A federal officer shot a man in the leg on Wednesday night in Minneapolis amid an intensifying federal crackdown on protests in the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The shooting happened as federal law enforcement officers were conducting a “targeted” traffic stop at around 6:50 p.m. CT (7:50 p.m. ET), according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. It occurred in the 600 block of 24th Avenue North, according to the City of Minneapolis.
“There is still a lot that we don’t know at this time, but what I can tell you for certain is that this is not sustainable,” Mayor Jacob Frey said at a press conference on Wednesday night. “We have ICE agents throughout our city and throughout our state who along with Border Patrol are creating chaos.”
Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara called for residents to remain calm and not to engage with federal officers.
DHS said the man shot was a Venezuelan national who entered the U.S. without documentation. During the traffic stop, the man attempted to evade arrest, fleeing the scene in his vehicle and crashing into a parked car, before fleeing on foot, according to DHS. The agency said that when officers tried to apprehend the man, he “began to resist and violently assault the officer.” The incident escalated when two other people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer with a snow shovel and broom handle, DHS said.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired defensive shots to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” DHS said. “All three subjects ran back into the apartment and barricaded themselves inside.”
DHS said the victim of the shooting and the officer are currently in the hospital, and that the two people who attacked the officer are in custody. O’Hara confirmed that the person who was shot has been transported to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
“No matter what led up to this incident, the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable,” Frey posted on X.
In a video posted on social media and shared by State Senator Erin Maye Quade, members of a family, including at least two young children, pleaded for help in Spanish over a call with 911 dispatchers. “They were chasing my husband for about half an hour,” a woman in the video said. “They were trying to crash into him and he got to the house, and since we closed the door on them, they shot him.”
The Trump Administration has repeatedly used self-defense as justification for violence committed by federal agents, including in the fatal shooting of Good and the shooting of two people in Portland, Ore. last week. Footage of Good’s killing, however, has contradicted the federal government’s narrative, appearing to show Good turning her vehicle away from the officer before he opened fire.
Legal experts have told TIME that at least some of the behavior exhibited by agents has gone against DHS standards. “In general, use of force has to be a last resort,” Michele Garnett McKenzie, executive director of The Advocates for Human Rights and an expert in immigration law, told TIME. “It has to be proportionate. It should not be as somebody is fleeing ever, especially if they’re a fleeing suspect of a not serious crime, like sitting in a car.”
President Donald Trump told Reuters on Wednesday that the ICE agent who shot Good was in a “tough situation” and that “There was very little respect shown to the police, in this case, the ICE officers.” An F.B.I. inquiry into the killing of Good is reportedly looking into any possible ties between her and activist groups protesting the Trump Administration. At least six federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota resigned after they felt they were pressured by Justice Department leadership to investigate Good’s possible activist ties.
Public anger met with violence
The shooting of Good last week has led to demands for an end to the Trump Administration’s escalating immigration crackdown and to calls for justice, including the prosecution of the agent who shot and killed her.
“The City of Minneapolis again demands that ICE leave the city and state immediately. We stand by our immigrant and refugee communities – know that you have our full support,” the City said in a statement.
Minnesota filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump officials on Monday, seeking to block the surge of federal immigration agents into the state, as well as a ban on federal officers threatening to use force and brandishing weapons against people not subject to an immigration arrest. Minnesota Judge Kate M. Menendez put off ruling on the restraining order request and instead set timelines for the state and federal governments to provide more information.
Illinois, which has also been the site of heightened federal immigration enforcement, also sued Noem and other Trump officials, arguing that Border Patrol and ICE agents “have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law.”
“Military-trained personnel, carrying semi-automatic firearms and military-grade weaponry, have rampaged for months through Chicago and surrounding areas, lawlessly stopping, interrogating, and arresting residents, and attacking them with chemical weapons,” the lawsuit reads.
Lawyers for Good’s family said they are launching an investigation into the shooting and that they plan to take legal action against the federal government. Legal experts previously told TIME that the avenues for states and victims to seek legal accountability from federal agents have narrowed over the years. But if a federal agent is convicted of state crimes, Trump will not be able to pardon them.
Read More: Federal Officers Don’t Have ‘Absolute Immunity’ but Prosecution Isn’t Easy
People in Minneapolis have also taken to the streets in protest of the federal government’s actions. The Trump Administration has cracked down on demonstrations with more violence. Federal agents have launched less lethal munitions, including pepper balls, tear gas, pepper spray, and flashbangs at protesters, according to CNN.
On Tuesday, Trump promised Minnesota that “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”
A crowd of people gathered at the scene to protest the shooting, according to O’Hara. He said the gathering had become “unlawful” with people throwing fireworks and other objects at police officers.
DHS accused Minnesotan officials of “actively encouraging an organized resistance to ICE and federal law enforcement officers. Their hateful rhetoric and resistance against men and women who are simply trying to do their jobs must end.”
Both Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told protesters Wednesday night to disperse.
“I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” Walz posted on X. “But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
In a video address shared to social media earlier this evening, Walz said Minnesotans “have an absolute right to peacefully film ICE agents as they conduct these activities. … Help us create a database of atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”
“I am inspired by the tens of thousands of people who have in fact peacefully protested and fairly documented with transparency what is taking place,” Frey said at the press conference.
Across the nation, last week’s shootings by federal agents have been met with outrage, including from vocal Trump supporters like podcaster Joe Rogan who said in a Tuesday episode, “Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
“If ICE officers use deadly force in ways that appear publicly indefensible, the Trump Administration could face significant operational and political problems that could change nearly everything about their ‘signature’ policies concerning immigration and federal law enforcement,” Craig Green, a professor of law and government at Temple University, told TIME after the Portland shooting.
“Armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live,” Walz said in his address. “At grocery stores, at bus stops, even at our schools, they’re breaking windows, dragging pregnant women down the street, just plain grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked vans, kidnapping innocent people with no warning and no due process.”
“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Walz added. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
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