story keeps spreading because it breaks the script.

She wasn’t undocumented.
She wasn’t violent.
She wasn’t the target.

She was a mom who tried to leave.

That sentence short-circuits propaganda.

It forces identification.

And once people imagine themselves in that car…

The lie loses power.

That’s why this story is being managed…instead of confronted.

What Happens If This Becomes “Old News”

If this fades quietly, something worse than silence takes hold.

Precedent.

The precedent that:

• Proximity equals guilt

• Federal agents can kill civilians adjacent to operations

• Control the aftermath

• And outwait the public

That precedent doesn’t stay in Minnesota.

It spreads.

What Real Accountability Would Actually Look Like

Not statements.
Not “reviews.”
Not promises.

Real accountability means:

• Independent investigation

• Full release of footage

• Clear timelines

• Consequences that are visible…not theoretical

Anything less is theater.

Final Thought (Don’t Skip This)

Renee Good didn’t wake up planning to become a symbol.

She woke up as a mother with responsibilities.

She tried to remove herself from danger.

She died anyway.

And…now…the fight isn’t just about what happened in Minnesota.

It’s about whether we allow human beings…to be erased the moment power finds it convenient.

Because if a mother can be transformed into a threat…with a press release…

Then no one is safe from the story they decide to tell…next.

#HoldFast

Back soon,

-Jack
Jack Hopkins

P.S.

Power survives when outrage burns hot….and disappears fast.

Justice only arrives…when memory refuses to cooperate.

Say her name.
Share her story.
Demand the truth…not the version that’s easiest to defend.

She wasn’t the target.

She was a mom who tried to leave.

And that fact…should haunt every institution involved until accountability shows up.