Late-night hosts responded after a 37-year-old woman was fatally shot in the head by a masked ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. Thousands of people came together in Minneapolis last night for a candlelight vigil to mourn and protest the killing of Renee Nicole Good, an award-winning poet and mother of three.
Jimmy Kimmel addressed the incident on Jimmy Kimmel Live, noting that ICE exist “under the guise of protecting us.” The host recounted Donald Trump‘s response, which blamed Good for her own murder, claiming that the ICE officer shot her in self defense to prevent being run over.
“Now, I saw this video,” Kimmel said. “It didn’t look anybody got run over to me. It looked to me like a woman got scared, tried to drive away, and they shot her. That’ll be for the court to decide.”
After playing a clip of Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey telling ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” Kimmel noted, “That’s the shirt I want to see.” Someone off camera then tossed him that actual T-shirt. “Get the fuck out of all of these cities,” Kimmel added.
Stephen Colbert didn’t comment on the shooting during his monologue, but did open The Late Show with a special message instead of his traditional cold open. The host spoke from his desk to condemn “another shocking tragedy.”
“Homeland Security secretary [Kristi] Noem claimed the slain woman committed an act of domestic terrorism and says the agent acted in self-defense,” Colbert said. “The mayor of Minneapolis watched the video tape of the killing and said that claim is, and I quote, bullshit.”
He played a clip of Governor Tim Walz‘s thoughtful response, in which Walz asked Americans to stand with the city of Minneapolis. “From here on out, I have a very simple message,” he said. “We do not need any further help from the federal government. To Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, you’ve done enough.”
Good was shot multiple times through the windshield of her car by an ICE agent as seen in filmed by a witness at the scene. “Minneapolis Police Officers responded to the scene. We arrived and found a woman with a gunshot wound to the head,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference Wednesday.
In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that ICE agents were “conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE agents and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them. An ICE agent, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.”
Police Chief O’Hara confirmed that Good, a U.S. citizen, was not the target of any law enforcement investigation or activity. Good’s mother disputed the idea that she would have been involved in actions protesting ICE, saying her daughter was “not part of anything like that at all.”
