An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a driver in the Midwestern US during the Trump administration's latest immigration crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defence but that the city's mayor described as "reckless" and unnecessary.
The woman was shot on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) during a traffic stop in a residential neighbourhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about 1.6km from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.
Her killing quickly drew a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters.
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an "act of domestic terrorism" carried out against ICE officers by a woman who "attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle".
"An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him," Noem said.
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted that characterisation as "garbage" and criticised the federal deployment of more than 2000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.
"What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust," Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave.
"They're ripping families apart. They're sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people."
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"They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defence. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit," the mayor said.
Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.
The SUV begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the SUV at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It was not clear from the videos if the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop. Witnesses screamed obscenities, expressing shock at what they'd seen.
The shooting marks a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the Minneapolis woman, whose name wasn't immediately released, was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the 37-year-old driver was trying to harm anyone. He said she had been shot in the head.
"This woman was in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue. At some point a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off," the chief said.
"At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway."
A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there.
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