For a second straight night, several hundred people who recoiled at the killing of a Minneapolis woman by an immigration officer converged Thursday at the Park Street MBTA station on Boston Common to express their sorrow, outrage, and anxiety over the shooting.
“I am beyond explanation with my emotions,” Lalanya Brun, a 52-year-old US Army veteran, born and raised in Boston, and a member of Refuse Fascism, said in an interview.
“I want the Trump regime gone now,” Brun said. “I want ICE abolished tonight. I want pushback from the court system.”
Watching the video that captured the slaying of Renee Nicole Good, the 35-year-old who lost her life Wednesday while behind the wheel of her SUV, was a “very visceral” experience for Christian Ramirez, of Somerville.
“Seeing the glove compartment filled with toys, it’s really disturbing,” he said. “Seeing her wife crying on the side of the road.”
Ramirez, 28, a software engineer, said he hopes the protests result in “justice and accountability” served to the federal agent who fatally shot Good.
Brun and Ramirez were among the hundreds, possibly more than 1,000, who crowded the outer portion of the T station’s entrance to honor Good’s memory.
David Estrada, a Boston police spokesperson, said the department does not estimate crowd size. There were no arrests or incidents related to the protest, he said late Thursday night.
Some protesters brought drums and tambourines, someone played a trumpet.
In unison they chanted: “One struggle, one fight. All unite for immigrant rights.”
They followed the lead of an organizer with a megaphone, “Say it once. Say it twice, we won’t put up with ICE.”
Similar vigils and protests took shape around the state Thursday evening. In Waltham, activist groups planned to rally on the city’s Common. And at Holyoke City Hall, the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts called for a gathering from 6 to 7 pm.
In Everett, in a square outside the public library, about 30 demonstrators gathered for a “peaceful vigil for justice.”
With the square’s trees still draped in red and green holiday lights, Lucy Pineda, president of Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts, handed out candles and sheets of paper with the words to chants printed in English and Spanish.
Using a megaphone, Pineda urged pedestrians and passersby in the rush hour traffic to join the gathering.
“Today, we host this vigil because enough is enough,” Pineda said. “We cannot accept more people dying.”
Mayor Robert Van Campen, sworn into office for his first term on Monday, condemned the tragic killing, saying he would “collaborate with all communities” in Everett to prevent anything similar from happening in his city.
“I want to be clear,“ Van Campen said, ”this should never happen anywhere.”
Back in Boston, where The Party for Socialism & Liberalism organized the vigil with a coalition of five other groups, passing motorists on Tremont Street honked their horns to show support.
Another Army veteran, 31-year-old Isaac Weaver, also was compelled to publicly mourn the Minneapolis mother. So much so, that he turned out two nights in a row, Wednesday and Thursday.
On Wednesday, Weaver wore his military uniform to join an impromptu, high-energy turnout of about 100 people at the Park Street station.
On Thursday, he returned, dressed as a civilian. Over his head, he waved a sign that said, “Who are the domestic terrorists? ICE is.”
“As a veteran, we took an oath to defend from enemies, foreign and domestic,” said Weaver, a crime writer who lives in Boston.
“We didn’t join to serve a government,” he said. “We joined to serve the people.”
Ximena Hasbach, a 28-year-old organizer for The Party for Socialism & Liberalism and a higher education worker originally from Mexico, said she was encouraged by the turnout.
“Everyone is outraged,” Hasbach said. “We demand no war at home, no war abroad, an end to ICE terror, justice for Renee, as well as hands off Venezuela.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_. Chloe Pisani can be reached at chloe.pisani@globe.com. Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.