Former Montgomery County Board of Education Member Jill Ortman-Fouse entered 2026 optimistically, hoping the political climate in America would improve.
But then she woke up Wednesday to the news that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minnesota mother of three.
“I was deeply sad,” she said. “That could have been so many people that I know. My family said that could have been me,” said Ortman-Fouse, a Silver Spring resident. For her, “This was the last straw.”
By Thursday she posted a call for people to gather on Colesville Road along the Beltway overpass. It was one of the first times she realized “standing up can literally get you shot and killed by a federal agent. I think that really shook a lot of people.”
About 40 others joined her Thursday afternoon, which she described as “a lot,” considering she had only announced the protest a few hours earlier and it was during a workday.
“It’s shaken people. Maybe that needs to happen,” Ortman-Fouse said. “I am just one of thousands of people who are trying to do what they can,” she said.
“I think we were kind of sleeping on democracy,” she said. Now is the time to ramp up the pressure,” she said. “The more we speak out, the louder we are. The more we speak up, the more the Republican Congress will know they have to be responsive,” she said.
An advocacy group called Indivisible is organizing ICE protests this weekend throughout the country, with at least five protests planned for Montgomery County.
Photos Courtesy of Jill Ortman-Fouse
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