Trump Officials Cry ‘Domestic Terrorism’ After Videos Show ICE Agent Killing Woman
After a masked federal ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman on Wednesday, Trump administration officials began blaming him for her own death.
At least three videos have appeared online claiming to document the shooting.
In the videos, a brown SUV reverses and then turns as three men appear to surround the car. One of them walks up and says, “Get out of the damn car,” as the car starts to back up; another walks toward the front of the car. The car then appears to attempt to drive away from the scene. The officer who walked to the front left corner of the car then appears to fire at least three shots into the driver’s side as the car begins to accelerate to the right.
Trump officials instead described something the videos don’t appear to show. Instead, they said an act of “domestic terrorism” took place in which a woman attempted to ram federal agents in an attempted murder.
“A woman attacked them and those around them and tried to run them over and ram them with her vehicle,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said of a group of ICE officers she described as getting stuck in the snow in Minneapolis. Noem called the incident an “act of domestic terrorism.”
The deceased driver has not been identified. Minneapolis officials described her as a 37-year-old white woman. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called her a “legal observer.”
Outraged officials like Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Mayor Jacob Frey warned voters not to give in to provocation and to remain peaceful. Frey said he thought claims that the ICE officer was acting in self-defense were “bullshit” and added that “this was an agent recklessly using his power, which resulted in someone’s death and death.”
In the hours after the shooting, Trump officials immediately accused the slain woman of provoking the shooting when she tried to fuel the fire.
DHS Press Secretary Tricia McLaughlin released a statement after the killing in which she accused the woman of being a “violent rioter” who “used her vehicle as a weapon, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.”
“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement officers, and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots,” the statement said.
In an article by Truth Social, President Trump said the woman “violently ran over the ICE officer.” Videos show him standing and walking around the area after the shooting.
This statement bears little resemblance to the videos circulating on social media. The shooting appears to be the first high-profile death of a U.S. citizen at the hands of federal agents during one of the Trump administration’s blitzes against U.S. cities. They have involved spectacular operations like mass deportation showman Greg Bovino’s helicopter raid on a south Chicago apartment building, and seen the deployment of the military to American cities. They were violent, with federal agents deploying tear gas and brutalizing protesters. A woman in Chicago was shot multiple times by ICE but survived her injuries.
But until Wednesday, they had largely proceeded without what many observers called inevitable: a high-profile killing.
The Trump administration’s descriptions contradict what appears to be happening in the video; it is a different question whether strict legal standards regarding holding the agent criminally responsible could be met in this case.
But it was Stephen Miller, the White House aide leading the administration’s joint deportation and domestic repression campaign, who found a way to recognize a video of the scene while still claiming it was terrorism:
Minnesota officials said in a news conference Wednesday that the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are conducting a joint investigation. Agency officials will review whether any state laws were violated.
Brian O’Hara, Minneapolis police chief, said at the conference that local officers responded to the scene after the shooting and took the woman to a hospital with a head injury, where she was pronounced dead.
After Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte and others, Minneapolis is the latest largely blue city where the Trump administration has used federal law enforcement agents as part of a nationwide campaign to detain undocumented immigrants while intimidating protesters and other political opponents. Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol official in charge of these operations, was reportedly present at the scene after the shooting.
