Minneapolis protests remain peaceful after ICE officer fatally shoots woman

Protesters took to the streets of Minneapolis overnight after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a 37-year-old woman Wednesday, sparking outrage from residents and local officials already angered by the Trump administration’s massive enforcement effort in the city.

President Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security said the officer feared for his safety and was acting in self-defense after the woman threatened him with her vehicle. But state and national Democrats repudiated that claim — with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey calling it [“expletive”] — accusing the administration of recklessness and demanding an end to the immigration operations.

On social media, some members of Congress described the killing as “murder” and called for federal officials to be held accountable.

Several hundred people blocked the intersection where Renee Nicole Good was killed Wednesday. Protesters at the scene chanted “f--- Trump” and “f--- ICE” but remained peaceful. A quiet, smaller group held vigil down the block in front of a shrine that included flowers, candles and balloons.

Further protests are expected Thursday morning.

“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed,” Frey (D) said at a news conference. “There’s little I can say that will make this situation better, but I do have a message for our community and our city and for ICE. To ICE: Get the [expletive] out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.”

The killing follows a string of chaotic clashes across the country in which federal immigration officers have employed aggressive tactics in service of Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Officers have been involved in at least a dozen shootings in Trump’s second term, according to court records and media reports, and they have tackled immigrants, dragged protesters and used chemical agents on observers.

An ICE officer shot and killed an undocumented immigrant in Chicago in September after officials alleged he also endangered them with his car. Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against DHS on behalf of six residents who alleged they were illegally detained, assaulted and arrested by immigration officers.

Videos posted online after the Minneapolis shooting show the woman’s vehicle, a burgundy Honda Pilot SUV, stopped in the middle of the road across travel lanes with the driver-side window rolled down. They do not show the events leading up to that moment.

Two ICE officers pulled up, exited their vehicle and approached the SUV. The vehicle began to reverse, and one of the officers reached out and held on to the door handle. As the SUV moved out of reverse and drove forward, a third officer, positioned closer to the front of the car, quickly drew his weapon and fired three times.

That third officer appears, in the videos, to have been in front of the vehicle when it began advancing and to have been beside it by the time of the last two shots. Minneapolis police said the driver suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at a hospital.

An investigation is being conducted by the FBI and Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Minneapolis police said. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said on social media that the woman was a U.S. citizen, but federal authorities did not identify the woman by name or confirm her citizenship.

Good’s father, Tim Ganger, spoke briefly to The Washington Post on Wednesday evening, saying he and his wife had been informed of the death earlier in the day.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said at a news conference Wednesday evening that ICE was carrying out an operation when one of its vehicles got stuck in the snow. Officers were attempting to push the vehicle back onto the road when a “mob of agitators,” including the driver of the SUV, blocked them in, she said.

Noem said the woman in the SUV had been “stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day,” refused commands to get out of her vehicle, and “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.” The ICE officer feared for his life and that of other officers and fired “defensive shots” that killed the woman, she said.

Noem told reporters that the SUV hit the officer, who she said was treated at a hospital and released.

She said the same officer had been attacked and dragged by a driver in June.

Noem accused demonstrators nationwide of increasingly attempting to use vehicles to impede ICE operations. She said that federal immigration officers would continue operations in Minneapolis.

In a social media post, Trump said the woman was “obstructing” and “assaulting” law enforcement officials.

“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. He called on the public to stand by law enforcement officers.

Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that “the entire administration stands behind” ICE officers, saying in a separate post that the woman’s death was “a tragedy of her own making.”

Some Republican lawmakers defended ICE and cited a spike in assaults on federal immigration officers. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) blamed the shooting on “Radical Leftist RIOTERS” and encouraged ICE agents: “If you are violently attacked, SHOOT BACK.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) blamed the federal surge of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis for the violence. At a news conference, he said he issued a warning order to the Minnesota National Guard to be prepared to help protect public safety in case of further disruption.

“We do not need any further help from the federal government,” he said, accusing the Trump administration of “governing by reality TV.”

“Today, that recklessness cost somebody their life,” he said.

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) wrote on social media that the surge “was never about public safety, it was about stoking fear and chaos.”

“Today’s horrific shooting made that abundantly clear,” she said, calling on Minnesotans “to stay peaceful, and not to give this administration the chaos they are hoping for.”

Television news footage of the scene shortly after the shooting showed police vehicles responding to a snowy neighborhood street, and police tape cordoning off some areas, with journalists and other bystanders being kept away from the immediate location of the shooting.

The shooting occurred amid a surge in ICE activity that has seen hundreds of additional agents deployed to the city as well as hundreds of arrests.

“My heart breaks for the victim’s family, who will have to forever live with the pain caused by the Trump Administration’s reckless and deadly actions,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said in a statement.

Emily Heller, who lives almost directly in front of where the shooting occurred, said in an interview that she was in her kitchen Wednesday when she heard whistles and honking outside, the telltale noises protesters use to warn of federal immigration convoys.

Heller said she saw five or six unmarked vehicles with police lights stopped along the one-way road, and a burgundy SUV seeming to block their path. People had begun to stop and film the exchange, she said, as ICE officers indicated that the SUV’s driver should move so they could progress down the street.

“A couple approached her door and one pulled on the handle, which seemed to spook her,” Heller said. “She put her car in reverse and angled herself to leave.” Then, in a matter of seconds, the shots rang out, she said.

“They went from saying ‘Move, move, move’ to advancing as if they were going to apprehend her,” she said. “Then, as she started to accelerate, another yelled ‘Stop’ and then shot her in the face.” Heller watched the SUV as it lurched forward and crashed into a utility pole and parked cars that she estimated were 100 feet away.

Video from Heller’s phone, which she shared with The Post, shows Good slumped forward and not moving after the shooting. Officers carrying weapons surrounded the vehicle and kept anyone, including a neighbor who identified himself as a doctor, from approaching the car or administering first aid, Heller said.

“Can I go check a pulse?” the man said loudly, taking a step in the direction of the officers, according to the video. “No, back up now,” an officer said.

“I’m a physician,” the man protested.

“I don’t care,” the officer replied, adding: “Give us a second, we have medics” on the way.

Heller estimated it took 15 minutes for paramedics to arrive, in part because their ambulance appeared to be impeded by the ICE vehicles on the street. Several first responders ultimately approached the car on foot, she said.

They spent minutes with Good and then carried her “by her limbs” the length of two or three houses before they could get to an ambulance, Heller said.

Good grew up mostly in Colorado, her father said in a brief interview, but Good had taken refuge with her parents in Valley Falls, Kansas, for a time after her husband, a military veteran who suffered from PTSD, died about three years ago.

“She had a good life, but a hard life,” Ganger said. “She was a wonderful person.”

He said he and his wife were not ready to talk about Good or her death, saying that the couple were still trying to gather the facts about what happened. But they would speak out in time, after consulting with Good’s partner, he said.

“I think she was just caught in a crossfire,” he said. “She was caught in a bad situation today. But we don’t know the facts.”

The Trump administration has surged immigration officers into Democratic-led cities and towns and increasingly used force to make arrests and deter protests, smashing windows, deploying tear gas, and tackling immigrants and demonstrators.

Some have been shot, including Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, the undocumented immigrant an ICE agent killed in the Chicago area in September after alleging that he drove his vehicle toward law enforcement officials.

In November, a federal judge in Chicago said that immigration officers and U.S. Border Patrol officers were using excessive force against protesters, saying the “use of force shocks the conscience.”

U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis in the Northern District of Illinois pointed to multiple examples of immigration officers excessively deploying tear gas, pepper spray and other crowd control devices. She also said Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol commander, had “admitted that he lied” about getting struck in the head by a rock before using tear gas against civilians.

Bovino was seen at the site of the Minneapolis shooting on a livestream video feed Wednesday.

Republicans in recent months have focused on cases of social services fraud in Minnesota involving hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen public funds. Some but not all of the people prosecuted are Somali, but Republicans have focused on that group’s involvement.

In December, Trump ordered immigration officials to expand their presence in Minneapolis, focusing on the state’s large Somali immigrant population, whom he called “garbage.”

Walz said Monday that he would no longer seek a third term as governor amid the controversy.

Frey had previously expressed concern that ICE’s presence in Minneapolis could spill over into violence, and damage already frayed relations between residents and law enforcement.

“I am gravely concerned that if we continue on this present trajectory somebody is going to get killed,” the mayor said at a Dec. 23 news conference.

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• Victoria Bisset, Kim Bellware and Emily Davies contributed.