The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has taken over the case of the fatal shooting of a woman by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, amid growing tensions over the incident across the state.
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement that the BCA would no longer be involved in the investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, 37, a mother of three who was shot dead by a federal agent in her car on Wednesday.
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“The investigation would now be led solely by the FBI, and the BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation,” Evans said on Thursday.
He added that while it had previously been agreed that the BCA would investigate the shooting, the US attorney’s office changed that.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Democratic attorney general, told CNN the FBI’s decision was “deeply disturbing.”
According to Ellison, state authorities could investigate with or without the cooperation of the federal government, adding that with the evidence he has seen so far, not all of which has been made public, state charges were a possibility.
According to the Washington Post, Good leaves behind her 15-year-old daughter and two sons, aged 12 and six.
State and federal officials have offered starkly different accounts of the shooting, in which an unidentified ICE agent shot Good, a US citizen, in a residential neighbourhood.
The ICE agent who shot Good was among 2,000 federal officers who President Donald Trump’s administration had announced it was deploying to the Minneapolis area in what the US Department of Homeland Security described as the “largest DHS operation ever.”
DHS officials, including the agency’s Secretary Kristi Noem, defended the shooting as self-defence and accused the woman of trying to ram agents in an act of “domestic terrorism.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, called that assertion “bulls***” and “garbage” based on bystander videos taken of the incident that appeared to contradict the government’s account.
Videos of the incident taken by bystanders and shared online appeared to show two masked officers approaching Good’s car, which was stopped on a Minneapolis street. As one officer ordered Good out of the car and grabbed at her door handle, the car briefly reversed and then began driving forward, turning to the right in an apparent attempt to leave the scene.
A third officer, who had been filming the scene before walking to the front of Good’s car, drew his gun and fired three times while jumping back, with the last shots aimed through the driver’s window after the car’s bumper appeared to have passed by his body.
The video did not appear to show contact, and the officer stayed on his feet, though Noem said he was taken to a hospital and released. Trump said on social media that the woman “ran over the ICE Officer”.
Uproar
In the wake of Good’s killing, protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis to condemn the ICE agent’s actions and the wider ICE presence in the city, which has been met with frequent demonstrations.
On Thursday morning, about 1,000 demonstrators were at a federal building where an immigration court is housed, chanting “shame” and “murder” at armed and masked federal officers.
At least one protester was detained as federal officers armed with PepperBall guns and tear gas stood off with a large crowd of demonstrators, according to the AFP news agency.
Protests have taken place and are planned in New York City, Seattle, Detroit, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Chicago.
Demonstrations are also scheduled in smaller cities in Arizona, North Carolina, and New Hampshire later this week.
