Fact Check

Photo doesn't show Renee Nicole Good, Minneapolis resident killed by ICE agent

Social media users mistakenly claimed a photo of another woman was actually Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in January 2026.

by Nur Ibrahim, Published Jan. 8, 2026


A sign says "JUSTICE FOR RENEE NICOLE GOOD PARTY FOR SOCIALISM & LIBERATION." A large crowd of people can be seen behind it.

Image courtesy of Getty Images


Claim:
A photograph authentically shows Renee Nicole Good, the woman who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026.
Rating:
Miscaptioned

About this rating

Context

The image in question actually shows Gabriela Szczepankiewicz, who was featured in the same Facebook post as Good in 2020 when they both received recognition from their university’s poetry competition.


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On Jan. 7, 2026, footage captured in Minneapolis showed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shoot a woman in her car during President Donald Trump's latest immigration crackdown in a major American city.

The Minneapolis City Council and the victim's mother identified her as Renee Nicole Good. According to local news coverage, she also was known as Renee Macklin when she was married to her second husband, Timmy Ray Macklin Jr. The Associated Press reported her full name was Renee Nicole Macklin Good.  

Soon after the shooting, a photograph claiming to show Good spread on XInstagram and other social media platforms.

(Instagram/X)

The same photo even appeared on a protest sign at a rally in Chicago on Jan. 7 in the aftermath of the killing. The sign stated: "Justice for Renee Nicole Good." 

(Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu/Getty Images)

However, the photo does not show Good. Her alma mater, Old Dominion University in Virginia, first posted it on Facebook in 2020, identifying the woman as Gabriela Szczepankiewicz, alongside a separate, authentic photo of Good. The two women were featured in the same list of award recipients for a 2020 poetry competition, but social media users mistakenly labeled Szczepankiewicz's photo as Good's. As such, we rate this claim as miscaptioned.

Using Google's reverse-image search tools, we found the source of the woman's photograph from an April 1, 2020, post about a poetry competition by Old Dominion University's English department. The post identified the woman in the above image as Szczepankiewicz, who received an honorable mention in the competition:

(Facebook user ODU English Department)

The same post also has a picture of a woman identified as Renee Macklin, who won the poetry award:

2020 ODU COLLEGE POETRY PRIZE UNDERGRADUATE WINNER:

"On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs" 

by Renée Macklin

Renée Macklin is from Colorado Springs, Colorado and is studying Creative Writing at ODU. Her poetry has been published in Metrosphere and Coronado Literary Review, and she currently co-hosts a podcast with her husband, comedian Tim Macklin. When she is not writing, reading, or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons.

(Facebook user ODU English Department)

The photograph above authentically shows Good. We confirmed this by cross-checking the information in the above post with key details about the shooting victim. 

According to a report in The Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper, Macklin Good was married to Timmy Ray Macklin Jr. and they had a six-year-old child. She had two teenage children from a previous marriage. Macklin died in 2023. 

Good's mother, Donna Ganger, identified her daughter as the victim. We have reached out to Ganger through what appears to be her Facebook account to confirm her daughter's identity in the Facebook post. We will update this post accordingly. 

Protesters in Minneapolis used the same authentic photograph of Good on their signs — as seen on the university's Facebook post from 2020 — with captions like "RIP RENEE, MURDERED BY ICE." 

(Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The above photograph of Good was also shared by news outlets such as NBC News, BBCFox News and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, among others.

Old Dominion University's president commemorated Good in a statement, confirming she was a student there. The statement also corroborated that she received an English degree and that she was formerly known as Renee Macklin: 

It is with great sadness that Old Dominion University mourns the loss of one of our own, Renee (Macklin) Good, a proud Monarch who graduated in December of 2020 from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English. Following Renee's tragic killing earlier today in Minneapolis, our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends, loved ones, and the Monarch Nation. 

The identification of Good from the 2020 Facebook post, verified media reports corroborating her name and identity, and the university president's statement helped us confirm that the woman in the claim was not the same individual who was shot and killed by the ICE agent. 

For further reading, Snopes has investigated numerous claims involving ICE.

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By Nur Ibrahim

Nur Nasreen Ibrahim is a reporter with experience working in television, international news coverage, fact checking, and creative writing.


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