DENVER | Hundreds of people gathered at the Colorado Capitol in Denver on Friday night to protest the recent killing of a women by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
Renee Nicole Good died on Wednesday after an ICE agent shot her through her car window. Her death, as well as another shooting by federal agents in Portland on Thursday, prompted demonstrations across the country against ICE.
Federal officials have accused Good of attempting to run over an ICE agent ahead of the shooting, but local and national leaders dispute that claim based on videos of the incident.
Good was from Colorado Springs and was living in Minneapolis.
Activist Jeanette Vizguerra, who was recently released after a nine-month detention at an ICE facility in Aurora, addressed the crowd from the steps of the Capitol. Protestors spilled into Lincoln Street between 14th and Colfax avenues and onto the snowy lawn, prompting road closures in the nearby blocks.
“People are ready for a revolution. People are ready to stop ICE,” Vizguerra said, leading chants of “Free them all,” referring to detained immigrants, and encouraging people to protect one another as they continue protests.
The group marched from the Capitol down the 16th Street pedestrian mall towards Union Station. Protestors told Newsline that they thought Good’s death was “criminal” and it felt the federal government is “covering it up” with its insistence that the shooting was in self defense.
Gov. Jared Polis called for an investigation into the shooting in a statement this week.
“What took place in a Minneapolis neighborhood is deeply disturbing, and the loss of Renee Good is tragic. My thoughts are with Renee’s family, especially her young child, friends, and loved ones including those in Colorado,” he said. “The American people deserve answers about what happened.”
More protests and vigils are planned in Colorado for this weekend, including on Sunday at the ICE office in Centennial. The protests follow previous demonstrations in Colorado and across the county over the past year against the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Protesters have become increasingly aggressive to agents in ICE. They have left the “verbal realm” of marching, carrying signs and speaking and have entered the “physical realm” by physically assaulting agents. The first is allowable under the Constitution while the second is not. Protesters have no business entering the physical realm when expressing their opposition to government actions and risk the safety of the agents and themselves when doing so. Democrat Party leaders have encouraged this with their highly divisive rhetoric. But one may notice that it is not they who are risking their safety, but those spurred on by them. The more aggressive protesters become, the more people are going to get hurt. Policies preventing police assistance with crowd control in sanctuary cities and states only magnify these risks.