BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Dreary weather matched the mood Friday evening as hundreds in Bethlehem mourned a woman killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis this week.
Local residents filled the sanctuary at Cathedral Church of the Nativity on the Southside.
There, they paid their respects to 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot and killed Wednesday amid an immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the agent feared for his life as Good tried to “run (him) over” — a description repeated by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
“She was killed for acting on her belief that immigrants are welcome and should be treated with dignity and respect — which means that she was martyred for a cause that we all believe in."The Very Rev. Jon Stratton
But videos of the fatal shooting contradict federal officials’ version of events. An analysis by The New York Times concluded the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot Good was not struck by the vehicle she was driving.
Federal agents have blocked Minnesota officials from participating in the investigation into Good's killing.
The Minneapolis killing and a separate shooting in Portland, Oregon, a day later by U.S. Border Patrol have set off protests in multiple cities and denunciations of immigration enforcement tactics by the U.S. government.
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents.
'Our hearts are broken': Rabbi
The Very Rev. Jon Stratton on Friday said Good was killed because she stood up for her neighbors. She was part of a network that responded to reports of ICE in the Twin Cities.
Good “supported her communities by showing up with love and solidarity when ICE showed up with hate and violence,” Stratton said.
“She was killed for acting on her belief that immigrants are welcome and should be treated with dignity and respect — which means that she was martyred for a cause that we all believe in,” he said.
“There is no justification for her killing; she should be alive today.”
Rabbi Shoshanah Tornberg, who leads Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown, urged residents to unite amid “this time of brokenness.”
“Our hearts are broken,” she said. “The bonds between us are broken.”
Pain into power
Good is at least the fifth person to die during federal immigrations operations since July, the Associated Press reports. Dozens of others have died while in ICE custody, the Guardian reports.
The name of each was read during Friday’s vigil.
A dispatcher for the Lehigh Valley Emergency Response Network gave an impassioned speech in which she called ICE agents “bullies” and “tyrants” without “a single drop of honor.”
Speaking in Spanish alongside an English translator, she said her fellow ERN volunteers are “not much different” from Good — “a brave woman brutally taken from this world.”
She urged people to not “let their fears take over” and to “turn the pain we feel today into power.”
“There is power in solidarity,” she said. “There is power in the numbers. There is power in resistance; there is power in action.”
“Unlike what this government wants us to believe, we are not powerless.”
