Disputes between Minnesota officials and the Trump administration intensified Thursday over a federal agent’s fatal shooting of a woman, after the state withdrew from the investigation into the incident because federal officials had denied it access to evidence.
The death of Renee Nicole Good, 37, prompted furious demonstrations, and protesters were met with tear gas at a federal building Thursday morning. Documents obtained by The New York Times suggested that at least 100 more federal agents were being deployed to Minnesota. And Gov. Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard “out of an abundance of caution,” according to his office, though the troops have not yet been deployed.
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said in an interview on Thursday that the Trump administration would use any chaos as an opportunity to “occupy Minneapolis in some form.”
“Our community members are not taking the bait,” he said.
Officials have described the killing of Ms. Good in starkly different terms. She was killed on Wednesday during a protest on a residential street as federal agents ordered her to move her vehicle.
Administration officials, including President Trump, defended the shooting as lawful, saying that the agent who fired was acting in self-defense. City and state officials described those accounts as “propaganda” and “garbage.”
A video analysis shows that the woman’s vehicle appeared to be turning away from the officer as he opened fire.
State officials initially said they would investigate the killing. But Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said on Thursday that the agency had withdrawn because it had been denied access to evidence.
Mr. Walz said at a news conference on Thursday that “Minnesota must be part of this investigation.”
“I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment,” Mr. Walz added. He said that some of the federal government’s statements regarding the circumstances of the shooting had been “verifiably false.”
At a news conference in New York City on Thursday, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said that Minnesota and Minneapolis officials had failed to maintain order.
“They have not been cut out,” Ms. Noem told a reporter who had asked about state investigators. “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.”
Cindy Burnham, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. office in the Minneapolis area, declined to comment.
At a White House press briefing, Vice President JD Vance doubled down on claims about the shooting, calling news reporters “agents of propaganda of a radical fringe” for reports indicating that Ms. Good never put the ICE agent in danger before she was shot.
Last year, the federal agent who shot Ms. Good, identified as Jonathan Ross, was dragged about 100 yards by a different driver during an immigration operation in Minnesota, interviews and court records show. He and other agents had been trying to apprehend a Guatemalan man who had been convicted of sexual abuse. Mr. Ross was treated for a gash on his forearm that required 20 stitches after the episode, for which the driver was convicted of assault last month.
On social media, Attorney General Pam Bondi warned protesters in Minnesota not to cross a “red line” into obstructing, impeding or attacking federal law enforcement.
The Department of Homeland Security defended its work in Minnesota on Thursday, pointing to recent arrests of men who they said were in the country illegally and had been convicted of crimes.
“In the face of violent attacks, ICE law enforcement arrested pedophiles, rapists and drug traffickers in Minneapolis yesterday,” Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement. Operation Metro Surge, as the department calls it, has resulted in the arrests of more than 1,500 people in Minnesota, she said.
Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement action in Minneapolis have occurred for weeks, but Ms. Good’s killing ratcheted up the tension. Demonstrators gathered Thursday at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building just outside the city, the home of local ICE headquarters. By 9 a.m., federal agents had pushed protesters across the street after deploying tear gas.
The building also houses an immigration court, which was closed on Thursday. Public schools were also closed across the city, and will remain so on Friday, because of “safety concerns” related to “incidents around the city,” school officials said in a statement.
Many local and state leaders had been warning for weeks that the surge of immigration enforcement work was bound to stoke chaos. Mr. Walz put the blame squarely on Mr. Trump and Ms. Noem, asking them to pull back federal agents and declaring at a Wednesday news conference, “You’ve done enough.”
Now, more federal agents are on the way. The additional 100 federal agents the Trump administration plans to deploy are Customs and Border Protection officials who will travel to Minnesota from Chicago and New Orleans.
The Department of Homeland Security plans to pause operations in Chicago to support the operation in Minnesota.
The deployment of additional Border Patrol agents is expected to last through the weekend, with a planned return to their cities on Sunday. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the plans.
On Thursday, Mr. Walz put Minnesota National Guard troops on active duty, after placing placed them on standby the day before. He indicated that while the troops would be “staged” and ready to help local law enforcement officers, there were no immediate plans to deploy them on the streets. The governor also issued a proclamation declaring Friday as a “Day of Unity” in honor of Ms. Good. He encouraged residents to observe a moment of silence and to participate in “acts of service.”
Tensions between federal and Minnesota officials have been exacerbated by a fraud scheme that siphoned money from social service programs in the Minneapolis area. The president has unleashed xenophobic tirades and made repeated, derisive comments about members of Minnesota’s large Somali diaspora, whose members make up a majority of the fraud defendants.
The shooting on Wednesday happened on Portland Avenue, less than a mile away from the spot where George Floyd was killed by the police in 2020, prompting angry protests and tearful vigils late into the night.
Mr. Frey said on Thursday that there were no major public safety incidents in Minneapolis overnight, and that local officials were still monitoring demonstrations.
The city’s priorities, he said, were “keeping people safe” and then “getting ICE out of here.”
Hamed Aleaziz, Devlin Barrett, Jamie Kelter Davis, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Madeleine Ngo contributed reporting.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports for The Times on national stories across the United States with a focus on criminal justice.
The post More Agents Head to Minnesota as U.S. Takes Over Shooting Investigation appeared first on New York Times.
