Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal law enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo / Getty Images
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer has fatally shot a 37-year-old woman during an operation in Minneapolis, federal authorities said, a killing that drew outrage from local officials already frustrated by the Trump administration’s massive enforcement effort in the city.
The Department of Homeland Security said the shooting took place after the woman threatened officers with her vehicle after she had blocked a public street. But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey denounced the surge of federal officers at a news conference and accused federal authorities of attempting “to spin this as an action of self-defence” by the ICE officer.
“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed,” Frey said. “There’s little I can say that will make this situation better, but I do have a message for our community and our city and for ICE. To ICE: Get the f*** out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at least two shots had been fired and the victim suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the hospital. An investigation is being conducted by the FBI and Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, he said.
O’Hara said there was no evidence that the woman, who he said was white, was the target of any law enforcement investigation or action. Authorities did not identify the woman by name or confirm whether she was a US citizen.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “rioters” obstructed ICE officers and one driver attempted to “run over” law enforcement officers, which she called an “act of domestic terrorism”.
McLaughlin said an ICE officer “fearing for his life … fired defensive shots” that killed the woman.
Asked by The Washington Post whether ICE would heed Frey’s call to leave the city, McLaughlin responded by email: “No.”
At Wednesday’s news conference, O’Hara said the woman was in her vehicle, which was blocking the road on Portland Ave between East 33rd and 34th streets, when “a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off”.
The driver, named by local media as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, attempted to drive off as officers approached and tried to open her door, with one agent firing three times with a handgun as the vehicle pulled away.
“The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway”, he said.
Videos that surfaced immediately after the shooting show the woman’s vehicle, a burgundy Honda Pilot SUV, stopped in the middle of the road across travel lanes with the driver-side window rolled down. They do not show the events leading up to that moment.
Two ICE agents pulled up, exited their vehicle and approached the SUV. The vehicle began to reverse, and one of the agents reached out and held on to the door handle. As the SUV moved out of reverse and drove forward, a third ICE agent, positioned closer to the front of the car, quickly drew his weapon and fired three times.
That third agent appears, in the videos, to have been in front of the vehicle when it began advancing and to have been beside it by the time of the last shots.
In a social media post, President Donald Trump said he had viewed video clips of the shooting and called it “a horrible thing to watch”. Trump accused the woman who was shot while driving the SUV of being “very disorderly, obstructing and resisting”.
Trump wrote: “The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.”
He called on the country to stand by law enforcement officers.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said at a news conference that he had tried to contact Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem but had not heard back. Walz said he issued a warning order to the state’s National Guard troops to be prepared to help maintain public safety if necessary.
“We do not need any further help from the federal government,” Walz said, accusing the Trump administration of “governing by reality TV”.
“Today, that recklessness cost somebody their life.”
Television news footage of the scene showed police vehicles responding and police tape cordoning off some areas, with journalists and other bystanders being kept away from the immediate location of the shooting.
The shooting occurred amid a reported surge in ICE activity that has seen hundreds of additional agents deployed to the city following weeks of heightened immigration enforcement and hundreds of arrests.
Democrats denounced the shooting, with several members of Congress calling it a murder.
“My heart breaks for the victim’s family, who will have to forever live with the pain caused by the Trump Administration’s reckless and deadly actions,” Representative Ilhan Omar said in a statement. Omar said the woman was a “legal observer” who was monitoring the scene of the ICE operations.
Some Republicans defended ICE, citing a reported rise, according to DHS, in assaults against federal immigration officers.
“Radical Leftist RIOTERS are attacking our law enforcement officers who are just trying to keep our country safe,” Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) wrote on X. “To all our ICE agents in Minnesota and across the country: if you are violently attacked, SHOOT BACK.”
Noem, who was visiting Brownsville, Texas, for a border security event on Wednesday, told reporters there that the ICE officers were attempting to push their vehicle that had become “stuck in the snow” when the woman “attacked them and those surrounding them” with her vehicle.
“An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him, and my understanding is she was hit and is deceased,” Noem said.
In December, Trump ordered immigration officials to expand their presence in Minneapolis, focusing on the state’s large Somali immigrant population, whom he called “garbage”.
Officials have surged immigration officers into Democratic-led cities and towns and increasingly used force to arrest them and deter protests, smashing windows, deploying tear gas and tackling immigrants and demonstrators.
Some have been shot: In September, an ICE officer killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, an undocumented immigrant, in the Chicago area after alleging that he drove his vehicle toward law enforcement officials.
In November, a federal judge in Chicago said that immigration officers and US Border Patrol officers were using excessive force against protesters, saying the “use of force shocks the conscience”.
US District Judge Sara L. Ellis in the Northern District of Illinois pointed to multiple examples of immigration officers excessively deploying tear gas, pepper spray and other crowd control devices. She also said Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol commander, had “admitted that he lied” about getting struck by a rock in the head before using tear gas against civilians.
As news of the shooting spread in Minneapolis, protesters gathered at the scene, yelling at immigration agents and throwing snowballs, according to live-stream footage. The footage showed ICE agents responding with tear gas. Bovino was also at the scene, according to news reports.
After law enforcement from the Minneapolis Police Department and Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office appeared on the scene, city council member Jamal Osman told a live streamer that ICE was being asked to leave.
“The chief is trying to do everything he can to get ICE off the street,” he said.
Republicans in recent months have focused on cases of social services fraud in Minnesota involving hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen public funds. Some but not all of the people prosecuted for fraud are Somali, but Republicans have focused on that group’s involvement.
Walz, whose office did not immediately respond to request for comment, said Monday that he would no longer seek a third term as Governor amid the controversy. In a social media post on Wednesday, Walz said his team is “working to gather information” and asked “folks to remain calm”.
Frey had previously expressed concern that ICE’s presence in Minneapolis could spill over into violence, and damage already frayed relations between citizens and law enforcement.
“I am gravely concerned that if we continue on this present trajectory somebody is going to get killed,” he said at a December 23 news conference.
Kim Bellware and Emily Davies contributed to this report.
- Additional reporting by AFP
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