By COLLEEN SLEVIN and TIM SULLIVAN
DENVER (AP) — Renee Good loved sparkles and laughter and any excuse for a celebration. She loved pretty much everyone she met, and was late for pretty much everything.
“She had this way of making you feel special and loved that I didn’t even understand that until we lost her,” Donna Ganger said Friday of her daughter, who was shot and killed by an immigration officer during the federal crackdown in Minneapolis.
She was “slow to anger, quick to love, quick to care,” said her father, Tim Ganger. “That’s the essence of who she was.”
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed Jan. 7 as immigration agents surged through the Minneapolis area, sparking waves of protests. Her death and that of another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, just weeks later sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.
In a wide-ranging interview in Colorado, where some of the family lives, Good’s parents and two of her brothers, Brent and Luke Ganger, talked to the AP about the joy Good found in life, their grief at losing her and their hopes that her death can bring some sort of change in a deeply polarized nation.
“It’s going to be hard in the future,” Donna Ganger said. “It’s going to be kind of a constant pain.”
Settling in Minneapolis
Good, who graduated from college later in life, was volunteering in a local school district and working as a substitute teacher when she was killed, her parents said.
“She was working so hard to get her education, and then she was finally able to use it, and I could just tell how happy she was and how fulfilled,” Donna Ganger said.
Good, her 6-year-old son and her partner Becca Good — the women were not legally married, according to a family lawyer, but referred to one another as wives — had only recently relocated to Minneapolis from Kansas City, Missouri, settling in a quiet residential street in a tight-knit neighborhood known for its progressive activism.
In social media accounts, Renee Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” On Pinterest, a profile picture shows her smiling and holding a young child, alongside posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.
The family “settled very quickly into the community in Minneapolis,” said Donna Ganger, describing how the neighborhood had also welcomed the rest of the family when they came after the shooting. They see that as the result of the love that Good had showed her new neighbors.
“It was incredible to receive that back,” Luke Ganger said.
Donna Ganger held a stuffed, toy owl as she spoke, a gift from her daughter, who knew how much she loved the birds. It had sparkles on its feet, a reminder of Good’s love for glitter.
At Good’s memorial service, a table of glitter had been set out for guests. Donna Ganger had put a piece on a lens of her glasses and it’s remained there.
“She just kind of sparkled all the way through,” said Donna Ganger. “I think of her and I look down and see my little sparkle.”
An American blend
The morning of the shooting
On the morning of the shooting, as immigration raids and protests were flaring across the city, Becca Good has said they stopped their car in the street to support neighbors during an immigration operation.
Video shows Renee Good in a red SUV blocking part of the road and repeatedly honking her horn.
Two immigration officers get out of a truck and one orders Good to open her door. She reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel as the officer says again, “get out of the car.” Almost simultaneously, Becca Good, standing in the street shouts, “drive, baby, drive!”
When Good begins pulling forward, an ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and fires at least two shots into the car, killing Good.
Weeks later, Tim Ganger said he hoped the family’s tragedy would lead to change, though “I’m not even sure what that will look like.”
“But for something good, for people to stop and take a breath and take a look and have a dialog,” he said. “That’s the broader mission of what we want, for people to come together and take care of each other.”
The Justice Department has said it sees no basis to open a federal civil rights investigation into Good’s death, but the family has hired a law firm that is conducting its own investigation and exploring potential legal action.
Family members said no one from the federal government has contacted them about Good’s killing, and they are unsure if anyone will be held accountable.
“All we can do is speak out and hope that our sincere words are enough to enact some kind of change,” Brent Ganger said.
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Sullivan reported from Minneapolis.
