Fatal Minneapolis shooting spurs Sacramento ICE protest. ‘Overcome the darkness’
Hundreds gathered outside the California state Capitol on Saturday, many holding signs and flags honoring the life of Renee Nicole Good and denouncing federal law enforcement and the Trump administration.
Numerous “ICE Out For Good” events were scheduled nationwide this weekend, organized by area chapters of the Indivisible movement after the fatal shooting of Good by an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis. According to organizers, the weekend’s nonviolent protests and vigils hope to “demand accountability, honor the life lost, and make visible the human cost of ICE’s actions.”
Starting around 1 p.m., protesters first held signs along the road beside the rose garden in Capitol Park. As demonstrators started their march to the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium on J Street, passing cars honked in solidarity and protesters cheered in response. The louder and longer the honks, the louder the cheering grew.
Members of the Peace and Justice Choir sang songs of resistance and handed out lyric sheets for songs titled “Resilience” and “We Are Not Afraid.”
Jordan Howard-Cooper, a 20-year-old Sacramento Valley resident, said she attended the event to protest the “senseless murder of Renee Good.”
“My first feeling was anger, and then it melted into a mix of fear and sadness — fear at what we are becoming as a country, and sadness for a loss of life that did not need to happen,” Howard-Cooper said, adding she felt the administration’s responses have been “insanely laughable” after watching multiple clips of the incident.
Good, an unarmed woman, was shot and killed in her vehicle on Wednesday by an ICE officer. The Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper reported Good was observing ICE operations in a residential neighborhood when agents approached her Honda Pilot on foot.
Federal officials — including President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem — claim Good ran over the officer, but multiple videos from the scene dispute the assertion.
“The president and this current administration lied about a lot of what we saw in that video, stuff I watched with my own eyes,” Howard-Cooper said.
Across the capital region, additional protests were scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Davis, Gold River, Woodland, Roseville and Vacaville.
On Thursday, a group of protesters reportedly damaged and vandalized a federal building on Capitol Mall in Sacramento. No one was arrested, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is investigating the incident.
Last June, demonstrators marched from the Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown to the area’s ICE field office and immigration court as the federal authorities including U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased operations around California during the summer.
Matthew Gibson, a 39-year-old Sacramento physician, said he joined Saturday’s protest because he was “heartbroken” about what happened in Minneapolis and was “tired of the violence being committed by the Trump regime.”
“Trump is the symptom of the underlying disease in America — he is the very pinnacle of that emboldening ICE to come out,” Gibson said, describing the administration’s response so far as “appalling deception.”
Roughly an hour after commencing, protesters walked from the auditorium back to where they had begun outside the Capitol, gathering in a circle to close out the day.
“We are a community,” Gibson said. “Even though (Renee Good’s killing) didn’t happen here, we’re all connected…and that’s what I’m hoping, that the power of our community and warmth and togetherness can overcome the darkness.”
Some who marched carried signs of Good as well as others who have been killed by ICE agents or died while in ICE custody.
Gathered in the circle, organizers encouraged protesters to repeat the names of Renee Nicole Good, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, Carlos Jimenez, Marie Ange Blaise, Johnny Noviello and Chaofeng Ge.
Protest outside Roseville mall
Around 200 people converged on a busy Roseville intersection near the Westfield Galleria mall holding handmade signs expressing colorful, sometimes expletive-filled outrage over the killing of Good and the general conduct of ICE.
“I feel it’s important that I show my kids, as a Latina American, that this could happen to anyone,” said Yuki Rosas, a mother of three school-aged kids. “And unfortunately, especially because we have film of the obvious, the murder of Renee Good showed that this could happen to anybody of any color. The spark has been there, it’s just now lighting up a fire.”
Mike Cherniski, a retired Hewlett-Packard engineer from Roseville, held a sign calling for Noem and the officer who shot Good to be prosecuted.
“People have been sitting home watching TV in the bad weather, feeling helpless to counter the lunacy that has been happening; Venezuela, talk of invading Mexico and Greenland,” Cherniski said. ”
The Placer County Democratic Party in a video clip posted to Facebook showed several dozen protesters outside the Roseville mall morning, waving signs with slogans such as “resist fascism” and “I like my I.C.E. crushed.”
The Bee’s Joe Rubin contributed to this story.
This story was originally published January 10, 2026 at 11:45 AM.
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