A 37-year-old woman was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minnesota, sparking sharply conflicting accounts of the incident from local, state and federal officials.
The fatal shooting occurred on a street in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, where numerous immigration officers were present, following a recent influx of federal agents to the city, according to the City of Minneapolis.
Video footage of the incident shows an ICE officer confronting a driver before firing several shots at the vehicle as it peeled off.
Officials from the Trump administration described the shooting as an act of self-defense and alleged that the victim had engaged in “domestic terrorism.” In contrast, the Minneapolis mayor condemned the agent’s actions as reckless and called on federal immigration authorities to withdraw from the city.
Here is what we know so far.
Who was the person killed?
The identity of the deceased woman has not been made public.
Minneapolis City Council member Jason Chavez told ABC News that she was an American citizen. He said she was acting as “an observer” who was “watching out for our immigrant neighbors.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a press conference that the woman was white and middle-aged. It was later revealed that she was 37 years old. The police chief added that there was no indication she was the subject of an immigration enforcement investigation.
He noted that she appeared to be in her car blocking the street.
What happened?
The fatal shooting took place at 34th Street and Portland Avenue, an intersection in a residential neighborhood, according to the City of Minneapolis.
A video of the incident shared with local media shows masked officers approaching a red car stopped in the middle of the icy road.
An officer can be heard instructing the driver to “get out of the f***ing car” before the driver backs up and starts to drive away. An officer who had just stood in front of the vehicle then fired a series of shots before the car crashed into another vehicle a few dozen feet away.
As people scream and shout at the immigration officials, several people are seen walking towards the car.
Photos shared on social media appear to show an airbag covered in blood inside the crashed vehicle.
Several police officers responded to the scene and helped transport the woman to a hospital, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a press conference. But she was pronounced dead.
A witness told NBC News that it didn’t appear like the driver was attempting run over an agent.
“There was plenty of space between the officers at that point for the vehicle to make it through,” he told the outlet, adding that it appeared like the driver was attempting to flee.
Reactions from officials
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, described the shooting as defensive in nature.
“Today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism,” she said in a statement.
“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots,” McLaughlin added. “He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers.”
She characterized the shooting as a consequence of the “demonization of our officers.”
In a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Frey offered a strikingly different account of what happened.
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense,” Frey, a Democrat, told reporters. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bulls***. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying.”
“We’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of ICE’s presence in Minneapolis,” Frey added. “They are not here to cause safety in this city… what they are doing is causing chaos and distrust.”
In a press conference later in the afternoon, Governor Tim Walz echoed this sentiment, expressing outrage at the White House.
“We’ve been warning for weeks that the Trump administrations’ dangerous sensationalized operations are a threat to our safety that someone was going to get hurt,” Walz, a Democrat, said. “We do not need any further help from the federal government .”
He then asked that protestors demonstrate refrain from violence, stating: “They want a show. We can’t give it to them.”
A number of other elected officials quickly reacted to the deadly incident, with many Democrats condemning ICE.
“I’m following news of a reported shooting of a legal observer by ICE agents in South Minneapolis,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar wrote in a post on X. “ICE must stop terrorizing our communities and leave our city.”
“This is not the first time Trump’s ICE has shot at civilians,” Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal wrote in a post. “We need ICE out of our cities and communities.”
Minnesota Senator Tina Smith confirmed that the deceased woman was an American citizen and urged ICE to leave “for everyone’s safety.”
Meanwhile, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described the incident as “domestic terrorism.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed this view, telling Fox News, “It was an act of domestic terrorism. I.C.E. Officers got stuck in the snow. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them, and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over.”
At around 3:30 p.m., the president also weighed in. In a post on Truth Social, he claimed that the deceased woman “was, obviously, a professional agitator” and accused the “Radical Left” of mounting an assault on law enforcement professionals.
Large crowd assembled at shooting site
Following the ICE shooting on Wednesday, a large crowd of people assembled on the street where it occurred, video footage showed.
People bundled in winter coats stood in the street, on the sidewalk and in the snow near an area cordoned off with caution tape. At one point, they broke into chants directed at law enforcement officials.
Footage from Fox News also shows onlookers tossing snow balls at a group of law enforcement personnel and flashing middle fingers at them.
“People are very very angry,” a CNN reporter at the scene said.
The fatal shooting took place just a few blocks away from where George Floyd was killed in May 2020, which triggered large-scale protests nationwide.
Influx of federal agents
The fatal shooting comes shortly after the Trump administration announced it was deploying additional ICE agents to the Minneapolis area.
“While for the safety of our officers we do not get into law enforcement footprint, DHS has surged law enforcement and has already made more than 1,000 arrests of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members,” DHS told The Independent in an email on Tuesday.
The surge, which began this weekend, is expected to involve as many as 2,000 agents from multiple agencies, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
The influx of federal agents comes amid an ongoing federal investigation into fraud within Minnesota’s social services programs, which culminated in Governor Tim Walz announcing he would not seek reelection on Monday.
A large share of Minnesota residents are of Somali descent, many of whom have remained indoors for fear of being detained by ICE, according to NBC News.
Trump has repeatedly singled out Somalis for ridicule and has accused “Illegal Somalian Criminals” of stealing billions of dollars from Minnesota.Last month, he described immigrants from the East African nation as “garbage” and called for Rep. Omar, who is from Somalia, to be “thrown the hell out” of the U.S.
