Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey accused federal immigration agents of “creating chaos” after a Venezuelan man pursued during a targeted traffic stop was shot in the leg by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security officer, sparking a night of clashes between protesters and law enforcement.
“We cannot counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos,” Frey said, calling the federal presence “not sustainable” and urging calm as tensions flared citywide.
- Advertisement -
DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the shooting occurred after the man — whom the agency said is in the United States illegally — fled a stop, crashed into a parked car and ran on foot. A pursuing officer caught up with him, DHS said, and the man “began to resist and violently assault the officer.”
As the struggle continued, two people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle, according to DHS. The man then broke free and struck the officer with one of the tools, the agency said. The officer, “fearing for his life and safety,” fired and wounded the man in the leg.
The three fled into the apartment and briefly barricaded themselves before being taken into custody, DHS said. The wounded man and the officer were hospitalized. A person familiar with the situation said the suspect was in stable condition; the officer’s condition was not immediately known.
Protesters gathered after the shooting and clashed with federal and local officers late into the night. Demonstrators threw rocks, ice and fireworks, while law enforcement fired tear gas and crowd-control munitions on streets shrouded by chemical irritants and lit by headlamps and flash-bang bursts.
“We do not need this to escalate any further,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said as he and the mayor urged crowds to disperse. O’Hara said people in the streets were “engaging in unlawful acts.”
DHS accused Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of encouraging resistance to immigration enforcement with “hateful rhetoric,” an assertion the mayor rejected. The department, disputing allegations of misconduct, said its agents have increasingly come under assault while pursuing immigration violators and denied racial profiling, saying arrests are based on reasonable suspicion of unlawful status.
The city has been on edge since the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good, 37, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, who was shot by an ICE agent while she participated in a neighborhood patrol network that tracks federal officers. Opponents of the surge say Good posed no physical threat; the government has said the agent feared she was trying to run him over.
Rather than scale back operations, the Trump administration has said it will deploy hundreds more agents to Minneapolis, adding to about 2,000 already on the ground. In recent days, residents and videos have described roving sweeps, vehicle windows smashed during stops, people pulled from cars and some nonwhite U.S. citizens confronted and asked for identification before agents walked away. Agents have also used chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades to disperse crowds.
Federal officers have arrested U.S. citizens accused of disrupting enforcement, chasing down protesters — including one dressed in a giraffe costume — and wrestling them to the ground. The nonprofit World Relief said dozens of legal refugees, including children, were detained over the weekend as part of a Trump administration push to re-vet refugees who entered under Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. Asked about those arrests, DHS pointed to allegations of fraud within Minnesota’s Somali community.
Trump has seized on those accusations, calling Somali immigrants in Minnesota “garbage” whom he wants deported, and has argued that large-scale surges are necessary in Democratic-led cities that, he says, do not cooperate with immigration enforcement. He has threatened to cut federal funding next month for any state that includes sanctuary cities.
As investigations into the latest shooting proceed, city leaders are trying to defuse nightly confrontations while federal authorities press ahead with a crackdown that has transformed winter streets into a contested arena between armed agents and residents demanding they leave.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
