Was the Minneapolis shooting justified? Experts, Trump administration disagree
Minutes after a federal immigration agent shot and killed a woman on Wednesday in Minneapolis, Trump administration officials labeled her a “violent rioter” and her actions as domestic terrorism. The agent, they said, acted in self-defense.
But an expert in police procedure says the shooting was unjustified, and neither the agent who opened fire nor the two others standing by were in danger. And videos from the scene seem to refute statements by President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials.
“The video clearly shows that the officers were not at risk of being hit by the vehicle when the shots were fired and that there were no other bystanders that could be harmed in the area,” Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, a nonprofit that files lawsuits over alleged police abuses, told Straight Arrow News. “This shooting was not legally justified. It was a brutal and illegal use of force that ended someone’s life.”
Minneapolis officials agreed. Mayor Jacob Frey said claims of self-defense were “bulls – – t.”
“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed,” Frey said.
The shooting — the most violent incident to date in a yearlong crackdown on illegal immigration — took place days after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started sending 2,000 agents into the Minneapolis area for the largest operation in the agency’s history. The operation particularly targets Somali immigrants, a handful of whom have been accused of defrauding federally subsidized social services programs, including day care centers. Trump has described Somalis as “garbage” and said he wants them removed from the United States.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who dropped his reelection campaign this week because of complaints about his handling of the fraud cases, said the violence that erupted suddenly on a south Minneapolis street Wednesday morning was inevitable.
“We’ve been warning for weeks … that someone was going to get hurt,” Walz said. He added, “This was so, so preventable.”
Competing narratives
In the Department of Homeland Security’s first statement about the shooting, the agency’s deputy secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said the incident began as ICE officers “were conducting targeted operations” against unauthorized immigrants. She said “rioters” began blocking ICE officers, “and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism.”
Later, at an unrelated news conference, Noem said the ICE agents had been stuck in snow “and were attempting to push their vehicle and a woman attacked them.”
“This goes to show the assaults that our ICE officers and our law enforcement are under every single day,” Noem said. “These vehicle rammings are domestic acts of terrorism.”
Videos from the scene — where people were protesting the presence of ICE agents — told a different story.
The ICE agents were not stuck in the snow. They were driving in unmarked vehicles on city streets cleared of snow and ice.
In one widely circulated video, an ICE vehicle, a pickup truck with flashing red and blue lights embedded into its grill, encountered a red SUV that was partly blocking the street. Two officers wearing tactical gear emerged from the pickup, and one approached the SUV’s driver, saying, “Get out of the f- – – ing car.”
As one officer tried to open the SUV’s door, the driver put the vehicle into reverse briefly, angled her wheels away from the agents at her door and pulled forward.
That’s when a third agent in front of the vehicle pulled his handgun and fired at the driver from close range. The SUV continued for several yards before crashing into a parked car on the opposite side of the street.
The entire episode lasted 21 seconds.
When is deadly force justified?
The agent who shot the driver appeared to leave the scene with another officer two minutes later, one video showed. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he was injured and taken to a hospital. Trump did not provide information on the nature of the agent’s injuries.
Minnesota officials said they are investigating the shooting, with Frey vowing to seek “justice.” Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an inquiry from SAN about whether the officer who shot the driver is still on active duty.
Homeland Security’s use of force policy prohibits agents from firing at the drivers of moving vehicles unless they have the “reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury” to the agent or someone else.
“Deadly force shall not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject,” the policy says, except in cases of an imminent threat.
Shortly after Wednesday’s shooting, the department said the officer feared for his life and the lives of fellow officers when he “fired defensive shots.”
Many of the nation’s largest cities, including New York and Los Angeles, forbid officers from firing at moving vehicles, and the Department of Justice has warned against the practice for decades, according to a 2021 investigation by The New York Times. Experts in police procedure say firing at a driver is ineffective and dangerous.
“It’s like you’ve created an unguided missile,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Council, told the Times. “You’ve basically lost control.”
Bonds, of the National Police Accountability Project, told SAN that shooting into a car to apprehend a driver is an unacceptable practice.
“Every federal appellate court in the country,” she said, “has found that it is unconstitutional to shoot into a fleeing vehicle where the driver does not pose a threat to an officer or other bystanders.”
However, the Trump administration depicted questions about the shooting as criticism of law enforcement.
“We stand with the brave men and women of ICE and law enforcement who risk everything to keep our communities safe,” the White House said on X. Homeland Security added, “STAND WITH ICE.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
