Renee Good was 'slow to anger, quick to love'

Family tells of her joyful spirit, their grief and hope that her death brings change.

- BY COLLEEN SLEVIN AND TIM SULLIVAN

A MEMORIAL in Minneapolis for Renee Good, who was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in January.

(ERIC THAYER Los Angeles Times)

Renee Good loved sparkles and laughter and any excuse for a celebration. She loved pretty much everyone she met, and was late for pretty much everything.

“She had this way of making you feel special and loved that I didn’t even understand ... until we lost her,” Donna Ganger said Friday of her daughter, who was shot and killed by an immigration officer during the federal crackdown in Minneapolis. She was “slow to anger, quick to love, quick to care,” said her father, Tim Ganger. “That's the essence of who she was.”

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed Jan. 7 as immigration agents surged through the Minneapolis area, sparking waves of protests. Her death and that of another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, weeks later in Minneapolis sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

In a wide-ranging interview in Colorado, where some of the family lives, Good's parents and two of her brothers, Brent and Luke Ganger, talked to the AP about the joy Good found in life, their grief and their hopes that her death can bring about change in a deeply polarized nation.

“It’s going to be hard in the future,” Donna Ganger said. “It’s going to be kind of a constant pain.”

Settling in Minneapolis

Good, who graduated from college later in life, was volunteering in a local school district and working as a substitute teacher when she was killed, her parents said.

“She was working so hard to get her education, and then she was finally able to use it, and I could just tell how happy she was and how fulfilled,” Donna Ganger said.