Sakshi Venkatraman
A US immigration agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman on Wednesday in the city of Minneapolis, but the details of what led up to the incident have left a wide chasm between federal and local government officials.
Trump administration officials claim the woman, identified as Renee Nicole Good, was a “violent rioter” attempting to run over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents when one agent fired “defensive shots” into her vehicle.
But city and state leaders, and Democrats nationally, are disputing that account.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey claims that “this was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying”, telling ICE agents: “Get out of our city.”
Multiple videos posted to social media by onlookers appear to show the moment of the shooting, which occurred around 10:25 local time.
From various vantage points, a maroon SUV can be seen blocking a residential street in Minneapolis. A crowd of people, who appear to be protesting, are lining the sidewalk area.
Multiple law enforcement vehicles appear nearby. Immigration agents pull up to the vehicle parked in the street, get out of the truck and order the woman behind the wheel to get out of the SUV. One of the agents tugs at the driver’s side door handle.
Another agent is positioned near the front of the vehicle. It’s not clear exactly where the officer is standing based on the videos reviewed immediately by the BBC. That agent opens fire as the maroon SUV attempts to drive off.
Three pops are heard, and the vehicle can be seen losing control and crashing into a white car parked along the street nearby.
The shooting comes amid a major immigration crackdown in Minneapolis by the Trump administration.
US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said the deceased woman’s actions constituted “domestic terrorism” – and that ICE’s operations in the city will continue.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that an ICE officer was “viciously” run over. “It is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital,” he wrote.
The president also blamed the “Radical Left” for “threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis”.
Speaking to press later in the day, Noem called the loss of life “preventable”.
But she repeatedly claimed that the ICE agent fired in self-defence and that Good used her vehicle as a “deadly weapon” against agents. The details are pending an FBI investigation she said, adding that the same agent injured Wednesday was also hit by a car in the line of duty in June.
The Minneapolis City Council, however, said that Good was simply “caring for her neighbors” when she was shot and killed.
Getty ImagesMinnesota State Governor Tim Walz also pushed back on federal accounts of the incident.
“Don’t believe this propaganda machine,” Walz wrote in response to a Department of Homeland Security post about the shooting. “The state will ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.”
Top Democrats, like former Vice President Kamala Harris and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also released statements Wednesday evening. Harris called the Trump administration’s version of events “gaslighting”.
Protests erupted in several parts of the city as outraged Minneapolis residents condemned the shooting and called for ICE to leave. According to local media reports, the main gathering happened near the scene of the shooting.
A makeshift vigil, displaying flowers and candles, was laid in the snow there, as protesters chanted slogans and delivered speeches.
One group of protesters formed a line blocking the entrance to a federal courthouse with ICE officers standing inside, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The group of around 50 people chanted Good’s name and dispersed after breaking a glass window.
Protests are also taking place in cities outside Minneapolis, with gatherings expected in New Orleans, Miami, Seattle and New York City.
Why is ICE in Minneapolis?
The Trump administration deployed an additional 2,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis area in recent weeks in response to allegations of welfare fraud in the state, sources told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.
Frey said in the press conference Wednesday that ICE is not making the city safer. “They’re ripping families apart, they’re sowing chaos in our streets,” he said.
The deployment, which began on Sunday, is one of the largest concentrations of Department of Homeland Security personnel in a US city in recent years.
It follows an immigration enforcement campaign launched by ICE in late 2025 to target individuals in Minneapolis who were issued deportation orders, including members of the city’s Somali community.
That community has been criticised frequently by Trump, who has called them “garbage”.
“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you,” the president has said. “Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks.”
Trump later doubled-down on his remarks after a YouTube video by a conservative online content creator accused day care centres run by Somali immigrants of fraud.
“Send them back from where the came,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in December. He also withheld federal child care funds to the state of Minnesota in response.
The Trump administration has sent ICE agents to other cities as well, all part of a widespread crackdown on what it says is unlawful immigration in the US.