Hundreds march in Boston after ICE agent fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis

Local News

“The violence we are seeing did not begin on January 7. The only difference now is that more people are finally seeing it.”

Several hundred people marched in Boston Thursday night to protest the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minnesota mother, by a federal immigration agent as she tried to drive away from agents. 

With glowing Park Street Church as a backdrop, close to a thousand people chanted, calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave local communities and for an end ro deportations. 

The protest, organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, was the second in Boston after Good’s killing. In a quickly organized event, crowds also gathered at the Boston Common Wednesday evening.

“We are outraged. People all across the country, but also here in Boston, are sick of ICE,” Ximena Hasbach, a PSL organizer, told Boston.com. “We demand an end to ice terror. We demand justice for Renee. We demand the arrest of Jonathan Ross, the man who killed her.”

Good, a mother of three, was shot in the head in front of a family member just about a mile from where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. In videos recorded of her death, she appears to be confronted by ICE agents, who approach her vehicle and try to open her car door. As she tries to drive past officers, an agent standing in front of her car fires multiple shots as he steps to the side. 

Shortly after her death, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle.”

Starting at 6 p.m. in front of the Park Street MBTA station, PSL organizers led chants to “end the terror, end the hate” and to call for “funds for jobs and education, not for war and deportation.” Kojo Achaempong, a speaker at the protest, likened Good’s death to Floyd’s. 

“I remember six years ago when they killed George Floyd. They said he was a danger to the community,” Achaempong said. “Today, they try to claim that Renee Nicole Good was somehow a threat to those ICE officers.”

Boston police said there were no incidents and no arrests during the protest.

‘People are finally seeing it’

Educators, representatives from community organizations like LUCE, and Boston Democratic Socialists of America Co-Chairs Bonnie Jin and Estefania Galvis spoke to the crowd, all condemning violence from ICE agents.

“The violence we are seeing did not begin on January 7,” Jin said, switching with Galvis, who spoke to the crowd in Spanish. “The only difference now is that more people are finally seeing it.”

Brenda, a spokesperson for LUCE who declined to provide her last name, spoke to the crowd about the organization’s work responding to ICE arrests as legal observers. She said their volunteers have been “intimidated and harassed.”

“What happened that day is an escalation of violence that we have been seeing here in Massachusetts and every day in the last couple of months,” Brenda said. “We’ve had volunteers that have been blocked in by ICE agents. We’ve had volunteers that have been followed home. We have had volunteers that have been pulled out of their cars at gunpoint.”

Jackie, a Charlestown woman in her 30s who declined to use her full name, said while she’s previously protested against police brutality, the event was her first protest against ICE. 

“Enough is enough,” Jackie said as the crowd marched through the streets. “The American people have to stand up for each other, because it’s just going to get worse.”

After speeches, state Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven marched with protesters up Park Street, past the Statehouse, through Downtown Crossing and to City Hall Plaza. 

“I don’t think this violence is new, even to Massachusetts, we’ve seen ICE agents do horrific things in our state,” Uyterhoeven said on Park Street. “This is, to me, a continued pattern, and I don’t think anything is unique about Massachusetts in terms of the terror they’re trying to inflict on our community.”

Before the group dispersed around 8 p.m., speakers told the crowd that two people were shot by federal immigration agents in Portland, Oregon.

Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.