Minnesota’s youngest state senator, Zaynab Mohamed, is speaking out after a tragedy rocked her city—turning grief into a call for accountability as she heads into her re-election campaign.
After Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, the 28-year-old Democratic senator rushed to the scene and began sharing updates with constituents in real time.
“It has been an incredibly long, painful and a really, really heartbreaking day for our city,” Mohamed said in an Instagram video, before accusing federal agencies of trying to shape the narrative surrounding Good’s death.
“One thing you should know is the fact that Homeland Security and ICE agents are trying to completely spin this story to save themselves,” she said. “We have been saying since the beginning of December that ICE being in our city does not keep us safe… And today, the worst outcome happened… and now they want to take the pressure away from themselves and pretend that they didn’t do anything when they literally murdered a citizen in our community.”
In the days since, Mohamed has continued sharing dispatches from rallies, press conferences and community gatherings, warning against what she described as efforts to vilify Good in the aftermath of her killing.
“This federal government has given us too many reasons to not trust them to do the right thing,” Mohamed told The Washington Post. “Leaders have used every opportunity since this tragedy to lie about the facts, to lie about Renée and to blame her for her own murder.”
For Mohamed, the killing has reopened a familiar wound in a city still shaped by grief and unrest in the years since George Floyd’s murder that have included political killings, shootings and violence at protests.
“For the first time, I feel the weight of the job,” she told the Post, adding, “I have to work on policies that bring trust back to the system and integrity… and I have to fight for community, and be a person young people can look at who is comfortable in her own skin. I have to be strong for them.”
Mohamed, who was born in Somalia and immigrated to Minnesota with her parents and nine siblings 19 years ago, has built a reputation for keeping residents engaged through her social media presence, which now documents growing calls for justice.
As she prepares to run for re-election this fall as the incumbent for the 63rd district, Mohamed is set to face voters on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2026.
“Beneath all the problems coming from Washington, people here just want to help their neighbors,” Mohamed said. “And I’ve just been leaning into that.”
