Tensions escalated in Minneapolis in the wake of the of a 37-year-old woman by a federal immigration agent, with protests intensifying and leading to confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement.
Demonstrators gathered Thursday outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, which houses offices for several federal agencies, including an immigration court and the local ICE headquarters. Protesters carried signs reading “ICE Out Now” and “We deserve to be safe in our community.” Officers pushed the crowd back from the building, deploying and shooting to break up the protest.
“We are peacefully demonstrating,” said Patrick Riley, who was protesting outside the building Thursday, told . “We’re trying to let this organization know that they’re not welcome.”
On the previous day, demonstrators shouted and at officers at the shooting site, and that evening, mourners created an impromptu memorial for Renee Nicole Good, whom authorities identified as the woman killed by an ICE agent Wednesday. Anger over Good’s death has sparked protests in cities beyond Minneapolis, including New York City, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
Federal authorities have described the shooting as “self-defense,” alleging that Good tried to strike the ICE agent who shot her with her vehicle—a claim that local officials have strongly disputed.
“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,” President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post Wednesday. “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, addressing an unrelated matter at a New York press conference Thursday, stated she believed the agent followed his training, while conceding that the incident would be investigated. She asserted that Good’s vehicle was “used as a weapon” and that “this officer took action to protect himself and to protect his fellow law enforcement officers.”
City and state officials have denounced the federal account of the incident, with some labeling it “propaganda.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who said he had viewed video of the shooting, dismissed the self-defense claim as “bullsh-t.”
“What I can tell you is the narrative that this was just done in self-defense is a garbage narrative that is not true,” he said at a Wednesday press conference. “It has no truth, and it needs to be stated very clearly.”
Online video of the incident shows federal agents approaching a vehicle, with one officer attempting to open the driver’s side door. The car is seen reversing briefly, then driving away from the officers. In the footage, another agent appears to draw his weapon and fire shots toward the vehicle.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said Thursday that federal authorities were denying state investigators access to evidence, effectively preventing them from probing the shooting. Noem said state investigators “have not been cut out” of the investigation, but argued they lacked jurisdiction.
The shooting, which occurred less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020, triggered broad outrage. ICE has recently deployed hundreds of agents to Minnesota as part of an immigration crackdown, which many local officials, including Frey, opposed even before the shooting. Following Good’s death Wednesday, many leaders for ICE to leave the city.
“I have a message for ICE: Get the f-ck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here,” Frey said Wednesday. “Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart … and now somebody is dead.”