A crowd of people stood under falling snow in downtown Carbondale’s Chacos Park Thursday evening for a vigil honoring Renee Nicole Macklin Good.
The 37-year-old mother of three was fatally shot on Wednesday by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer behind the wheel of her car.
According to the AP, Good had just dropped off her youngest child at an elementary school in Minneapolis. She was on her way home when she came across a group of ICE agents on a snowy street.
Trump Administration officials defended the shooting, saying the officer fired in self-defense. But video footage analyzed by the New York Times shows an ICE officer standing in front of Good’s vehicle and firing at least two shots into her car as she turns to drive away from the agents.
The shooting has prompted outrage in Minneapolis and across the country as protesters gather to demand that ICE vacate the city.
In front of a large black-and-white photo of Good, Willits resident Bettina Slusar was emotional as she spoke about Good’s killing. For Slusar, it was a disturbing reminder of the aggressive tactics employed by ICE under the Trump Administration.
“There was a point where I was worried that protesting ICE might get me handcuffed and taken away,” she said. “But now what we have to worry about is being shot in the head for honking our horns.”
At the vigil, participants held candles while volunteers with Mountain Action Indivisible read poems and led the crowd in a song. One organizer shared the 32 names of people who died in ICE detention in 2025.
Chesca Smotherman, a volunteer with Mountain Action Indivisible, said she hoped the vigil would offer comfort to those shaken by Good’s killing — and inspire action.
“We saw a lot of folks in our Facebook group and our social media spaces talking about how upset they were yesterday,” she said, adding that many of them are “feeling powerless.”
“It's really important for us to make space for people to understand that when we organize, we can win,” she said. “We can actually get things done.”
Smotherman urged people to “keep showing up,” to protest, to call their elected representatives and to demand an end to ICE’s violence.
