Mississippians respond to ICE agent's fatal shooting of Minneapolis woman

In comments to the Associated Press, Good's ex-husband said she was just heading home when she encountered ICE agents and was shot in the head at close range by an officer outside her vehicle. She had just dropped her youngest child off at school that morning.  

The Trump administration claims the agent shot her as an act of self defense, saying she tried to run over that ICE agent — an assertion that has been disputed based on multiple videos of the incident. 

Congressman Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, said the shooting in Minneapolis, along with another shooting in Portland by federal agents that left two injured, merits a bigger discussion on federal law enforcement practices.

"There are circumstances around how that deadly force should be used: we want to make sure that ICE is following their deadly force policy," he said. "If it comes out that the deadly force policy needs to be strengthened, then that's why we have hearings to look at that, and we go forward on that."

"We need to see whether or not policies and procedures are being followed, and if not, then we need to strengthen both those policies and the procedures so that citizens won't feel threatened when they see an ICE agent."

But other Mississippi leaders, like Congressman Mike Ezell, released statements calling for more support for law enforcement. He wrote that "the reckless and unlawful actions of Renee Good left U.S. ICE agents with no choice but to defend themselves and the officers supporting them."

Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith called the situation "tragic" — but said leaders needed to "quit demonizing law enforcement" and blamed the incident on former president Joe Biden's border policies.

Outside Hyde-Smith's office, a group of Mississippians spoke with MPB about her statement on Friday, Jan. 9. They'd given her a letter that day expressing their thoughts about her post, and tried to speak with her — they said she accepted the letter but did not stop to talk. 

Sharon Lobert, a retired nurse, said that Hyde-Smith's statement didn't fully acknowledge Good's death and that it doesn't reflect well on the state. 

"It said nothing about the chaos, the upheaval, ICE in the streets, the violence that we are seeing every day," Lobert said. "She said nothing about trying to put that all right, and we want to hear her say that." 

Lee Parrott, a retired clinical social worker said that it's not just an issue for other states, either. 

"If it can happen there, it can happen here — definitely," she said. 

In a statement from the senator's office, spokesman Chris Gallegos said they'd met with folks from the group, Mississippi United, before and wrote they "were not there to engage in good-faith dialogue" on Friday, claiming one person tried to hold an elevator door open to continue talking to Hyde-Smith. 

"Behavior like this contributes to an increasingly hostile and unsafe environment that can escalate to the very cause for people like Charlie Kirk getting assassinated," Gallegos wrote in the statement to MPB. 

Folks  also gathered over the weekend in response to the ICE shooting. On a bridge above I-55, retired accountant and army veteran Bill Gray talked about what had brough him out on a Saturday. 

"You can't get complacent about what's going on in the country right now, so you have to raise the flag and say, 'Hey, we're still fighting this,'" he said. "We really need so many more people out."

Jackson local Beth Dickson-Gavney said that while Good's death was horrifying, she wanted people to also be aware that issues of violence from law enforcement weren't new, particularly for communities of color. 

"Something that maybe we didn't expect to happen has happened because there is an assumption of privilege," she said. "So, I hope that that might serve as a wake up call to people, but also as a recognition that this has been happening for generations and generations."

"I hope that it will also serve as a wake-up call to this country, the degree to which our civil liberties have been slipping away," Dickson-Gavney said. "People are asleep at the wheel of what's happening."