NORFOLK — A bushel of candles illuminated her forever frozen smile. Petals fell from the white rose laid on the photo of Renee Nicole Good, like the blanket of snow covering the south Minneapolis neighborhood where a federal immigration officer shot and killed her Wednesday.

Roughly 300 people surrounded that memorial set up outside the Norfolk Federal Building Friday evening to protest Good’s death and the federal government’s mass deportation efforts. The building in downtown Norfolk houses an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. It was the first of a series of ICE protests scheduled for the weekend throughout Hampton Roads.

Protesters held signs reading “abolish ICE,” “Love your neighbor” and “Los inmigrantes hacen grande a América” which translates to “immigrants make America great.” They recited chants telling ICE “all your crimes are televised.”

Refugee & Immigrant Solidarity Coalition, a local youth empowerment group, organized the event. Several speakers at the event were high school students who spoke about their experiences as children of immigrants as well as their fears amid President Trump’s growing immigration crackdown.

In addition to photos of Good, demonstrators also held photos of Jose Castro-Rivera. Castro-Rivera was struck and killed in October 2025 by a passing vehicle while fleeing ICE agents on Interstate 264 in Norfolk.

Several protestors wore Old Dominion University sweatshirts and hoodies. Good graduated from the university in December 2020 with an English degree from the school’s College of Arts and Letters.

Heather Weddington reads a poem written by Renee Nicole Good while gathered outside the Norfolk Federal Building in downtown on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026 to protest against deadly force used by federal immigration officers. Good graduated in December 2020 with an English degree from ODU’s College of Arts and Letters. While a student, she won an award for poetry. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)

Heather Weddington, a senior lecturer in ODU’s English department, said Good sat in the back near the center of her class years ago. Weddington said she remembers the flash of a smile from a student that lit up her entire face, the same smile she later saw on a GoFundMe for Good’s surviving family, including her three children.

“I remember being really impressed with her about how big her life was and how expansive it was already, and how expansive she wanted her life to be, and how willing she was to expand her world and the people that she loved,” Weddington said.

Weddington recalled a time when she taught a poem by poet Franny Choi and surprised the class with meeting Choi next door because she was visiting town. Weddington said Good was giddy for it.

“She really loved words, and she loved truth and beauty, and saying something true and beautiful,” Weddington said.

Weddington then recited a poem Good wrote, for which she won an award as an undergraduate. The poem, titled “On Learning to Dissect Feral Pigs,” ends saying:

life is merely

to ovum and sperm

and where those two meet

and how often and how well

and what dies there.

Other groups are hosting additional demonstrations against ICE across the region this weekend. On Saturday, protesters will gather at Virginia Beach Town Center at 1 p.m., at Norfolk’s Slover library at 4 p.m., and at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Oyster Point Road in Newport News at 1 p.m.

On Sunday, a protest is organized for 2 p.m. outside the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse.

Devlin Epding, 757-510-4037, devlin.epding@virginiamedia.com

https://www.dailypress.com/2026/01/09/norfolk-ice-protest-renee-good/