Agents from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) have shot and killed a man in the city of Minneapolis, as confirmed by the city’s Police Department, two weeks after another federal agent killed a woman amid the enormous tension unleashed by their anti-immigration raids.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed the death in statements to the ‘Minnesota Star Tribune’. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, under whose orders ICE acts, have assured Fox News that the man was armed with a gun and two magazines. The state of Minnesota, it should be remembered, allows the possession of firearms, with prior license, and it is even possible to display them on the street.
In fact, ICE agents reportedly ordered Minnesota police officers to leave the scene, but O’Hara refused, according to the newspaper. In addition, he has ordered the agents to guard the place, has canceled all permits and has called all agents to work, except those on the night shift.
Several witnesses to what happened have already been transferred to a state administration headquarters, in the Whipple Building. Agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are already on their way to the scene of the incident amid the beginning of unrest in the area. Meanwhile, ICE agents have responded to the crowd that has begun to gather at the site with tear gas.
“I just spoke with the White House after another horrible shooting by federal agents,” the governor of the state of Minnesota, Tim Walz, has published on his social networks. “Minnesota is fed up. This is disgusting. The president must end this operation. Remove the thousands of violent and untrained officers from Minnesota. Now,” he added.
The Minnesota City Council also initially confirmed that federal agents were involved in a shooting that occurred in the area of West 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue, in the south of the city. “We are working to confirm more details. We ask the population to remain calm and avoid the nearby area,” he also indicated on social media.
Shootings increase
This Friday, thousands of people took to the streets of Minneapolis to denounce abuses committed in recent weeks in ICE operations after another federal agent shot and killed US citizen Renée Nicole Good on January 7. A week later, a Venezuelan citizen was shot in the leg.
The Government led by Donald Trump launched the anti-immigration operation ‘Metro Surge’ last December in Minnesota, which the White House tenant has justified by claiming an increase in crime. “Do Minnesotans really want to live in a community where there are thousands of convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, released and escaped violent prisoners?” he declared. The actions of the agents, such as the death of Good or the arrest of a five-year-old child, have unleashed indignation among the population of the State.
