Thousands of people marched in Minneapolis on Saturday to protest the fatal shooting of a woman by a federal immigration officer, as hundreds of similar demonstrations unfolded in cities and towns across the country. The protest came in a city on edge since the killing of Renee Good, 37, on Wednesday by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, and after the shooting of two people — who were not protesters, AP later corrected — in Portland, Oregon, on the same day.
MSI earlier Saturday reported on the scale of the nationwide demonstrations that followed the shootings. Minnesota leaders urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.
“We’re all living in fear right now,” said Meghan Moore, a mother of two from Minneapolis who joined the protest. “ICE is creating an environment where nobody feels safe and that’s unacceptable.”
The demonstration began in a park about half a mile from the residential neighborhood where Good was shot on Wednesday. A coalition of migrant rights groups organized the march. Protesters, including children, braved subfreezing temperatures and a light dusting of snow, carrying handmade signs declaring “De-ICE Minnesota!” and “ICE melts in Minnesota.”
On Friday night, a protest outside a Minneapolis hotel that drew about 1,000 people turned violent. Demonstrators threw ice, snow and rocks at officers, and one officer suffered minor injuries after being struck with a piece of ice, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. Twenty-nine people were cited and released, he said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stressed that while most protests have been peaceful, those who cause damage to property or put others in danger will be arrested. He faulted “agitators that are trying to rile up large crowds.”
“This is what Donald Trump wants,” Frey said of the president, who has demanded massive immigration enforcement efforts in several U.S. cities. “He wants us to take the bait.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz echoed the call for peace.
“Trump sent thousands of armed federal officers into our state, and it took just one day for them to kill someone,” Walz said on social media. “Now he wants nothing more than to see chaos distract from that horrific action. Don’t give him what he wants.”
“We will fight with peaceful expression, in court, through public debate, and at the ballot box. Keep the peace. And keep the faith,” Walz said later in another post.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities is its largest immigration enforcement operation ever, with more than 2,000 officers taking part. Trump’s administration said both shootings were acts of self-defense against drivers who “weaponized” their vehicles to attack officers.
Connor Maloney said he was attending the Minneapolis protest to support his community and because he’s frustrated with the immigration crackdown.
“Almost daily I see them harassing people,” he said. “It’s just sickening that it’s happening in our community around us.”
Steven Eubanks, 51, said he felt compelled to attend a protest in Durham, North Carolina, because of the “horrifying” killing in Minneapolis.
“We can’t allow it,” Eubanks said. “We have to stand up.”
Indivisible, a social movement organization that formed to resist the Trump administration, said hundreds of protests were scheduled in Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida and other states.
Federal enforcement activity continued Saturday during the protest. An Associated Press photographer witnessed heavily armed officers — at least one in Border Patrol uniform — approach a person who had been following them. Two of the agents had long guns out when they ordered the person to stop, telling him it was his “first and final warning.” The agents eventually drove onto the interstate without detaining the driver.
In Richfield, a suburb of Minneapolis, federal agents with their faces covered pointed their fingers at journalists and warned them to stay away as they detained a man outside a home improvement store.
O’Hara said city police officers have responded to calls about cars abandoned because their drivers have been apprehended by immigration enforcement. In one case, a car was left in park and a dog was left inside another. He said immigration enforcement activities are happening “all over the city” and that 911 callers have been alerting authorities to ICE activity, arrests and abandoned vehicles.
Three congresswomen from Minnesota — U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig — attempted to tour the ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building Saturday morning. They were initially allowed to enter but then told to leave about 10 minutes later. They accused ICE agents of obstructing members of Congress from fulfilling their duty to oversee operations there. A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing policies that limit congressional visits to immigration facilities, stemming from a lawsuit filed by 12 members of Congress.
The next day, MSI reported that federal agents rammed a Minneapolis door and pepper-sprayed protesters in the continuing enforcement operation, as protests remained ongoing across the region.