Mayor slams ‘reckless’ ICE killing of woman
Tim Sullivan And Giovanna Dell’Orto
Updated ,first published
Minneapolis: A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis overnight, in a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s latest crackdown on immigrants in a major American city.
Federal authorities claimed the attack was an act of self-defense and that the woman turned her car into a weapon, but the city’s mayor called the officer’s actions “reckless” and unnecessary and said he had seen video of the shooting that directly contradicted the government’s “garbage rhetoric.”
“They’re already trying to spin this as an act of self-defense,” said outraged Mayor Jacob Frey. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everyone directly: this is bullshit.”
Videos taken by bystanders and shared on social media show a police officer approaching an SUV, stopping in the middle of the road and asking the driver to open the door and hold the handle. The SUV begins moving forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle draws his gun and immediately fires at least two shots at the SUV at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It was not clear from the videos whether the vehicle contacted the officer or not. The SUV then crashed into two parked vehicles on the nearby sidewalk and came to a stop. Eyewitnesses expressed shock at what they saw and shouted obscenities.
WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT
Local Democratic senator Tina Smith said the woman who was shot was a US citizen.
During a visit to Texas, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the incident an ‘act of domestic terrorism’ committed against ICE officers by a woman who “tried to run over them with her vehicle and struck them. One of our officers acted quickly and defensively to protect himself and the people around him.”
But Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara gave no indication that the 37-year-old driver was trying to harm anyone. He said he was not the target of immigration operations and was shot in the head. He said preliminary investigations showed his vehicle was obstructing traffic as a federal officer approached on foot.
“The vehicle started moving,” he said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the road.”
US President Donald Trump said in his social media post that he watched video footage of the incident and criticized the woman who was shot, saying she “acted very erratically, obstructed and resisted” and “then violently, deliberately and brutally” ran over the ICE officer.
“The situation is being fully investigated, but these events are occurring because the Radical Left threatens, attacks, and targets our Law Enforcement and ICE Agents every day,” Trump wrote. “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE.”
A dark-colored SUV with a bullet hole in the windshield and blood splattered on the headrest was seen crashing into a pole on a snowy street following the shooting.
Venus de Mars, who lives near the scene of the crash, said she saw paramedics perform CPR on a woman who had collapsed next to a snowbank near the crashed car. A short time later, they put him in an ambulance that drove away without sirens blaring.
“There has been a lot of ICE activity, but nothing like this,” De Mars said. “I’m so angry. I’m so angry and I feel helpless.”
The clash drew protesters to the streets near the scene; some of them were met by heavily armed federal agents wearing gas masks who fired chemical irritants at the demonstrators.
The incident occurred in a residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just blocks from the area’s oldest immigrant markets and less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.
Addressing the media, Frey criticized Noem’s description of the shooting as part of a crackdown on immigrants in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where more than 2,000 police officers are federally assigned, and told ICE officers to “get the hell out of Minneapolis.”
“They are not here to provide security in this city. What they are doing is not providing security in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and insecurity,” Frey said. “They’re tearing families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, they’re literally killing people.”
However, he also called on citizens to remain calm.
The shooting marks a dramatic escalation in the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major American cities under the Trump administration. The woman is at least the fifth person killed in several states since 2024.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced the launch of the operation Tuesday. More than 2,000 agents and officers were expected to participate in the crackdown, which was linked in part to allegations of fraud by Somali residents regarding child care and other social services.
Following the shooting, protesters at the scene directed their anger at local and federal officials, including Gregory Bovino, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the subject of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.
In a scene reminiscent of crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago, bystanders heckled officers and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during operations.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE get out of Minnesota!” They chanted loudly from behind police tape.
During her visit to Texas, Noem confirmed that DHS had deployed more than 2,000 officers to the Twin Cities and had already made “hundreds upon hundreds” of arrests.
Immigration agents have been involved in other similar shootings during the Trump administration crackdown.
Last year, during “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, during which Trump increased sanctions against immigrants, ICE agents shot and killed 38-year-old Mexican citizen Silverio Villegas Gonzalez. Gonzalez, a cook and father of two with no criminal record, was shot in his car after agents attempted to arrest him.
In a statement from DHS, it was stated that Gonzalez directed his car towards the agents, dragged a police officer and caused him to shoot because he feared for his life. Police body camera footage obtained by Reuters complicated this narrative; The ICE agent said his injuries were “nothing significant.”
Border Patrol agents also shot a woman in Chicago in October. DHS said the attack was in self-defense after the woman, Marimar Martinez, crashed into the agents’ vehicle. But his lawyer said video footage showed agents crashing into his car before opening fire.
In December, ICE agents opened fire on a van carrying two people they targeted for arrest, leaving one of them with gunshot wounds. The men drove the van into ICE officers, prompting them to shoot in self-defense, DHS said in a statement.
For nearly a year, immigrant rights advocates and neighborhood activists in the Twin Cities have been preparing to take action if enforcement against immigrants increases. They have set up very active online networks, from houses of worship to mobile home parks, scanning license plates for possible federal vehicles and purchasing whistles and other noise-making devices to alert neighborhoods to any enforcement presence.
On Tuesday night, the Immigration Advocacy Network, a coalition of immigrant-serving groups in Minnesota, held a training session for about 100 people willing to take to the streets to monitor the federal enforcement operation.
“I feel like I’m a regular person and I have the ability to do things, so I need to do this,” Mary Moran told KMSP-TV.
access point
Get notes directly from our foreign correspondents on events making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What’s on in the World Newsletter.
