SARANAC LAKE — A crowd of people carrying signs, flags and bullhorns lined River Street on Thursday, reacting to the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross on Wednesday.
More than 70 people showed up for the pop-up, mid-day protest in Riverside Park, saying they were horrified by the killing of Good and called for people to speak out against what they see as an oppressive government.
“It’s my birthday, but there’s no place I’d rather be than here,” Ann Monroe said with tears in her eyes. “I just can’t believe this is happening in our country. … It’s horrifying.”
Several felt that such a shooting was inevitable.
“I know what kind of tactics ICE agents are using, what they get away with using,” Forrest Law said. “I’m pissed off about what ICE is doing to people in this country, what the leadership of this country is directing them to do — so much so that I’m ready to fight.”
Ann Monroe is seen protesting along River Street in Saranac Lake on Thursday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
Gwen Williams said she was not surprised but was still heartbroken.
“We have a lot of violent rhetoric coming from the administration,” Williams said. “This stuff is going to happen. Violence is encouraged and lawlessness is encouraged.”
Good was shot and killed during an ICE operation in a Minnesota neighborhood. Her car was sideways, blocking the road, when Ross moved in front of the vehicle and others started grabbing the handle. Good drove forward, with her wheels turned away from the officers and Ross drew his gun and fired three times into the windshield and through the driver’s window, killing Good.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the officer acted in self-defense during a press conference, and that Good’s actions were an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers.
As a video of the incident surfaced online, President Donald Trump posted on social media that “it’s horrible to watch,” while defending ICE.
Anne Stowers, left, is seen with other protestors along River Street in Saranac Lake on Thursday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
“The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”
Adirondack People Power co-organizer Keela Grimmette said Good was putting her body and her vehicle between ICE and the people they were trying to arrest.
“Watching the video, we all feel like we probably would have done the same thing,” Grimmette said. “They’re telling her, ‘Get out of here,’ and so she took off and they reacted in a way we feel was absolutely inhumane.”
An eyewitness said Good was given conflicting orders from the officers surrounding her car — to leave, or to get out of the vehicle.
“Anyone who thinks they’re not next is just delusional,” Leo Mondale said. “They don’t need a reason to come after people now. They just go after them, and they shoot them.”
Shannon Peckham, right, and other protestors are seen along River Street in Saranac Lake on Thursday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
He was also angered by the government’s response.
“You’ve got the video. You’ve got Trump and Noem (and they) immediately said something happened, and the video showed it didn’t happen. I mean, come on,” he said.
He dropped what he was doing to express his outrage.
Mondale called for a mass mobilization of protests — “a lot more than this,” he said.
“We want ICE out of our communities,” Grimmette said. “They are creating terror. They are creating fear. … ICE are the ones who are being terrorizing.
Protestors are seen along River Street in Saranac Lake on Thursday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
“We are a country of love, of compassion, of hope, of joy. We are not a country of fear and hate,” Grimmette added. “We need to see each other as human beings.”
Law said he cried when he saw the video of Good’s death.
He thought about Chaaric Valera Bastidas, a Venezuelan woman in Malone who was separated from her family by U.S. Customs and Border Protection while walking to the store and is now being processed for deportation.
He’s glad she was not hurt in that process, but said she was “unjustly targeted.”
Bastidas was a cherished part of the Malone community who loved God and family. Someone reported her for being undocumented.
The U.S. military invaded Venezuela last week and arrested it’s president on drug charges with the goal of controlling the country’s rich oil industry.
“We need immigration enforcement to be held accountable to the laws that everybody else is held accountable to, to not be able to use violence with impunity,” Law said.
He does not have hope that “the powers that be” will make that happen, but he does hope that “the people” will force them to do that.
Monroe said she wishes people would pay attention and get engaged.
“If this isn’t the turning point, what is it going to take?” she asked.
She said the checks and balances of the country are not being used and that Congress is complicit in letting the Executive Branch walk over the Legislative Branch.
Anne Stowers was calling for Trump to be impeached. She feels he’s not obeying the Constitution or international laws, destroying environmental laws and social services that have been built over decades, while enriching himself.
“He’s disregarding all the laws that are keeping us safe,” Stowers said. “I fear for the future of my children and grandchildren.”
She said she’s having a hard time being hopeful.
“We don’t have a choice. We have to do something,” Joy Cranker said. “If we don’t … what happens?”
Cranker had hoped the tide would turn before ICE shot someone. That didn’t happen, and now a child is an orphan, she said. Diana Gill said the tide is turning, but it’s taken away a lot of the protective dunes with it.
Williams said she’s long been against ICE’s tactics. The recent use of face coverings, the training period being shortened to 47 days and the mass hiring effort with increased quotas are upsetting, she said.
“They’re not going after criminals. We know that,” Williams said.
One-third — 75,000 — of the people that ICE has arrested have no criminal record to speak of, according to a study from the Deportation Data Project that used data through the first nine months of Trump’s second term. A majority of the other two-thirds have convictions for low-level offenses or traffic violations or pending charges without conviction.
“Undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes,” according to a 2024 study from the Department of Justice.
“Heck, we were all immigrants at some point,” Williams said.
“I’m watching a country that I love and that my ancestors fought for dissolve into a hateful, spiteful cruel place that’s out of control,” protest co-organizer Gail Brill said. “It’s an outrage.”
She urged people to vote. Grimmette told people to call their politicians.
Most protestors said they encourage people to join them when they organize.