Minnesota, US Officials Clash Over ICE Shooting Investigation

The investigation into the killing of a US citizen by an ICE agent in Minneapolis this week is being complicated by clashes between federal and local officials, with the FBI taking control over the objections of Governor Tim Walz.

State authorities questioned whether a federal probe could be trusted, especially given comments by Trump administration officials that seemed to exonerate the officer. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said that after it was invited to participate in the probe of Wednesday’s shooting, federal officials later decided the state wouldn’t get access to evidence or interviews.

“Now that Minnesota has been taken out of the investigation, it feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome,” Walz said at a press conference Thursday.

As tense protests continued for a second day, Walz said he ordered the state National Guard to be “staged and ready” to assist with protecting infrastructure and aiding local law enforcement if needed.

It’s unusual for federal law enforcement officials to take sole control of an investigation in which both state and federal laws may have been violated. Federal agents typically conduct joint probes with state and local law enforcement and cooperate in the sharing of evidence, as was initially the case in the Minneapolis shooting before the FBI changed course.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in New York that Minnesota doesn’t have jurisdiction over the investigation. She portrayed Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old US citizen who was killed by an ICE agent on Wednesday, as a domestic terrorist — and said the officer who shot her was acting in line with established protocols.

“This is an experienced officer who followed his training, and we will continue to let the investigation unfold,” Noem said. “These individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in. They were impeding our law-enforcement operations, which is against the law.”

She said the agent who shot Good was treated at a hospital and released, and was now spending time with his family. The Minnesota Star Tribune identified him as Jonathan Ross. Court records show that the same agent was previously injured during an arrest in June in which he was dragged by a vehicle for 100 yards.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance defended the decision to cut out Minnesota officials from the investigation.

“The precedent here is very simple,” he told reporters in Washington. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue.”

He added that the agent who fired the deadly shot “is protected by absolute immunity” because he was doing his job. Vance said it would be understandable that the agent was “a little bit sensitive” about being struck by a vehicle after suffering an injury during an operation last year that resulted in 33 stitches to his leg.

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy, while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making,” Vance said.

The decision to freeze out state investigators is all the more unusual because the potential culprit in the shooting is an employee of the federal government, and high-profile government officials appear to have already reached a conclusion about what happened and who is at fault. Such conclusions typically aren’t asserted publicly until the end of an investigation, which can take months.

Generally, states can prosecute federal officials when they violate state criminal laws, according to Bryna Godar, a staff attorney for the University of Wisconsin State Democracy Research Initiative.

“Whether or not that will succeed in going to trial depends on immunity and depends on whether the federal officer was acting in a way that was authorized by federal law,” she said. “In other words, were they acting reasonably in what they did?”

On the other side of the country, federal agents were involved in a separate shooting incident on Thursday in Portland, Oregon, where two people were wounded and are in hospital, according to the local police.

“We are still in the early stages of this incident,” Portland Police Chief Bob Day said in a statement. “We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more.”

As ICE said that immigration enforcement efforts were continuing in the Twin Cities, protests flared Thursday, with tense standoffs between demonstrators and federal agents. The Minneapolis public school system canceled classes for the rest of the week.

Vance also assailed Walz for poor management in Minnesota, suggesting that he was among politicians who have let US taxpayers be “taken advantage of.” Walz announced earlier this week that he wouldn’t seek reelection as Republicans intensified attacks over allegations of large-scale fraud in the state’s welfare system.

Starkly opposed views about what happened Wednesday reflected bitter divisions within the US over President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and the way they’ve been conducted, with many progressives portraying what happened as clearly unjustified even as a chorus of conservatives argued the opposite. Both sides cited the same videos that showed the encounter from different angles.

Trump on Wednesday accused the woman of running over the ICE officer. But New York Times reporters who were in the Oval Office for an interview showed a slow-motion surveillance video of the shooting to Trump and pointed out that it didn’t appear to show that, the paper said. As the video ended, Trump replied, “it’s a terrible scene,” adding “I hate to see it,” the newspaper reported.

In the Twin Cities on Thursday, several dozen demonstrators were outnumbered by federal agents as the two sides lined up outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, a site near the airport that ICE has used as a staging ground. CNN showed at least a few people being hauled away by officers. Several agents and protesters were wearing gas masks; CNN reported agents used pepper balls earlier.

Greg Bovino, a Border Patrol commander who has become the public face of many operations, was on site at the protest.

Federal agents began arriving in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area in early December under what ICE called “Operation Metro Surge.” The Trump administration said this week the effort will involve as many as 2,000 federal agents, and it’s already resulted in at least 1,500 arrests.

The deadly shooting unfolded in a residential area of Minneapolis about three miles south of downtown.

The footage showed a Honda Pilot blocking part of the road as two federal agents approached. As one of them tried to open the door, the SUV backed up slightly. A third agent then appeared in front of the automobile, and he fired at the driver as the car began to turn and move forward. The vehicle briefly continued to move ahead before crashing.

Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, said in an interview with CBS News that he would withhold making a judgment call on the shooting until more information is known.

“Let the investigation play out,” Homan said, according to CBS, “and hold people accountable based on the investigation.”