People turned out in Bangor and across Maine on Saturday to protest and hold vigils in the wake of a Minnesota woman’s fatal shooting by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer this week.
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot behind the wheel of her car by ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Federal authorities have said she was trying to hit federal agents with her car amid a deployment of more than 2,000 ICE agents in the city to carry out what the Trump administration called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever.
Protesters and some Democrats have said video footage shows otherwise, and are calling for Ross to be prosecuted for murder. Protests and vigils have been held across the country in days since.
In Maine, gatherings were held in Portland, Augusta, Bangor and elsewhere. Speakers and attendees at a large event Saturday in Bangor’s Peirce Park called for ICE to be abolished and Ross held accountable, while describing Good’s killing as emblematic of larger unchecked violence by the agency amid increasing federal immigration enforcement.
“We are adhering here to a nationwide call to action, to demand justice for Renee Nicole Good and an end to ICE’s reign of terror across the country,” said Zach Campbell, an organizer from the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Bangor’s event was organized by numerous other groups including Food and Medicine, Indivisible Bangor, the Maine People’s Alliance and the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Numerous speakers addressed the crowd before a vigil began, punctuated by honks of support from passing cars and pauses for call and response chants by participants. There were no visible organized counter protestors, though passers-by occasionally shouted in opposition.
Jesse Gaulthier of Bangor, who attended the event with his children, said he wants ICE abolished and would feel safer if it was.
Sam Duplacy, a demonstrator from Milford, would also like to see the agency defunded, she said, along with action by Congress and more community pushback. A former federal employee herself, she said she’s gone through the same force training as ICE agents, and from watching the video believes Ross engineered a conflict by moving in front of Good’s car.
Speakers also focused on Good’s last words in video of her killing, and Ross’ response after. “I’m not mad at you, dude,” she said before he shot her.
“It’s just so hard for me to understand,” said former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, a Democrat from Allagash who is running for governor and was a speaker at the rally in Bangor. “…That wasn’t law enforcement. That was murder.”