A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Saturday, local and federal officials said, the second such incident this month during a surge in immigration enforcement in the northern U.S. city that residents and local politicians have fiercely protested.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the Border Patrol agent fired in defense after attempting to disarm a man local police said was a U.S. citizen. Federal officials said the man who was shot approached them with a handgun and two magazines.
“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official leading local operations, said at a press conference. He said his agents had been searching for an immigrant before the shooting. Bovino did not provide details of what led to the shooting, which he said was being investigated.
Tensions are rising between Democratic state and local officials who say the presence of thousands of immigration agents has made the Minneapolis area less safe, and President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders, who accuse Democrats of fanning opposition and failing to protect immigration agents.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the man killed on Saturday was a 37-year-old city resident and a lawful gun owner with no criminal record other than traffic violations. O’Hara did not release the man’s name.
A video circulating on social media and aired on cable news stations showed people wearing masks and tactical vests wrestling with a man on a snow-covered street before shots are heard. In the video, the man falls to the ground, and several more shots are heard.
Video from the area later showed armed and masked agents deploying tear gas on a growing crowd of protesters, who chanted “shame” and called them “traitors.”
Local and state police arrived to face off against the crowd as federal agents left the scene.
O’Hara asked people to avoid the area and said the site of the shooting was a “volatile scene.”
“Please do not destroy our city,” he said.
The nearby Minneapolis Institute of Art said it had closed for the day due to safety concerns.
Hours later, after federal agents appeared to have left the scene, the situation appeared to have calmed, though chanting protesters remained in the area.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for an immediate end to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations in the state.
“How many more residents, how many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” Frey said at a press conference.
The state’s governor and two U.S. senators also called for federal agents to leave.
Trump, who has been briefed on the shooting, according to a White House official, accused local elected officials of stirring up opposition.
“The Mayor and the Governor are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric,” he wrote on social media.
The shooting came one day after more than 10,000 people took to the frigid streets to protest the presence of the 3,000 federal agents who have been ordered to the state by Trump.
Residents have been angered by several incidents, including the killing of U.S. citizen Renee Good, the detention of a U.S. citizen who was taken from his home in his shorts, and the detention of school children, including a 5-year-old boy.
Vice President JD Vance, who visited Minneapolis on Thursday, posted on social media Saturday that ICE agents wanted to work with local law enforcement “so that situations on the ground didn’t get out of hand. The local leadership in Minnesota has so far refused to answer those requests.” (JapanToday)
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