Minneapolis schools cancel classes after ICE officer’s fatal shooting of woman

Authorities in Minneapolis canceled school classes across the city on Thursday amid safety concerns and rising political tension following the killing of a US citizen by a federal agent during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation.

A demonstration attended by thousands on Wednesday night went peacefully after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, 37, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) officer hours earlier.

But emotions remained high as the Trump administration continued to portray the victim, who was shot multiple times as she drove away from a group of officers, as a “domestic terrorist” bent on running them over.

“Trump wants a show. Don’t give it to him,” Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, posted on X Wednesday night, urging protesters to remain calm. He said he had issued a “warning order” for possible deployment of the Minnesota national guard.

Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, made several appearances on television networks Wednesday night calling for peaceful protests and doubling down on his comments at a press conference earlier in the day in which he called for ICE “to get the fuck out of Minneapolis”.

“People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart. Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our economy are being terrorized, and now, somebody is dead,” Frey said.

He said the homeland security department was already “trying to spin this as an action of self-defense”, a claim he said was “bullshit”.

Some Republicans seized on Frey’s comments as incendiary, with Nancy Mace, a South Carolina congresswoman, calling for the resignation of the mayor and Walz.

Yet much of the political rhetoric continued to come from the White House, with Donald Trump telling reporters from the New York Times on Wednesday night that Macklin Good, a mother of a six-year-old son, was at fault.

“She behaved horribly,” said Trump, who posted to Truth Social earlier in the day without evidence that “viciously ran over the ICE Officer”.

“And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over,” the president said.

Video of the confrontation, however, showed the agent remaining on his feet and walking away apparently uninjured after the woman’s car had crashed into a lamppost and a parked vehicle.

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said the woman had been “stalking” the ICE agents and blocking traffic, another claim not supported by the video, which showed her initially reversing and allowing at least one ICE vehicle to pass.

Noem also stated that ICE operations would continue in Minneapolis, which saw a surge of about 2,000 federal agents this week to target immigrant populations.

Residents in the city, which has a large Somali population, described the mood as “on edge and angry” on Thursday, with more demonstrations planned for later in the day.

Anti-ICE protests took place in a number of US cities on Wednesday after news of the incident spread, and more are scheduled for Thursday, including in New York, Houston and San Diego.