An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a Minneapolis driver on Wednesday during the Trump administration’s latest crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.
The 37-year-old woman was shot in front of a family member during a traffic stop in a snowy residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020. Her killing quickly drew a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while visiting Texas, described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”
Emergency medical technicians carry a person on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
(Ellen Schmidt / Associated Press)
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted that characterization as “garbage” and criticized the federal deployment of more than 2,000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.
“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit,” the mayor said.
Frey said he had a message for ICE: “Get the f— out of Minneapolis.”
Police tape surrounds a vehicle believed to be involved in a shooting by an ICE agent on Wednesday.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
A shooting caught on video
Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It was not clear from the videos whether the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop. Witnesses screamed obscenities, expressing shock at what they’d seen.
After the shooting, emergency medical technicians tried to administer aid to the woman.
“She was driving away and they killed her,” said resident Lynette Reini-Grandell, who was outdoors recording video on her phone.
The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the Minneapolis driver, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced Tuesday that it had launched the operation, which is at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Noem confirmed Wednesday that DHS had deployed more than 2,000 officers to the area and said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.
Protesters react after being hit with chemical spray at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis.
(Alex Kormann / Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)
A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there, including Gregory Bovino, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.
In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota,” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.
Shootings involving drivers during immigration actions have been an issue since the raids began in Southern California.
In August, masked U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in San Bernardino opened fire on a truck they had stopped on a street. A video showed an agent demanding the driver roll down his window. When he refused, an agent shattered the window, the truck drove off and gunfire rang out.
When the driver got home, the family reported the incident to police. Federal authorities alleged an agent had been injured when the driver tried to “run them down.” But witnesses and video disputed some aspects of the official account.
In October, a well-known TikTok figure was shot by an agent during a standoff in Los Angeles. The U.S. attorney said the man rammed his vehicle into the law enforcement vehicles in front of and behind him, “spun the tires, spewing smoke and debris into the air, causing the car to fishtail and causing agents to worry for their safety.” But videos showed a much more complicated view of the situation. A federal judge recently dismissed the case against the driver, finding that he had been denied access to counsel while in immigration detention.
Governor calls for calm
In Minnesota on Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz said he was prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He said a family member of the driver was there to witness the killing, which he described as “predictable” and “avoidable.” He also said that, like many, he was outraged by the shooting but called on people to keep protests peaceful.
“They want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot,” the governor said during a news conference. “If you protest and express your 1st Amendment rights, please do so peacefully, as you always do. We can’t give them what they want.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone. He said she had been shot in the head.
“This woman was in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue. … At some point a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off,” the chief said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”
There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot the driver. Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.
“Keep in mind that this is an investigation that is also in its infancy. So any speculation about what has happened would be just that,” Jacobson told reporters.
The shooting happened in the district of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called it “state violence,” not law enforcement.
For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighborhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilize in the event of an immigration enforcement surge. From houses of worship to mobile home parks, they have set up active online networks, scanned license plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noise-making devices to alert neighborhoods of any enforcement presence.
Sullivan and Dell’Orto write for the Associated Press. Dell’Orto reported from St. Paul, Minn. AP writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, and Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas and Times staff contributed to this report.