A woman was shot and killed Wednesday by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, inflaming an already fierce debate over President Trump\u2019s deportation agenda.
\nDueling, partisan narratives quickly emerged, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calling the driver a domestic terrorist and arguing the entire episode was a terrorist attack.
\nThat prompted a furious response from Minnesota leaders, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), who said the accusation was \u201cbulls\u2011\u2011\u2011\u201d and that the driver\u2019s death was the result of \u201can agent recklessly using power.\u201d
\nFrey also told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to \u201cget the f\u2011\u2011\u2011 out of our city.\u201d\u00a0
\nPresident Trump later Wednesday afternoon blamed the incident on \u201cthe radical left,\u201d arguing the officer had acted in self-defense and describing the shooting victim as a \u201cprofessional agitator\u201d who \u201cviciously ran over\u201d an ICE officer.<\/p>\n
Democrats in Minnesota and in Congress saw a very different incident, saying the shooting victim \u2014 identified by The Minnesota Star Tribune as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good \u2014 posed no threat to the agents and was killed in cold blood.\u00a0
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no evidence that has been presented to justify the shooting of an unarmed woman in Minneapolis,\u201d House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told NewsNation. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to make sure that the rogue ICE agent who pulled the trigger resulting in the death of an American citizen is criminally investigated to the full extent of the law.\u201d
\n\u201cInstead of protecting our communities, they are unleashing violence \u2014 terrorizing neighborhoods and now killing a civilian,\u201d said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who represents much of Minneapolis. \u201cThis is not law enforcement. It is state violence.\u201d\u00a0
\nThe partisan nature of the fight, which seems likely to extend for some time, was unmistakable.
\nThe violence took place against the backdrop of Trump\u2019s law enforcement surge on Democratic-run cities and states.
\nTrump has recently been focused on Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrats\u2019 vice presidential nominee in the 2024 presidential election, has frequently sparred with the president on a host of issues, including a fraud controversy in the state involving many residents of Somali descent.<\/p>\n
Walz characterized the federal agents in Minneapolis as a \u201cmodern-day Gestapo.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen the video,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cDon\u2019t believe this propaganda machine.\u201d
\nVideo footage\u00a0shows the driver\u2019s car, in the middle of a street, surrounded by three officers.
\nOne of them tells the woman to \u201cget out of the f\u2011\u2011\u2011ing car,\u201d while one masked agent repeatedly pulls on the driver\u2019s door handle.
\nThe officer who eventually fires the shots approaches the car from the front and begins to\u00a0draw his weapon as the car turns its wheels\u00a0\u2014 beginning to drive away from the officers.
\nThree shots ring out, beginning as the officer is in front of the car and\u00a0continuing as it passes to his side. With the driver incapacitated, the car then careens to the side of the road, crashing into a parked car.
\nDHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a post on X that \u201cone of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them \u2014 an act of domestic terrorism.\u201d
\nHouse Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) also echoed Trump in blaming \u201cthe mindset of the left.\u201d
\n\u201cThis whole mindset on the left is the biggest problem ,\u201d he told The Hill. \u201cWhere the sanctuary jurisdictions interfere with federal law enforcement doing their job, dox them, harass them, interfere.\u201d
\nThe DHS\u2019s\u00a0use of force guidelines\u00a0say officers are \u201cprohibited from discharging firearms at the operator of a moving vehicle\u201d and are not even supposed to use \u201cwarning shots\u201d to disable cars.\u00a0
\nRep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) who prosecuted police excessive force cases as a state\u2019s attorney for Prince George\u2019s County, said the officer appears to be in violation of that policy and also risked endangering others in the process.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s going to say that he felt he was in danger for his life that she was going to try and ram him with the car. It didn\u2019t look like that to me when I looked at the video,\u201d Ivey said.
\n\u201cYou should never come in front of a car when you\u2019re trying to stop it,\u201d he said, adding that the shots also risked danger to other officers and witnesses.
\n\u201cIt was really stupid to fire the gun with that many people around, especially since there was no felony. You\u2019re only supposed to use deadly force when somebody\u2019s life is in danger, and certainly not for any kind of misdemeanor issue. And at the time they were trying to get her out of the car, I\u2019m not even sure there was a criminal offense that had been committed,\u201d Ivey said.
\nICE has been dispatched for surges across the country \u2014 most of them in bluer regions controlled by Democrats \u2014 which have sometimes triggered clashes with local residents. Despite pledges to go after the \u201cworst of the worst,\u201d\u00a0more than 70 percent\u00a0of those currently held in immigration detention have no criminal record.
\nThe agency has repeatedly clashed with protesters, arresting clergy members in Illinois and arresting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) as he attempted to tour an ICE facility in New Jersey. The resulting scuffle led to charges for Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), who stands accused of attacking officers with her forearms.
\nDemocrats and immigration advocates have condemned ICE\u2019s tactics, accusing agents of aggressive, reckless behavior, often carried out while agents are wearing masks.
\n\u201cToday\u2019s deadly tragedy in Minneapolis is the direct result of the Trump administration\u2019s reckless policy of violent overreach against immigrants and the American citizens who surround them. It is clear the administration has sought to create an environment of fear, violence and federal brutality that puts all our communities at risk. Federal law enforcement must get off the streets and go back to their primary job: Protecting our nation through professional investigations,\u201d the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a statement.
\n\u201cBefore all the facts were even known, Secretary Noem was already accusing the victim of domestic terrorism. The preliminary video evidence tells a very different story, one where deadly violence could easily have been avoided.\u201d
\nMinneapolis has experienced the fallout of excessive force by an officer previously, with the city\u2019s police put under a consent decree after a police officer killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in 2020. The officer was convicted of murder and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. The Trump administration moved to scrap the decree.
\nICE said its operation in Minneapolis was slated to be the agency\u2019s\u00a0biggest ever, with the Trump administration separately focused on the state over a fraud scheme involving child care providers.
\nResidents of the overwhelmingly Democratic city have been largely opposed to the ICE deployment, an operation designed to target the sizable population of Somali immigrants in the city.
\nRep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), who represents neighboring St. Paul, bashed Trump for sending 2,000 ICE agents to \u201cracially profile and arrest Minnesotans.\u201d
\n\u201cTrump\u2019s reckless and dangerous immigration policies do nothing to make us safer. What they are doing is sowing chaos, division, and distrust not only in Minnesota, but across the nation. Today in Minneapolis, these actions resulted in a masked federal agent fatally shooting a woman in the head,\u201d she wrote on X.
\n\u201cICE must immediately cease and desist their actions in Minnesota to allow state and local law enforcement officials to restore order, prevent further violence, and conduct a full, independent, and transparent investigation.\u201d
\nMinnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said Wednesday the state would investigate, but blamed Trump for fomenting the violence he called \u201ca causal factor.\u201d
\n\u201cIf anyone broke the law in today\u2019s act of violence, I will do all I can to ensure they are held accountable,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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