Renee Good's brothers and a woman shot five times by CBP decry DHS' tactics
Feb 03, 2026
Two brothers of Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in her car last month in Minneapolis, gave emotional testimony Tuesday in Washington about the death of their sister and its impact on the family.
Good’s death on Jan. 7 resulted in an esca
lation of anger, opposition and protests against the administration’s immigration enforcement policies and was followed weeks later by the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection officers on Jan. 24. Their killings have led lawmakers to call for reform and accountability in the Department of Homeland Security, as well as for the resignation of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
“The deep distress our family feels because of Nee’s loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation for change,” Luke Ganger testified Tuesday at a public forum held by Democrats to discuss violent tactics and use of force by DHS.
Others who spoke at the event included Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago, Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident who said she was dragged out of her car by immigration agents, and Martin Daniel Rascon, a U.S. citizen whose car was fired on by agents in San Bernardino, California.
The public forum was held by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Members of the Department of Homeland Security were not expected to testify Tuesday. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the forum or agents’ encounters with Good and others.
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“The completely surreal scenes taking place on the streets of Minneapolis are beyond explanation,” Luke Ganger said. “This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents, these encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours, forever.”
Luke Ganger put his arm on the back of his brother, Brent Ganger, as he prepared to read from the eulogy he had recently given for his sister.
“Renee had a way of showing up in the world that made you believe things were going to be OK, not because she ignored the hardship, but because she chose optimism anyway,” Brent Ganger said. “She had a way of making you feel understood, even when you didn’t have the words yet. She didn’t just listen. She saw you.”
Ganger said that as a mother, “Renee poured herself into love, the kind of love that shows up every day, that sacrifices quietly, that cheers loudly, that believes deeply her children were and are her heart.”
After the shooting, Noem said Good was a domestic terrorist and, without providing evidence, that she “weaponized” her vehicle against law enforcement. Noem also added that the officer who fired the fatal shots, Jonathan Ross, acted in self-defense. DHS said the officer sustained injuries.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin also accused Good of not complying with officers’ commands, saying that leads to “dangerous, and in this case deadly, consequences.” What happened, she said, was “entirely preventable.”
Garcia described DHS and its agencies as “completely out of control” and said “Congress has a responsibility to step in when constitutional rights are being violated.”
He said Democrats had tracked, reviewed and vetted more than 470 incidents in its immigration enforcement dashboard and that 186 of them included “problematic uses of force by agents.”
“These are not isolated mistakes. They are a clear pattern, and we know that’s a tip of the iceberg,” Garcia said.
Blumenthal said Good and Pretti should have had the chance to appear at the event in person, but “they were murdered by their own government. They were killed in cold blood.”
“The top ranks of DHS are more than complicit. They are the driving force behind this brutality, and they should be held accountable,” he said.
The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights probe into Pretti’s death. Last week, DHS removed Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino, who was present at several violent encounters with protesters in Minneapolis and Chicago, from his role as commander, returning him to his post at El Centro, California. Border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to Minneapolis and said on Thursday that federal agents would plan for an eventual drawdown of their presence there, a statement contradicted by President Donald Trump shortly thereafter.
Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times in Chicago, said agents rushed medical staff to dress her wounds, so that blood was soaking through her bandages when officers took her from the hospital after less than three hours. She said she overheard agents discussing whether a jail would accept her with her wounds bleeding and she had to plead to be taken to a second hospital for proper medical care.
Martinez was accused of using her car to assault and impede federal law enforcement before the charges against her were dismissed in November.
Marimar Martinez. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)
She testified that she had been on her way to deliver some clothes she’d collected from her home to a church, when she spotted immigration enforcement vehicles and tried to warn friends and neighbors of their presence by honking her horn and shouting “La Migra.”
Martinez said the Border Patrol agent swerved twice into her lane and that, after she stopped her car, “it seemed time stopped.” Initially she thought the sensations in her arms and legs were from being hit by pepper balls. She tried to continue driving, but heard her back passenger window shatter and felt “bullets continue to pierce my body.”
“I was losing this battle. I saw my life flash before me and slowly began to think, ‘This is the end of me,’” she told the panel.
The charges against her were dropped after federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss their own case. Martinez’s case has been one of the most high-profile examples of civilians being accused by federal authorities of ramming into a vehicle driven by immigration agents.
When previously asked about her case, DHS referred questions about charges in the case to the Justice Department, which did not respond.
Prosecutors said Border Patrol agent Charles Exum shot Martinez in self-defense after she and another person allegedly rammed their cars into a federal vehicle on Oct. 4. Martinez’s legal team had argued that it was federal agents who rammed her car with their vehicle and that the shooting was unjustified and an excessive use of force.
During her testimony Tuesday, Martinez, a Montessori schoolteacher, repeatedly said Exum’s name, referring to him as her “attempted executioner.” She was not trying to dox him, she said, but to expose him and a “pattern of misleading the public” by the administration.
She said that during the court hearing Exum attempted to explain “why he took his vehicle that I allegedly rammed out of the secure FBI evidence garage and drove it back to Maine where the Border Patrol on-site mechanic was ordered to buff out the damages of the vehicle.” Watching him testify, she said, “made me sick to my stomach” and destroyed her reverence for law enforcement.
“The government told the people they were targeting the worst of the worst,” she said, “but their actions demonstrated otherwise,” she said.
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