Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents “get the f–k” out of the city after a video showed an ICE agent shooting a woman attempting to flee with her car during an immigration-related operation on Wednesday.
Frey condemned ICE agents for “causing chaos and distrust” in the city. “They are ripping families apart, sowing chaos in the streets and, in this case, quite literally killing people,” he said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
The woman killed has not yet been identified.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, claimed in an X post that “rioters began blocking ICE officers” during the operation 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.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reiterated the claim during a press conference in Texas, claiming the woman “attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.”
But video taken by a bystander shows three agents approaching a black Honda truck and demanding the driver “get out of the f–king car.” As the driver appears to flee the scene, one agent begins to shoot into the vehicle, killing the driver.
Still, President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social that a woman screaming in one video was “obviously” a “professional agitator” while the woman killed was “very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.” Trump claimed the agent was recovering in a hospital.
“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,” he wrote. “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE.”
The fatal shooting comes as the federal government increased its immigration and law enforcement efforts in Minneapolis over the last month, largely targeting Somali immigrants, deploying as many as 2,000 federal immigration agents into the state.
The department’s justification for the shooting prompted a flurry of repudiations from local and state elected officials who demanded the agency end its operations in the state. During Frey’s press conference, he slammed the department’s claim that the killing was an act of self-defense.
“Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly: That is bullshit,” he said.
Gov. Tim Walz echoed the sentiment and said the state would begin “a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.”
“I’ve seen the video,” he wrote on X. “Don’t believe this propaganda machine.”
“You’re lying,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) wrote on X. “There was no attempt to run the officer over and no ICE agents appear to be hurt. Get out of our city.”
“The situation on the ground is volatile,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) wrote on X, suggesting the person killed was a U.S. citizen. “ICE should leave now for everyone’s safety. Please be safe Minneapolis.”
One witness named “Betsy” told KSTP that there were “a number of neighbors who were observers“ on a side of the street near the operation. The eyewitness said she expected to turn the corner and “observe immigration enforcement activity.” “Nowhere in my wildest imagination did I expect someone be killed,” Betsy said.
“Any law enforcement officers should be here to protect us,” she said. “What’s happening now is it’s just terrifying. It’s just terrorizing. It makes us feel really unsafe in our neighborhoods and our homes.”
