Patriot Brief
Renee Good’s father-in-law explicitly refused to blame ICE for her death, calling it a tragic situation.
He emphasized personal responsibility and spiritual guidance rather than assigning political blame.
His stance cuts against the polarized narratives surrounding the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis.
I’ll admit it straight away: when someone steps up and refuses to join the chorus of politicizing a death, it deserves acknowledgment — even if you and I disagree on a lot of other things.
That’s why what Timmy Macklin, the father-in-law of Renee Good, said in his interview with CNN stands out. In a moment that could have easily been hijacked by outrage or chest-beating partisanship, he chose something far rarer in 2026’s climate: nuance and restraint.
Good’s death in a Minneapolis confrontation with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent has erupted into a national flashpoint. Protests, political grandstanding, and headlines casting blame in every direction have dominated the discourse. But Macklin refused to follow that script. “I don’t blame ICE. I don’t blame [Good’s wife] Rebecca. I don’t blame Renee,” he told Erin Burnett. He called it “a hard situation all around” and spoke about “bad choices” and the need to “walk in the spirit of God.” That’s not a dodge. It’s a corrective.
What Macklin implicitly recognized — even as many others refuse to admit it — is that tragedy doesn’t automatically translate into villainy. Good’s death was heartbreaking, and every life lost in a law enforcement encounter is painful. But turning that pain into a simple story of “good vs. evil” does no one any favors.
In an environment where every high-stakes incident is immediately weaponized for political advantage, Macklin’s stance is a breath of fresh air. He didn’t come on television to assign blame or to score points. He came to acknowledge complexity — that people make choices, that situations unfold in fractions of a second, and that grief does not automatically equal outrage.
This isn’t to minimize the deeper questions raised by the Minneapolis incident. There are legitimate debates about immigration enforcement, community safety, transparency, and accountability. But boiling a human life down to a hashtag or a talking point demeans the person at the center of the story and cheapens the debate. In a culture addicted to instant verdicts, restraint becomes radical.
Macklin’s words remind us that compassion doesn’t require distortion, and grief doesn’t require a villain. Sometimes the honest response to tragedy is not to shout the loudest, but to acknowledge the human dimension in all its pain and contradiction.
That matters. And in a moment full of noise and fury, it’s worth paying attention to.
From Breitbart:
Timmy Macklin, father-in-law of Renee Good, said he doesn’t blame Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for her death.
Macklin called the shooting of his former daughter-in-law a “hard situation all around” and said that “some bad choices” were made, during an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
“I don’t blame ICE. I don’t blame [Good’s wife] Rebecca. I don’t blame Renee,” he told Erin Burnett. “I just wish that, you know, if we’re walking in the spirit of God, I don’t think she would have been there. That’s the way I look at it.”
Macklin’s son had previously been married to Good before he died in 2023. The two share a now six-year-old son. Macklin described his former daughter-in-law as “an amazing person” and “good mother.”
“I just think we make bad choices, and that’s the problem, there is so much chaos in the whole world today,” he said. “We need to turn to God and walk in the spirit of God and let him lead us and guide us.”
In response to CNN host Erin Burnett’s pressing questions, Macklin said that he “was not blaming anybody” for Good’s death, adding that he could not say how he would react if he found himself in the ICE agent’s shoes when her vehicle struck him as Good peeled out.
“You know, in a flash like that, it’s hard to say how you’d react,” he said.
Macklin also understood that the ICE agent had been previously dragged during another arrest.
On Wednesday, multiple U.S. officials told ABC News that the agent hit by Renee Good’s car had suffered internal bleeding.
“The injuries were to his torso, according to officials, who didn’t provide more details about the medical condition,” added the outlet.
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