ICE Shooting in Minneapolis Creates Tense Environment

On the morning of 7 January, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Macklin Good in a residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The incident sparked a wave of protests that continue to unfold. We will update this story as needed. 

The Incident and Its Aftermath

A bystander captured widely seen video of the incident and shared it with a local Minnesota journalist. The interpretation of what the video shows, however, has become a hotly contested political issue between the Trump administration and state and local officials.

The video begins with imagery showing an ICE agent walking around a stopped vehicle, Macklin Good's Honda Pilot, in a Minneapolis street. Another vehicle then drives up to the Honda Pilot and more ICE agents get out of it. One of the agents orders Macklin Good to exit her vehicle, and when she does not immediately comply, the agent then approaches the driver's side door and attempts to open it. At the same time, the ICE agent that walked around the Honda Pilot takes a position several feet in front of the vehicle on the driver's side.

Macklin Good then reverses the vehicle, the ICE agent near the front of the vehicle grabs his service firearm, the vehicle moves forward and begins to turn away from the officer. The officer fires one shot into the windshield of the vehicle, then two more into the driver's side window. The vehicle then accelerates for a short period before crashing into a parked car on the street. Macklin Good died from her injuries sustained in the incident. 

In a press briefing later on Wednesday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the driver attempted to ram the officers and the officer acted defensively to protect himself and others, calling Macklin Good’s actions an “act of terrorism.” U.S. President Donald Trump echoed those statements on his Truth Social account and in an interview with The New York Times, adding that the officer had been rammed by Macklin Good. In the original video, another ICE agent is blocking the point of view which could show if Macklin Good's vehicle made contact with the other ICE agent. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that additional video of the incident may show contact and that the ICE agent was treated at a local hospital. 

Reviewing the same footage, however, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey disputed Noem and Trump’s assessment, saying their account was “garbage” and “propaganda” while calling for the administration to cease all ICE enforcement actions in the city.

A crowd of protestors on the street where Macklin Good was killed grew to more than 1,000 people Wednesday night. The protests unfolded without much incident and wound down during the evening. Dozens of protesters gathered at various sites around the United States Wednesday night as well, including in Boston, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, DC.

Ongoing Protests

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said in a press conference on Wednesday that he was prepared to call up the Minnesota National Guard to take protective actions if needed.

“I want Minnesotans to hear this form me: The desire to get out in the protest and to speak up to this administration of how wrong this is, that is a patriotic duty at this point in time, but it needs to be done safely,” he said. “I feel your anger. I am angry. They want a show; we can’t give it to them.”

Minneapolis closed schools for the rest of the week out of caution.

Prior to sunrise on Thursday, people were gathering to protest at the federal building in Minneapolis. Minor altercations ensured when protesters tried to block vehicles from exiting the building’s parking area. Dozens of ICE agents deployed less-lethal methods, including pepper spray, to disperse the crowd and allow egress from the parking lot as demonstrators chanted for ICE to leave.

In nearby St. Paul, Minnesota, authorities fired pepper balls toward a crowd of protesters when the protesters tried to prevent the authorities from arresting a man in the middle of the crowd.

New York City is preparing for protests on Thursday in Foley Square, as Noem is scheduled to hold a new conference at the city’s ICE headquarters.

Background

Prior to the shooting on 7 January, the Trump administration had prepared to deploy as many as 2,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis area in what ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons described as the “largest immigration operation ever.”

The action mirrors immigration enforcement efforts in other U.S. cities earlier this year. The decision to target Minneapolis came after a social media video published in late December 2025 alleged massive fraud involving childcare and the region’s large Somali population. The video was the latest scrutiny of a large fraud investigation that Minnesota and federal officials have been looking into since 2022. 

As the news of the fraud garnered national attention last month, Trump called people from Somalia “garbage,” said they “contribute nothing,” and that he doesn’t “want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you, their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks.”

Walz announced he would not run for reelection as a result of the scandal, and the Trump administration prepared to deploy ICE agents and Homeland Security Investigations personnel to Minneapolis to carry out immigration enforcement and fraud investigations.

Even prior to the shooting, there was been much acrimony between Trump and Walz, who ran against the president as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate in the 2024 election. Trump described Walz as “whacked out,” and Walz criticized the surge by calling the ICE actions, “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.”

For more guidance for security professionals, check out the ASIS International resource page on mass protests and civil unrest.