Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the actions of an ICE officer who killed a 37-year-old woman in south Minneapolis Wednesday in the face of criticism from city and state Democratic leaders who rejected the federal narrative.
Noem acknowledged the tragedy of the death, calling it “preventable.” She said in a Wednesday evening news conference at the Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling that she’d spoken with President Donald Trump and Gov. Tim Walz earlier that day. She was flanked by a host of federal law enforcement officers, including U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, as she provided her version of the morning’s events.
An ICE vehicle had become stuck in the snow, Noem said, and officers were attempting to push it out “when a mob of agitators that were harassing them all day began blocking them in shouting at them and impeding law enforcement operations.”
City officials said the shooting occurred in the area of E. 34th Street and Portland Avenue, where hundreds of protesters gathered throughout the day. Several residents told Sahan Journal they witnessed the encounter about 9:30 a.m. Authorities have not publicly identified the woman beyond noting that she was 37.
ICE officers approached a woman in her vehicle, who Noem said “was blocking the officers in with her car.” She said the woman had been “stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day.”
ICE agents ordered her out of the car, telling her to stop obstructing law enforcement, Noem said. “But she refused to obey her commands.”
“She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle, and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over,” Noem said. “This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism.”
She said the officer fired in self-defense, described him as experienced, and said he had previously been rammed with a car and dragged “by an anti-ICE rioter” in June.
Witnesses and local elected officials have hotly disputed the federal government’s version of events. Bystander video footage shows a confrontation between ICE officers on foot and the woman in her car. The woman backed her car up, then moved it slowly forward as ICE agents closed in on her car. During the confrontation, an ICE officer fired at her repeatedly. She then appeared to lose control of the car, ultimately hitting a parked car farther down the block.
Noem said the officer had been hit by the car, treated at a hospital, released, and was now spending time with his family. She did not specify what his injuries were. When asked twice, she declined to specify whether the officer had been hit by the car before or after firing his gun at the woman, and said the FBI would investigate.
The FBI would also determine whether to release any body-camera footage, she said. She repeatedly said that the officer had followed his training.
She asked people to pray both for the ICE officer and for the loved ones of the woman he killed.
Noem said Wednesday’s incident was part of a larger pattern of “domestic terrorist attacks on federal officers by the ramming of vehicles.” Wednesday alone, four of these incidents had occurred nationally, she said, and three of those took place in Minneapolis. She said she’s asking the Department of Justice to prosecute these incidents as domestic terrorism.
Noem stressed that ICE was in Minnesota to root out criminals, including sexual predators and people exploiting children. She blamed the crime on Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey. But she also mentioned fraud.
“This state has faced unprecedented immigration fraud. It’s seen unprecedented benefit fraud,” she said, apparently referring to recent allegations of daycare fraud and the Feeding Our Future case involving the theft of federal funds meant to feed underprivileged children during the COVID pandemic.
While fraud in social service programs has been a growing problem in Minnesota, with dozens of federal indictments and a national firestorm from President Donald Trump and his allies that led Gov. Tim Walz to drop his reelection bid earlier this week, the state has not seen similar allegations of immigration fraud. And most people ICE is arresting in the Twin Cities appear to have no criminal record, according to a Fox 9 analysis.
ICE operations in Minneapolis would not pause in light of the fatal shooting, Noem said.
“We’re still doing our work out on the streets to get dangerous criminals off of the streets of Minneapolis,” she said.
