ICE officer shoots woman dead in dramatic escalation of Trump crackdown

Minneapolis: A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer has shot and killed a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, in a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown in a major American city.

Federal officials and local leaders clashed over their differing characterisations of the fatal shooting on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), with the Trump administration describing it as an act of self-defence while Minneapolis officials disputed that narrative.

Renee Nicole Good, who city police said was not a target of an immigration operation, was shot in the head in her car in front of a family member during a traffic stop in a snowy residential neighbourhood south of downtown Minneapolis.

Good, a US citizen, had a six-year-old child, her mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune. Soft toys could be seen in photographs from the scene.

In social media accounts, Good said she was a “poet and writer and wife and mom”, originally from Colorado but “experiencing Minnesota”. A profile picture shows her smiling and holding a young child against her cheek.

In a video from the scene of the shooting posted to social media, a distraught woman is seen sitting near the vehicle crying, describing Good as her spouse. “That’s my wife, I don’t know what to do!” wailed the woman, who wasn’t identified.

The deadly incident has fuelled a national debate over Trump’s efforts to send heavily armed federal agents into US cities in his push for mass deportations, with operations ramping up last year from Chicago to Los Angeles. Within hours, the Minneapolis killing – at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns – ignited protests as far away as New York.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem 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.”

In a social media post, US President Donald Trump made similar accusations against the woman and defended ICE’s work.

“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,” Trump wrote. “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE.”

Hours later, Noem didn’t back down, claiming the woman was part of a “mob of agitators” and had followed agents around all day. Good blocked their vehicle and refused orders to move out of the way, Noem said, and then “proceeded to weaponise her vehicle.

“Any loss of life is a tragedy, and I think all of us can agree that in this situation, it was preventable,” Noem said, adding that the FBI would investigate.

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT

But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted the Trump administration’s characterisation as “garbage” and told ICE officers to “get the f--- out of Minneapolis”.

“They’re already trying to spin this as an action of self-defence,” a visibly angry Frey said. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly – that is bullshit.

“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America … They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets and in this case quite literally killing people.”

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. It begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the Honda Pilot immediately fires at least two shots into the car at close range, jumping back as it moves towards him.

It was not clear from the videos if the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop.

“She was driving away and they killed her,” said resident Lynette Reini-Grandell, who was outdoors recording video on her phone.

Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the paper her daughter was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known” and was probably “terrified” at the time of the shooting, just a few blocks from some of the city’s oldest immigrant markets and 1.6 kilometres from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara gave no indication that the woman was trying to harm anyone at the time of the shooting. Preliminary investigations indicated her vehicle was blocking traffic when a federal officer approached on foot, he said.

“The vehicle began to drive off,” he said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”

A dark-coloured SUV with a bullet hole through its windshield and blood splattered across the headrest was seen rammed into a pole on a snowy street after the shooting.

Venus de Mars, who lives near the site of the shooting, described seeing paramedics perform CPR on a woman collapsed next to a snowbank near the crashed car. Shortly afterwards, they loaded her into an ambulance that drove away without its sirens on.

“There’s been lots of ICE activity, but nothing like this,” Mars said. “I’m so angry. I’m so angry, and I feel helpless.”

The area has been on edge since the Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday that it was deploying more than 2000 officers to Minneapolis and St Paul in an operation that is at least partly tied to allegations of welfare fraud involving Somali residents. Noem said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.

The shooting has drawn hundreds of protesters into the streets near the scene, some of whom were met by heavily armed federal agents wearing gas masks who fired chemical irritants at the demonstrators. In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota!” they loudly chanted from behind the police tape.

Frey urged residents to remain calm, as did state Governor Tim Walz, who criticised the immigration crackdown but called on people to protest peacefully.

“Do not take the bait,” he said. “Do not allow them to deploy federal troops into here. Do not allow them to invoke the Insurrection Act. Do not allow them to declare martial law.”

He said the shooting was “totally predictable” and “totally avoidable”.

Immigration agents have been involved in other similar shootings during the Trump administration’s crackdown.

During Operation Midway Blitz, Trump’s immigration enforcement surge in Chicago last year, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Mexican national. Gonzalez, a cook and father of two with no criminal record, was shot in his car after agents attempted to arrest him.

A DHS statement said Gonzalez had steered his car at agents, dragging one officer and causing him to fire out of fear for his life. Police bodycam footage obtained by Reuters complicated that narrative, with the ICE agent saying his injuries were “nothing major”.

Border Patrol agents also shot a woman in Chicago in October. DHS said the shooting was in self-defence after the woman, Marimar Martinez, rammed into the agents’ vehicle. But her lawyer said video footage showed the agents hit her car before opening fire.

In December, ICE agents fired at a van carrying two men they were targeting for arrest, leaving one with bullet wounds. A DHS statement said the men drove the van at ICE officers, prompting them to fire in self-defence.

For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighbourhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilise in the event of an immigration enforcement surge. From houses of worship to caravan parks, they have set up active online networks, scanned licence plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noise-making devices to alert neighbourhoods of any enforcement presence.

On Tuesday night, the Immigration Defence Network, a coalition of groups serving immigrants in Minnesota, held a training session for about 100 people who were willing to hit the streets to monitor the federal enforcement operation.

“I feel like I’m an ordinary person, and I have the ability to something, so I need to do it,” Mary Moran told KMSP-TV.

AP, Reuters

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