(Minneapolis) Hundreds of people gathered Thursday morning in front of a federal building in the suburbs of Minneapolis, facing numerous armed police, to protest against the conditions of the death the day before of a resident killed by American immigration police.
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Brief clashes took place and at least two people were arrested, noted an AFP photographer.
Shouts of “ICE out now!” », the demonstrators contest the official version of self-defense, defended the day before by Donald Trump and his government.
According to the administration, the victim, a 37-year-old woman, attempted to kill police officers with her car.
A version defended again by Donald Trump during an interview with journalists from New York Times published Thursday. “I don’t want to see anyone get shot,” he added, however.
This official explanation is vigorously contested, with supporting videos, by local authorities, including the state’s Democratic governor Tim Walz, who denounced a “propaganda machine”.
“The desire to take to the streets to protest and denounce how wrong this administration is is, right now, a patriotic duty – but it must be done safely,” he said Wednesday evening.
The city’s Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, also called federal officials’ accounts “bullshit,” saying the driver never posed a danger to anyone.
Mother
The facts took place while the federal immigration police (ICE) had been carrying out a vast series of operations since Tuesday involving around 2,000 police officers in this large city in the northern United States and its suburbs.
Several videos circulating on social networks seem to undermine the version defended by the authorities.
In several of them, showing the same scene from several angles, we see the victim’s SUV blocking the passage of an immigration police convoy.
Several police officers ask the driver to get out of her car. One of them tries to open the door. But as the car moves back to the right to move away from the officers, a police officer positioned at the front left of the vehicle opens fire several times.
The victim’s car will then crash into another parked a little further away.
The FBI is responsible for the investigation. The victim, Renée Nicole Good, was of American nationality and a mother.
PHOTO CHARLY TRIBALLEAU, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A photo is on display at a makeshift memorial to Renee Nicole Good, who was shot at point-blank range on Jan. 7 by an ICE agent.
“I want every ICE agent to know that their president, their vice president and the entire administration supports them,” Vice President JD Vance said on X before adding: “We are going to work even harder to enforce the law.”
10,000 new agents since the summer
In a press conference Wednesday evening, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem insisted that the victim had “followed and obstructed the work of (the police) throughout the day.”
She added that the immigration police officer who opened fire had, during a previous mission in June, been hit by a car “and dragged for several meters”.
Donald Trump has made the fight against illegal immigration one of the main axes of his domestic policy.
ICE launched a massive recruitment drive last summer, attracting around 10,000 new agents – sparking fears about their lack of training.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, some $70 million has been spent by this federal agency in the categories “small arms, ammunition and accessories.”
On several occasions in recent months, people have died, often accidentally, while trying to escape controls. ICE agents also opened fire several times on drivers who tried to run them over, according to the administration’s version, leaving at least one dead in September in Chicago.
