Woman shot by ICE | “Self-defense,” insists Vance

(Minneapolis) US Vice President JD Vance insisted Thursday that the immigration police officer who killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday had acted in “self-defense.”

“(…) Hitting an immigration enforcement agent (ICE) with your car justifies being shot at. “It’s not a good thing, by the way, but when you force someone to act in self-defense, it’s almost an absurd question,” he said at a White House news conference.

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday in Minneapolis to protest after the death of a resident killed the day before by immigration police, provoking brief clashes with law enforcement.

In front of a federal building in the suburbs of the city, a stampede with some exchanges of blows took place between protesters and police, and at least two people were arrested, noted an AFP photographer.

Another gathering was held at the scene of the shooting, peacefully, again with hundreds of residents and local officials speaking.

The cry of “ICE (immigration police, editor’s note) out now!” “, the demonstrators contest the official version of self-defense, defended 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.

The White House judged Thursday that this was part of a “dangerous left-wing movement”, which is leading an “organized assault” across the country against law enforcement.

Donald Trump, for his part, once again relayed his administration’s version during an interview Thursday with journalists from New York Times.

“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”.

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The city’s Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, also called federal officials’ accounts “bullshit,” saying the driver never posed a danger to anyone.

The facts took place while 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 different 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.

A resident living near the scene, who only wanted to give his first name, Tyrice, said he “heard three gunshots, then the sound of an accident”.

“There was blood all over the snow in front of our house. And I saw a woman in the car… You could see the injuries, everything: a lot of blood, the airbag deployed, blood all over the airbag,” he said.

The FBI is in charge of the investigation.

According to Tim Walz, the victim, Renée Nicole Good, of American nationality, leaves behind a wife and a 6-year-old child, for whom a collection of money has been launched, totaling $600,000.

Posters showing her, blonde and smiling, appeared across Minneapolis, above the words: “Murdered by ICE.”

“Police work hampered”

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem insisted the victim had “followed and obstructed (police) work 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”.

At a press conference Thursday in New York, she said she was “not opposed” to the idea of ​​sending police reinforcements to Minneapolis.

Donald Trump has made the fight against illegal immigration one of the main axes of his domestic policy.

On several occasions in recent months, people have died, often accidentally, while trying to escape controls. ICE agents also repeatedly opened fire on drivers who tried to run them over, according to the administration’s version, leaving at least one dead in September in Chicago.