Wichita area faith leaders gather flock to mourn Minnesota ICE shooting victim
Faith leaders and community members gathered outside the Department of Homeland Security building in Wichita Sunday night for an ecumenical public worship service protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions and mourning the death of Renee Nicole Good.
The event, hosted by the Woodland and College Hill United Methodist churches, was organized after Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent on Wednesday after a confrontation on a residential street in Minneapolis.
The shooting of the 37-year-old mother of three, a former resident of Kansas City, is dividing the country.
Opponents of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions call it a government-sanctioned murder by an out-of-control federal agency. Government officials say ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good in self-defense after she interfered with deportation operations and threatened him with her car.
Attendees at Sunday’s “service of protest and lament” said the shooting reflects a broader pattern of unchecked enforcement and harm.
“Our own government has disappeared people without due process and now has brutally murdered an American citizen, Renee Nicole Good,” said the Rev. Valecia Scribner, pastor of Woodland United Methodist Church in Riverside.
During Sunday’s service, attendees formed a semicircle on the sidewalk, shared a guided deep-breathing exercise, sang “Kumbaya, My Lord” and passed candle flames from person to person.
The event blended worship with protest, organizers said, offering space for grief while calling for accountability from federal authorities.
Speakers and other worship leaders urged those who gathered to remain engaged beyond the service and stand with immigrant communities in Wichita and beyond.
Scribner closed her remarks by warning against the normalization of unchecked power and reminding attendees that resistance, even when rooted in lament, can still carry hope.
“ICE has come to represent what a tyrant does,” she said. “ICE represents power without any checks. ICE is scary, and hard and cold, but friends, ICE is not indestructible.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2026 at 4:50 AM.
