Jon Hopkins, the pastor of Concordia Lutheran Church, prayed for Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, but also said a death like hers was bound to happen.
“We know that this shooting was inevitable, in some ways, that ICE was going to start shooting people who show up to protect their neighbors at some point,” Hopkins said during a candlelight vigil Friday night in front of the State House in Concord. “Part of this story is actually not a surprise, at least to those of us who have eyes to see what’s going on in our country right now.”
Federal authorities portrayed Good, who was a U.S. citizen, as a domestic terrorist who attempted to ram federal agents with her Honda Pilot. However, members of her family, friends and neighbors remembered her as gentle, kind and openhearted.
Video taken by bystanders in Minneapolis shows an officer approaching her car, demanding she open the door and grabbing the handle. When she begins to pull forward, a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range.
The entire incident was over in less than 10 seconds.
“We can’t ever forget that somewhere in the public discourse about what all this means, that a human being was killed, and people tonight who loved her the most mourn her death the most,” Hopkins said.
The demonstration in Concord was one of many cities and towns across the country following the shooting of Good and another protester in Portland, Oregon.
“Renee Good gave her life in service to her neighbors,” Hopkins said. “She showed up to protect people that probably didn’t look like her, have the same language, or maybe necessarily even worship the same God.”
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.