Law enforcement officers secure the scene in south Minneapolis.Christian Zander/NurPhoto/AP
A federal immigration agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday in a deadly escalation in the Department of Homeland Security’s increasing occupation in Minnesota. The woman, 37, was in her car at an active ICE operation when an agent fired multiple shots into the vehicle, according to videos of the shooting and statements from local officials.
“They are not here to cause safety in this city,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a press conference following the shooting. “What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” he continued, “and in this case quite literally killing people.”
“To ICE,” he said, “get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.”
Several angles of the shooting quickly circulated on social media. These videos show the ICE agent firing shots into a vehicle on the scene of an immigration enforcement operation. The vehicle then crashes into a parked car seconds later as shouts of “murderer” are heard being directed toward the agent.
Emily Heller, a local resident who witnessed the shooting, told MPR News that she saw a car blocking the street that appeared to be part of a protest against federal law enforcement in the city. Heller said she heard ICE agents telling the driver to “get out of here.”
“She was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in—like, his midriff was on her bumper—and he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face,” Heller said.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooting is being investigated jointly by the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
In a statement, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that a “violent rioter” had “weaponized her vehicle” in an “an act of domestic terrorism.” She continued on to say the ICE agent “fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also called it “an act of domestic terrorism” in a later statement. No ICE agents were killed.
McLaughlin blamed the shooting on “sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement.”
In a press conference on Wednesday, Frey disputed the federal response. “They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense,” he said, “that is bullshit.”
“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying,” Frey added.
Gov. Tim Walz called the federal response “propaganda.”
“I’ve seen the video. Don’t believe this propaganda machine. The state will ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice,” Walz wrote on X.
ICE officers have previously shot multiple people in their cars. Our colleague Noah Lanard reported in October on the dangers of ICE to civilians as DHS continues to point to rising threat against their own officers.
As Noah wrote:
A Mother Jones review shows that there is little evidence that ICE agents face such severe and widespread danger compared with other law enforcement agencies that they need military personnel to come to their aid or to break from centuries of public accountability by hiding behind masks.
The Trump administration has provided almost no information to back up its statements about rising assaults, which makes its claims hard to assess. But details about ICE officers who’ve died on the job are readily available on the agency’s website.
Those records show that none of ICE’s agents have ever been killed by an immigrant in the agency’s more than two-decade history. Instead, the leading cause of death by far among ICE officers is COVID-19. According to ICE’s data, the second leading cause of death is cancer linked to 9/11. (The pandemic and cancers connected to the September 11 terrorist attacks account for 75 percent of the deaths in ICE’s history.)
On Tuesday, the DHS announced that it would deploy 2,000 federal agents and officers to the Minneapolis area, linked in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Walz condemned the decision as “a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.” Throughout the past few weeks, immigration agents in the Twin Cities have used violent tactics in detainments and have been accused of profiling Somalis.
Following reports of the Wednesday shooting, a large crowd of protestors gathered at the scene, near the area of Portland Avenue and 34th Street in the city’s Powderhorn community, according to local reports. Several times in his address, Frey called on the Minneapolis community to respond peacefully, saying that the Trump administration may use this situation to deploy federal troops to the city. “Let’s show up with peace to march, to protest,” he said.
“They want us to respond in a way that creates a military occupation,” he said, “let’s not let them. Let’s rise to this occasion.” He instructed to “not take the bait.”
The area where Wednesday’s ICE shooting took place is around a mile away from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
