Masked federal agents on the scene near where a federal officer shot a Minnesotan for the third time in as many weeks. (Photo by Madison McVan/Minnesota Reformer)
Federal immigration officers shot a third person in Minneapolis in as many weeks, according to video posted to social media and confirmed in a post by Gov. Tim Walz.
“I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening.”
A reporter with Bring Me The News was on the scene and said the man appeared unconscious on the ground, and first responders were doing chest compressions. The Star Tribune reported Saturday that the man died, citing Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara. He has not been publicly identified by the police.
Law enforcement blocked off the streets and deployed tear gas to dissuade angry demonstrators from going near the site of the shooting, which was around 26th Street West and Nicollet Avenue. Over 100 federal agents were on the scene after the shooting.
In the graphic video now circulating on social media, five federal agents appear to wrestle the man to the ground in front of the New American Development Center. One of the agents hits the man three times with what appears to be a firearm. Bystanders are surrounding the group and filming on their cell phones.
Over 10 shots can be heard in the video, but it’s unclear if more than one agent fired a weapon.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post that officers were conducting a “targeted operation in Minneapolis against a someone “wanted for violent assault,” when someone approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm handgun.
“The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots. Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene.”
DHS statements about the previous shootings have later been found to be false. In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Renee Good, DHS referred to her as a “domestic terrorist.”
A 911 call after the second shooting suggests that the agent shot at the man as he was trying to escape into a house, which would contradict the Department of Homeland Security account that the federal immigration agent fired a shot defensively.
As Stateline recently reported, DHS recently revised its account of a December shooting in Glen Burnie, Maryland, after local police contradicted its initial version. DHS first claimed both men injured in the incident were inside a van that ICE officers fired at in self-defense, but later said that one of the injured men had already been arrested and was in custody inside an ICE vehicle when he was hurt. The other man was shot twice and is facing two federal criminal charges.
In August, federal immigration agents fired at a family’s vehicle three times in San Bernardino, California. DHS maintained the shooting was justified after at least two agents were struck by the vehicle, but available footage shows an agent breaking the driver-side window moments before gunfire erupted. Surveillance footage from the street does not show agents being struck by the vehicle.
The Saturday shooting comes one day after tens of thousands of people protested ICE in downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures.