Woman Shot And Killed By ICE During Crackdown In Minneapolis
2 Days After DHS Began Deploying 2K ICE Agents To Minneapolis, A Woman Has Been Shot And Killed
Not two full days have gone by since it was reported that the Trump administration had begun deploying some 2,000 federal agents, including ICE agents, to Minneapolis, escalating his immigration crackdown in the city in what is also purported to be the Trump administration’s response to the fraud scandal in Minnesota — and already, someone has been shot and killed.
According to NBC News, a woman has died after being shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Wednesday morning, and while the victim hasn’t even been publicly identified yet, the Department of Homeland Security would like the public to know that the agent did nothing but follow his “training,” that the woman caused her own death, and that she was among violent protesters trying to stop noble officers of the law from ridding the U.S. of “criminal illegal aliens.”
It’s the same old rinse-and-repeat script.
From NBC:
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday after a group of people began blocking agents during an immigration-related operation, the Department of Homeland Security said.
ICE agents were conducting targeted operations in the city when a woman allegedly “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them,” Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
The agent fired what McLaughlin said were “defensive shots” and killed the woman.
“He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers,” she said.
Video footage from NBC affiliate KARE 11 of Minneapolis showed a burgundy SUV with a bullet hole in the windshield. The vehicle had crashed into a light pole. It’s not clear to whom the SUV belongs.
After the shooting, residents and locals gathered in the street, chanting and throwing snowballs in the direction of federal agents, KARE reported. Law enforcement deployed pepper spray and tear gas.
As usual, witnesses are telling a different story from DHS’s.
According to MPR News, Emily Heller, who lives near 33rd and Portland, near where the shooting took place, said she woke up to a commotion outside her home, and saw a car blocking traffic on Portland Avenue, and heard ICE agents shouting at the woman to “get out of here.”
“She was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in — like, his midriff was on her bumper — and he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times,” Heller said.
The last time there was a high-profile case involving a woman who was shot by an immigration agent, and who DHS claimed weaponized her vehicle against said agent, the accused was 30-year-old Marimar Martinez of Chicago.
The government claimed last year that Martinez was part of a “convoy” of anti-ICE protestors, who used her SUV to trail and then box in an ICE agent who was in the midst of conducting an operation. The government claimed Martinez was armed when she suffered non-fatal bullet wounds after being shot by the agent, but witnesses, video footage, 911 dispatch audio, and court records confirmed her pistol, which she was licensed to carry, never left her purse. Last November, a federal judge blasted Border Patrol and the DHS over numerous “discrepancies” regarding the government’s account of events and its mishandling of key evidence. Weeks later, the judge dismissed the charges against Martinez altogether. Around the same time, a different federal judge released a trove of videos that prove Border Patrol agents and their DHS handlers have been lying about being attacked by protesters in Chicago.
Anyway, back to Minneapolis.
MPR reported that it contacted DHS and ICE to confirm the number of agents being deployed to Minnesota, and that DHS responded with a statement from McLaughlin, saying, “While for the safety of our officers we do not get into law enforcement footprint, DHS has surged law enforcement and has already made more than 1,000 arrests of murderers, rapists, pedophiles and gang members.”
Sure, Jan.
Since the start of the Trump administration’s cross-country mass deportation agenda, DHS has repeatedly claimed it is targeting the “worst of the worst” criminals among undocumented migrants, yet the government’s own data consistently shows the overwhelming majority of detainees and deportees had no prior criminal record at all. Also, independent investigations and DHS’s own documents have indicated that immigration agents are largely arresting or even targeting the violent gang members and criminals the government claims to be saving America from.
So, the real question is this: How long is America going to stand for masked, government-sanctioned vigilantes masquerading as our protectors, who continue to commit violence and human rights violations against civilians, both U.S. citizens and non-citizens, while the federal government backs their lies in furtherance of its own agenda? How much recorded evidence of violent and volatile agents physically harming protesters, media personnel, and random citizens do we need to collect, while the government provides little to no evidence of these violent criminals they claim to be arresting en masse? How long are we going to stand for these people, who keep their identities concealed, abducting people almost indiscriminately, often without proper warrants?
“The presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement regarding Wednesday’s shooting, and echoing the sentiments expressed by the city and state leaders in other areas where immigration raids have been ramped up. “We’re demanding ICE to leave the city immediately. We stand rock solid with our immigrant and refugee communities.”
The federal government has given us no reason to believe its story regarding the killing in Minneapolis, or any other government account of violence during their operations.
Sometimes you just know who the true villains in a story are.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Sends 2,000 ICE Agents In Minnesota Immigration ‘Crackdown’
