(AFP) – Protesters clashed with law enforcement officers in Minneapolis on Thursday after the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent triggered outrage fueled by the Trump administration’s insistence she was guilty of “domestic terrorism.” Federal officers armed with pepperball guns and teargas jostled with a large crowd of protesters beside a government facility in Fort Snelling just outside Minneapolis, an AFP photographer saw. The noisy crowd chanted slogans attacking the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency as officers pushed against protesters, detaining several including one who struck an agent with a cardboard sign.
The victim of Wednesday’s shooting, identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, was hit at point-blank range as she apparently tried to drive away from agents who were crowding around her car, which they said was blocking their way. Footage of the incident shows a masked ICE agent attempting to open the woman’s car door before another masked agent fired three times into the Honda SUV. The vehicle then hurtled out of control and smashed into stationary vehicles, as horrified onlookers hurled abuse at the federal officers. Her bloodied body is then seen slumped in the crashed vehicle.
President Donald Trump and senior officials quickly claimed Good was trying to kill the agents, an assertion Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called “bullshit.” “I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either,” Trump said in an interview with The New York Times. He earlier said that the shooting was self-defense. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Kristi Noem called the incident “domestic terrorism.” Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara told CNN that Good was not the target of immigration enforcement action and that she was only suspected of blocking traffic. Vice President JD Vance described the victim on social media as “a deranged leftist.”
Protests grew after Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz called it a “patriotic duty” to demonstrate for justice. “But it needs to be done safely,” Walz said. ICE federal agents have been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s immigrant deportation drive, despite the objections of some state officials. DHS launched a recruitment campaign last summer to add 10,000 additional ICE agents to the existing 6,000-strong contingent. That sparked criticism that new officers in the field were insufficiently trained.
Wednesday’s incident came during protest action against immigration enforcement in the southern part of Minneapolis. Witness Brandon Hewitt said he heard three shots. “I got a bunch of video of them carrying the body to the ambulance,” he told MS NOW. Another witness interviewed by local station FOX9 described a grisly scene, saying “the surviving passenger got out of the car covered in blood.” He recounted seeing a man who identified himself as a doctor attempting to reach Good but being refused access by officers.
There have been widespread protests against immigration operations of the Trump administration, which has vowed to arrest and deport what it says are “millions” of undocumented migrants. The victim’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter “was probably terrified.” Good was “not part of anything like” challenging ICE officers, Ganger added. Good was a mother and a poet who studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, US media reported. US authorities said up to 2,000 officers were in Minneapolis for immigration sweeps. An officer shot dead an undocumented immigrant in Chicago in September after authorities alleged the man tried to resist detention by driving his car into the official.
burs-gw/bgs – Octavio Jones
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