A US immigration agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman in the city of Minneapolis, sparking a war of words as local officials rejected the Trump administration’s account that it was self-defence.
The Department of Homeland Security said the woman, Renee Nicole Good, was a “violent rioter” who tried to run over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying”, telling ICE officials in expletive-laced remarks to leave the city.
Hundreds of ICE agents have been deployed to the city as part of the White House’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration.
Videos posted to social media by onlookers appear to show the moment of the shooting, which occurred around 10:25 local time on Wednesday morning.
From various vantage points, a maroon SUV can be seen blocking a residential street in Minneapolis.
A crowd of people, who appear to be protesting, are lining the pavement.
Law enforcement vehicles appear nearby. Immigration agents pull up to the vehicle parked in the street, emerge from the truck and tell the woman behind the wheel to get out of the SUV. One of the agents tugs at the driver’s side door handle.
Another agent is positioned near the front of the vehicle.
It’s not clear exactly how close the agent is standing or whether he was struck by the vehicle based on the videos reviewed immediately by the BBC.
That agent opens fire as the maroon SUV attempts to drive off.
Three pops are heard, and the vehicle can be seen losing control and crashing into a car parked nearby along the street.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said an ICE officer was “viciously” run over. “It is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital,” he wrote.
The Republican president also blamed the “Radical Left” for “threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis”.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said the driver was in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue. She was then approached on foot by a federal law enforcement officer, “and she began to drive off”.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the woman was “stalking and impeding” officers throughout the day and tried to “weaponise her vehicle” in an attempt to run over the officer in an act of “domestic terrorism”.
The federal agent fired “defensive shots” and was himself injured, Noem said, before he was treated and discharged from a local hospital.
The Minneapolis City Council, however, said in a statement that Good was simply “caring for her neighbours” when she was shot and killed.
The same agent was also hit by a car in the line of duty in June, Noem said.
She added that ICE operations in the city would continue, and the FBI would investigate Wednesday’s incident.
Getty ImagesEmily Heller told CNN she was at home when she saw the ICE agents arguing with protesters outside. She said she heard agents shouting at a woman driving an SUV, then one agent tried to open her car door, and the driver went into reverse and began pulling away.
“An ICE agent stepped in front of her vehicle and said, ‘Stop!’ and then – I mean, she was already moving – and then, point blank, shot her through her windshield in the face,” Heller told the US network.
Minnesota State Governor Tim Walz also pushed back on federal accounts of the incident.
“Don’t believe this propaganda machine,” Walz wrote in response to a Department of Homeland Security post about the shooting.
“The state will ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.”
Top Democrats, including former Vice-President Kamala Harris and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, also released statements. Harris called the Trump administration’s version of events “gaslighting”.
Protests and marches took place in several parts of the city as some outraged Minneapolis residents condemned the shooting and called for ICE to leave.
The main gathering was near the scene of the shooting, which is about one mile from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a city police officer, sparking worldwide anti-racism protests.
Protests were being organised in other US cities, including New Orleans, Miami, Seattle and New York City.
Minneapolis Public Schools announced that classes were cancelled for the rest of the week, “due to safety concern”. It comes after federal agents reportedly made arrests outside a high school on Wednesday.
REUTERS/Tim EvansWhy is ICE in Minneapolis?
The Trump administration deployed an additional 2,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis area in recent weeks in response to allegations of welfare fraud in the state.
The mayor said in the Wednesday press conference that ICE was not making the city safer. “They’re ripping families apart, they’re sowing chaos in our streets,” he said.
The deployment, which began on Sunday, is one of the largest concentrations of Department of Homeland Security personnel in a US city in recent years.
It follows an immigration enforcement campaign launched by ICE late last year to target individuals in Minneapolis who were issued deportation orders, including members of the city’s Somali community.
That community has been criticised frequently by Trump, who has called them “garbage”.
“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you,” the president has said. “Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks.”
Trump later doubled-down on his remarks after a YouTube video by a conservative online content creator accused daycare centres run by Somali immigrants of mass fraud.
In response, Trump has withheld federal childcare funds from the state of Minnesota.
The Trump administration has sent ICE agents to other cities across the US, where they have made thousands of arrests as part of what the administration says is a crackdown on crime and immigrants who illegally entered the country.
