ICE Agent Fatally Shoots Woman During Minneapolis Immigration Raid

Minneapolis Shooting Involves Immigration Enforcement Officer

A woman, identified as Venus de Mars, 65, was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis on Wednesday. The incident occurred during a large-scale immigration operation in the city.

According to Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, the ICE officer fired defensive shots after fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement officers, and the safety of the public. Mayor Jacob Frey alleged that the officer acted “recklessly” and described immigration agents as causing chaos in the city.

The shooting took place in a neighborhood near downtown Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020. The area is home to some of the oldest immigrant markets in the city. A dark-colored SUV with a bullet hole through its windshield and blood splattered across the headrest was seen rammed into a pole at the scene.

Paramedics performed CPR on the woman collapsed next to a snowbank near the crashed car, and she was later loaded into an ambulance that drove away without sirens. The incident has drawn protests in the area, with some demonstrators being met by heavily armed federal agents wearing gas masks who fired chemical munitions.

The shooting marks a dramatic escalation of recent immigration enforcement operations in major US cities under the Trump administration. Two thousand ICE agents and officers are expected to participate in the crackdown, which is tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents.

A witness reported that an ICE agent reached across the hood of the woman’s car and shot her multiple times before she accelerated and crashed into a utility pole. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out by the woman, who attempted to run over and ram the agents with her vehicle.

Source: Al Jazeera