Fatal ICE shooting of Minneapolis activist sets stage for national protests

MINNEAPOLIS – Civil liberties and migrant-rights groups called for nationwide rallies on Jan 10 to protest the

fatal shooting of an activist in Minnesota

by a US immigration agent, as state authorities opened their own investigation of the killing.

Protest organisers said more than 1,000 weekend events were planned across the country demanding an end to large-scale deployments of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents ordered by President Donald Trump, mostly to cities led by Democratic politicians.

Minneapolis became a major flashpoint of the Republican president’s militarised deportation roundups on Jan 7, when an ICE officer shot and killed a 37-year-old mother of three, Ms Renee Good, behind the wheel of her car on a residential street.

The violence came soon after some 2,000 federal officers were dispatched to Minneapolis in what ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, called the “largest DHS operation ever.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, condemned the deployment as a “reckless” example of “governance by reality TV”.

Conflicting narratives of killing

On the night of Jan 9, throngs of demonstrators staged a “noise protest” outside a Minneapolis hotel believed to be lodging a visiting contingent of ICE agents.

Video posted by activists on social media showed protesters, some wearing brightly coloured inflatable costumes, creating a din by beating on drums, banging pots and pans, yelling through bullhorns and blowing on brass instruments and whistles.

Others directed high-power flashlight beams at the hotel’s windows. The crowd thinned after yellow-vested state police in riot gear marched into the area and declared an unlawful assembly, CNN reported.

Police were responding to “information that demonstrators were no longer peaceful and reports of damage to property”, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said on X.

“Dispersal orders were given prior to arrests.”

At the time she was killed, Ms Good was participating in one of numerous “neighbourhood patrols” that track, monitor and record ICE activities, according to family and local activists.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials said Ms Good was “impeding” and “stalking” ICE agents all day, and that the officer opened fire in self-defence when she tried to ram her car into him in an “act of domestic terrorism”.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, pointed to bystander video he said directly contradicted the federal government’s “garbage narrative”. Civil liberties advocates said the video showed federal agents lacked any justification for using deadly force.

Federal-state tensions

Amid the sharply differing accounts of the shooting, Minnesota and Hennepin County law enforcement authorities said on Jan 9 that they were opening their own criminal inquiry of the incident separate from a federal investigation led by the FBI.

Some Trump administration officials, including Vice-President J.D. Vance, asserted state prosecutors lack jurisdiction to charge a federal officer with a crime, though legal experts say federal immunity in such cases is not automatic.

The crisis atmosphere led Mr Walz – a prominent Trump antagonist who branded Mr Trump and his Republican allies as “weird” during his own run for vice-president in 2025 – to put the state’s National Guard on alert.

Federal-state tensions escalated further on Jan 8 when a US Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. As in the Minneapolis incident, DHS said the driver had tried to “weaponise” his vehicle and run over agents.

DHS on Jan 9 identified the wounded driver and passenger as suspected gang associates from Venezuela who were in the US illegally. The agency said the woman had been involved in a prior shoot-out in Portland but provided no evidence of its allegations against the pair.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, echoing Mr Frey, said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact without an independent investigation.

The deployment of agents to Minneapolis follows Mr Trump’s recent denunciations of Mr Walz and his state’s large population of Somali immigrants over allegations of fraud dating back to 2020 by some non-profit groups administering childcare and other social service programmes.

Video evidence emerges

Ms Good was shot dead just a few blocks from where Mr George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer

crushing his neck into the pavement with his knee

during a videotaped arrest in May 2020.

Mr Floyd’s death sparked months of nationwide racial-justice protests during Mr Trump’s first term in office.

Bystander video of the Minneapolis incident showed masked officers approaching Ms Good’s Honda SUV while it was stopped at a perpendicular angle to the street, partially blocking traffic.

One agent is seen ordering her out of the car and grabbing onto the driver-side front door handle as the car pulls forward and steers away from the officers, one of whom jumps back and fires three shots into the front of the vehicle as it rolls past.

Video filmed by the officer who opened fire, identified through official comment and public records as Mr Jonathan Ross,

shows Mr Good appearing calm

.

She is heard telling him, “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you”, moments before he opens fire as she drives forward into the street, steering the car away from him.

Ms Noem has said he was treated at a local hospital for unspecified injuries and released.

The car’s front bumper appears in the bystander video to pass Mr Ross before he shot at Ms Good. It is unclear from any of the footage whether the vehicle made contact with him.

In any case, Mr Ross is shown remaining on his feet and can be seen walking after the incident, contradicting Mr Trump’s assertion on social media that the woman “ran over the ICE officer”.

The two DHS-related shootings this week have drawn thousands of protesters to the streets of Minneapolis, Portland and other US cities, with many more demonstrations under the banner “ICE Out For Good” planned for Jan 10 and Jan 11.

The rallies were being organised by a coalition of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, MoveOn Civic Action, Voto Latino, and Indivisible, some of which were at the forefront of “No Kings” protests against Mr Trump in 2025. REUTERS