Minneapolis driver shot and killed by ICE officer during immigration-related operation, DHS says

By Minyvonne Burke, Julia Ainsley and Suzanne Gamboa

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday after a group of people began blocking agents during an immigration-related operation, the Department of Homeland Security said.

ICE agents were conducting targeted operations in the city when a woman, 37, allegedly "weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them," Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pushed back on DHS’s narrative in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

"They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense," Frey said, referring to ICE. "Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is b---s---."

Video posted to social media shows several agents approaching a burgundy SUV in the middle of the street and ordering the driver to get out. When one agent grabs the driver’s side door handle, the car reverses and then drives forward.

An agent standing near the front of the vehicle appears to draw his firearm and fire three shots at it, the video shows. The vehicle then crashes into a parked car and hits a light pole.

Frey said after the shooting the first priority of local law enforcement was to get the victim to the hospital, and the second was to get ICE off the scene because they were "making a difficult situation more problematic."

"What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust. 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."

Frey had a message for federal immigration agents in the city.

"To ICE, get the f--- out of Minneapolis," the mayor said. "We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some sort of safety and you are doing the opposite."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a press conference that the agents' vehicles got stuck in the snow and they were trying to push them out when the woman "attacked them."

"It was an act of domestic terrorism," she said.

The agent fired what McLaughlin said were "defensive shots" and killed the woman.

"He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers," she said.

Frey said it did not appear from video of the incident that the vehicle was being weaponized against the agent.

"This woman was in her car and it appears then blocking the street because of the presence of federal law enforcement, which is obviously something that has been happening not just in Minneapolis but around the country," Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at the mayor's news conference.

Aidan Perzana, 31, said he witnessed the incident and it didn't look like the woman was trying to run over an agent.

"I heard that Noem is trying to say they were trying to run down an officer. There was plenty of space between the officers at that point for the vehicle to make it through," he told NBC News, adding that it looked like the driver was trying to flee.

Aidan’s wife Grace Perzana, 32, said the family has lived in the neighborhood two and a half years and "we love it."

"We are really happy here. We have a giant shark statue in our front yard and our neighbor has a giant T-Rex statue," she said. "There is a lot of community art, a lot of people having barbecues with music in their backyards."

Residents and locals gathered in the street after the shooting, chanting and throwing snowballs in the direction of federal agents, KARE reported. Law enforcement deployed pepper spray and tear gas.

McLaughlin said the ICE officers injured during the incident are expected to make a full recovery. She did not detail what type of injuries the agents sustained.

DHS increasing presence in Minneapolis

President Donald Trump has unleashed immigration agents in cities across America, who have been employing increasingly aggressive tactics. The push has ramped up tensions with local officials in some cities and communities that are increasingly protesting the efforts.

In September, in the Chicago area, an ICE agent fatally shot a man during a traffic stop. His family called for justice and local police said the FBI had been investigating the death.

Since arriving in Minneapolis in early December, ICE officers and agents have arrested roughly 1,400 people, McLaughlin previously said.

That is a significant increase from the roughly 300 arrested by Dec. 12, making it a much larger operation than some of the Border Patrol surge operations in cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans.

McLaughlin also said Border Patrol agents just arrived in Minneapolis and will begin operations there Wednesday.

DHS this week sent hundreds more officers and agents to bolster immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, with the agency posting on social media that it is waging “the largest DHS operation ever” in Minnesota.

The immigration enforcement operation will add up to 2,100 officers, according to two senior DHS officials. The administration began swelling the numbers Sunday and planned to continue adding forces Wednesday, the officials said. That total includes 1,500 enforcement and removal officers and 600 Homeland Security Investigations agents.

Arrests in Minneapolis could increase with the added boots on the ground.

The rush of more enforcement follows the posting of a video by a conservative content creator the day after Christmas that alleged Somali-run day care centers in Minneapolis were defrauding American taxpayers by taking federal grant money and not providing any services to children.

The FBI surged investigators in the city to look into the allegations soon after the video was posted, HSI has been door-knocking on Somali businesses since last week and the state of Minnesota concluded from its on-site checks of 10 Somali day care centers targeted in the video that they were operating normally, with children at every site except one, which was not yet open to investigators when they arrived to investigate.

Grace Perzana said she did not believe there were many people of Somali descent on the street where Wednesday's shooting happened, but said she does have many “Latinx” neighbors.

Many Minnesota residents of Somali descent, including those who are American citizens, have been staying indoors or have reduced activity outside, fearful of being snagged in the stepped-up enforcement now in its second month.

Trump disparaged Somalis last month, saying they had destroyed Minneapolis and the country. He called Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, “garbage” and said Somalis should return to where they came from and fix it. Omar’s family fled civil war in Somalia and lived in a Kenyan refugee camp before she moved to the U.S. and became a citizen.