Renée Nicole Good, the US citizen shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) this week, has been described as a “young woman who fell in love with Ireland” and who “touched a lot of people’s lives” during her summers in Northern Ireland.
Paul Bowman, a youth worker who knew her, said Ms Good – then Ms Ganger – was quiet and “compassionate and caring”, with a “good sense of humour”.
“She really enjoyed literature and the arts, she wanted to pursue writing and she did, she won awards for it, for writing, for poetry,” he said. “I played music with her, she had a good voice … as I think of her, those are the things I think of.”
Ms Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed by an Ice officer in disputed circumstances in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
The Trump administration claimed Ms Good, who was shot multiple times as she drove away from a group of officers, was a “domestic terrorist” who sought to attack them with her vehicle.
This has been rejected by state and local officials and protesters. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, said video recordings demonstrated the suggestion the officers had acted in self-defence was “garbage”.
Federal agents stand guard as protestors gather after a federal agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. Photograph: Getty
[ Who was Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by an Ice agent?Opens in new window ]
Originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado, from the age of 14 or 15 Ms Good took part in Christian youth missions to Northern Ireland organised by the Presbyterian Church.
She spent successive summers from 2002 to 2006 in the Ballysally area of Coleraine, Co Derry, and Saintfield, Co Down, and on her final visit chose to extend her trip from two to eight weeks.
“She grew up during those years,” said Mr Bowman. “Those are the formative teenage years, and over that period of time she developed lots of enduring friendships with her Northern Irish peers.
“Renée touched a lot of people’s lives while she was here, and being here, her life was touched and impacted as well.
“I think she fell in love with the place, she had those friendships with folk here, and those mattered to her. She mattered to them,” he said.
The former minister of First Saintfield Presbyterian Church, Reverend James Hyndman, remembered Ms Good as “a lovely, kind, compassionate, quiet, creative girl, just a lovely, lovely girl” who had had a “huge impact.”
Describing her “connection with nature”, he said she “loved Ireland, loved the north coast, loved the whole culture of Northern Ireland. That’s what kept bringing her back, year after year.”
Rev Hyndman said it was “really distressing and devastating to hear of her death. It feels surreal, I just can’t get my head around it at all.
“Our hearts and prayers are with her whole family, I just can’t imagine how they are coping at the minute, it’s just horrendous.”
“Folks who remember Renée have been in touch and we’re all the same. It’s just unbelievable,” he said. “I’d like to express our deep sorrow and sympathy for her family.”
Mr Bowman said that while losing anyone was tragic, the “visceral and horrific” way in which the incident occurred was difficult to process.
“I made the mistake of reading some of the comments in some of these reports and articles and that’s brutal to see.”
Emphasising that he was not American and “so I have no business and no right to comment on American politics”, he said: “All I can speak to is the person I knew and I don’t recognise the person that’s been talked about today, demonised, in a way.
“It’s just sad to see her humanity kind of lost in all of this, and if I had one wish it would just be that people could have some empathy and some understanding and compassion towards a young woman, a whole life still ahead of her, and all of that [has been] snatched away.
“As I think of Renée, as I think of the young woman who fell in love with Ireland, and kept coming here and has friendships here, the person that she was becoming, she wouldn’t be the person who would want violence in the streets in her name.”