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Renee Good’s ex-father-in-law said he doesn’t blame U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for her fatal shooting that happened in Minneapolis last week. Timmy Macklin told CNN that the shooting was “hard all around” and that he thinks “some bad choices” were made.
“I don’t blame ICE. I don’t blame [Good’s wife] Rebecca. I don’t blame Renee. I just wish that, you know, if we’re walking in the spirit of God, I don’t think she would have been there. That’s the way I look at it,” Macklin said during the interview on Tuesday.
Good was married to Macklin’s son, who died in 2023. The two shared a son, who is now six years old.
Macklin remembered Good as “an amazing person” and “a good mother” who was “full of life.”
“I just think we make bad choices, and that’s the problem, there is so much chaos in the whole world today. We need to turn to God and walk in the spirit of God and let him lead us and guide us,” Macklin said.
When CNN anchor Erin Burnett asked Macklin if he thought the shooting was justified, he said he “was not blaming anybody.”
Macklin said he saw the witness’s cellphone video from a point of view that shows Good’s car hitting the ICE agent.
“You know, in a flash like that, it’s hard to say how you’d react,” he said, adding that he heard the agent may have been dragged by a vehicle in a previous incident.
WATCH:
On Wednesday, Tricia McLaughlin, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told Fox News that the ICE agent had internal bleeding in his torso when the car hit him.
Federal officials have called the agents’ actions self-defense and the event an act of domestic terrorism. Democratic officials, on the other hand, have rejected the self-defense claim.
A federal judge on Wednesday declined to immediately block the Biden administration’s intensified immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, saying there was insufficient time to fully consider legal arguments in the state’s request for a temporary restraining order.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, a Biden appointee, heard arguments in a lawsuit filed earlier this week by the State of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, which sought to halt a surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents conducting sweeps across the state.
Plaintiffs allege the federal campaign has involved warrantless arrests, excessive force and violations of constitutional rights.
Menendez said at a hearing that she could not issue a ruling Wednesday due to the complexity of legal issues and limited precedent addressing the scope of federal immigration enforcement authority in this context.
The judge set deadlines for the U.S. Justice Department to respond by Jan. 19 and for state officials to file additional arguments by Jan. 22, with a ruling on the restraining order expected later this month.
“That should not be taken as a prejudgment of the merits of either the plaintiff’s case or the anticipated defense that may be raised by the United States,” Menendez said. “It is simply observing that these are grave and important matters and that they are somewhat frontier issues in constitutional law.”
State officials, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, argued federal agents have engaged in heavy-handed tactics that have eroded public trust and endangered residents. Government attorneys countered that officials have had limited time to respond to the lawsuit and that the operations are lawful and necessary.
Also, there is limited precedent from federal courts that reign in federal agents and agencies from performing their constitutional and statutory duties anywhere in the United States or U.S. possessions.
The lawsuit comes amid heightened tensions in Minneapolis following the Jan. 7 shooting death of Renee Good by an ICE agent during an enforcement action, which sparked widespread protests and scrutiny of federal tactics.
Federal agencies have made thousands of arrests statewide since the operation began in December.
For now, the immigration sweeps will continue while the court weighs whether to impose restrictions or halt the activities.
