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Hundreds of Coloradans stood in reverent silence outside Colorado Springs City Hall on Sunday as the voice of Renee Good rang out across the crowd. “I have the sense to recognize that I don’t know how to let you go,” she crooned. The audio was from Good’s senior solo at Coronado High School, just four miles away.
Former classmates and her high school choir accompanist, Ruth Schubarth, had scrambled to find the 2006 audio clip featuring a teenage Good singing Sarah McLachlan’s “Do What You Have To Do.” Good’s friend, Lindsay Scurto, picked up where the recording ended, finishing the song with the help of Schubarth on piano.
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot dead in her vehicle by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 7. Her death has sparked national outcry and deep polarization as people debate what transpired. Federal officials are defending the officer who fired the lethal shot, saying it was self-defense. Others, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, say the shooting was a reckless use of power.
But before Good became a household name from a horrific news headline, she was just a girl from Colorado Springs with an infectious laugh. “I don’t even know how to fully describe it, but her laugh was memorable,” said 38-year-old Amanda Carmen Aquino at Sunday’s city hall gathering. “Is ‘chuckerous’ a word? It was unique. It wasn’t like one of those laugh tracks. It was her sparkle, light, and love in sound form.”
Aquino first met Good at Holmes Middle School and later sang in the choir with her at Coronado High School. Schubarth, the choir’s pianist, says Good’s heart for outcasts was on display even back then. “She would stick up for kids that maybe were being bullied by the teacher or just being picked on,” Schubarth said. “She would stand up for rights for students and just make sure that the people who were on the margins were not getting left out, left behind, or stomped on in any way.”
Good extended that kindness to Schubarth’s own son in eighth grade, when he transitioned from homeschool to public school for the first time. “Renee was one of the first people who introduced herself to him and just really kind of built a bridge for him to adapt into public school.”
Good also met her first husband in high school choir, Schubarth said. The couple fell in love and married just weeks after graduation; the pianist played at their wedding. Although Schubarth can’t recall the name of the venue, she remembers playing a baby grand as Good glided down a wooden staircase in her bridal gown. Schubarth, also friends with Good’s new in-laws, even attended the baby shower for her first child. Good had two children with her first husband before the marriage ended.
Aquino, who kept up with Good after high school through social media, remembers sending her a care package after the unexpected death of her friend’s second husband, comedian Timothy Macklin, with whom Good shared a third child who’s now six years old. “I wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone,” she told 5280.
After Macklin’s death, Good found love again and remarried, taking the last name of her new spouse, Becca Good. The couple had been observing ICE activity together in Minneapolis when the fatal shooting occurred. In a statement released last week to MPR News, Becca described her wife as radiant. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores,” she said. “All the time.”
Good, she added, “was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: We are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.”
Childhood friends and classmates took to social media in the wake of Good’s death to reminisce about her outgoing personality, musical talent, and warmth. Fellow former Coronado choir member Paul Goggin remembered Good as a “kind, gentle and beautiful soul, inside and out, with a lovely alto voice to match,” he wrote on Facebook. One of Good’s former colleagues at Colorado Springs’ Graner School of Music—where Good worked in the mid-2000s—called her “the most cool and funny lady” in a Reddit thread. Good’s high school peers seemed to concur, giving her the honorific of “Best Personality.”
But Sunday’s city hall gathering was more than just a celebration of Good’s life; it was also a protest. Attendees held signs reading “Stop ICE for Good” and “Justice for Renee Good & All Harmed By ICE.” The crowd chanted “Observing ICE is not a crime,” and speakers urged protestors to get politically involved.
Aquino, her face streaked with tears, stood on the City Hall steps and told 5280 why she’d decided to speak out publicly for her friend. “It’s not an option to stay home and do nothing,” she said. “It is not an option. And second, I have two kids, and I want to be able to tell them in later conversations that I took action—that I didn’t just stay silent.”
