Minneapolis shooting: US on edge after woman killed by ICE agent – The Latest

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0:29The End an action of self-defense. That is bullshit. I felt that sort of tinderbox feeling in Chicago. I felt it in New Orleans, and it's very evident to me that that's what's going on in Minneapolis. I've obviously been extremely vocal in opposing ICE's presence in the city in the first place. And I have a message for ICE. Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. The US is on edge after the shooting of a mother of three by ICE agents in Minneapolis. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Half.

1:02Joining me is Oliver Laughland, The Guardian's US Southern Bureau Chief. Thanks so much for coming into the studio, Ollie. So this is really, really shocking and a harrowing footage that dropped yesterday, didn't it? It's a woman driving an SUV in the city of Minneapolis who is shot by ICE agents. Talk me through exactly what we see in this footage. Yeah, so it's another one of these videos that come out sporadically in America depicting an officer-involved killing. Renee Good is a resident of the city. It happens very quickly, as it often does. And we see her in a parked SUV. She is shouted at by some ICE agents, given commands to let them into the vehicle or move.

1:44She reverses the vehicle and then drives forward. There are three agents surrounding the vehicle. One of them opens fire, fires three shots, and she's shot and killed. And there are eyewitnesses, aren't there? There's someone who films every second of this and is crying out. in kind of despair and shock at what's happened. The victim, as you say, a 37-year-old mother of three, her name is Renee Nicole Mackling-Good. She's a US citizen who'd recently moved, tragically, to the city with her kids. But there are very different versions, according to which side you're talking to, about what happened, right?

2:17Sure. So, you know, it's not uncommon in the immediate aftermath of an office-involved shooting to hear kind of conflicting accounts about what occurs. And in rare instances where you have the video, you were able to test the claims that are being made by authorities. And so what the Trump administration has claimed, and this is the Department of Homeland Security that are responsible for ICE, claimed, basically labelled her a domestic terrorist and said that she was attempting to ram the officers and drive away. I think when you look at that video, it seems to me that somebody is just trying to move their car and, you know, is being shouted at.

2:48There may have been some confusion. I think the label of domestic terrorism is just quite extraordinary. And as I say, it's very common in these situations to get conflicting accounts. What is not that common is to hear the sort of rhetoric and hyperbole that we're kind of used to now with the Trump administration. Yeah, and the Trump line being that this is an act of self-defence, but that has been roundly and wholeheartedly dismissed by local authorities in the city of Minneapolis, right? Talk me through that because the language there is equally strong, right? Minneapolis is a democratic stronghold in a democratic state.

3:21You know, you have the mayor there who's been in office for many, many years, was in office when the last time Minneapolis went through a spate of protracted unrest in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. We have the same state attorney general, Keith Ellison, the same governor, Tim Walls. And I think the contrast in which they've spoken about this kind of speak volumes. This is a progressive city that has kind of different values around law enforcement, how law enforcement should be trained, have obviously been extremely vocal in opposing ISIS presence in the city in the first place. And that is just, you know, the kind of contrast that we're living through in America at the moment.

3:56Yeah, Minneapolis's mayor gave an extraordinarily strong response to those claims of self-defence, calling those, I quote, bullshit and demanding that ICE officers leave the city. But all of this has happened in the wake of an unusually large deployment of ICE agents to the city of Minneapolis, right, that started on Tuesday. What's been the justification on a federal level for that deployment? It's part of a pattern, right? So the Trump administration is deploying ICE in various democratic cities all around the country. The ostensible reason in Minneapolis is because they are going after the sizable Somali-American community that live in Minneapolis.

4:35It's one of the largest Somali-American populations in the country. It's the congressional district of Ilhan Omar. But, you know, for a lot of people, these raids serve a kind of political purpose as well. There's a lot of optics that goes into this. I live in New Orleans. I've had immigration presence in my city and I've seen, you know, border patrol agents walking down the French Quarter, you know, basically looking for photo opportunities. But what often happens and what's happened in this instance is just the convergence of the rhetoric and the imagery of it with real actual harm. So seeing people snapped off the streets all over the country and in this instance, you know, leading to fatal violence.

5:15Yeah. And this shooting happened just under a mile from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020, the aftermath of which you covered very extensively. But I mean, this footage has the potential to be a real tinderbox moment, doesn't it? In perhaps a similar way. You've got an administration that's saying that it's not going to be withdrawing or reducing the ICE operation. You then have a community that is shocked and in horror at what's occurring. I mean we're in the very raw first few hours after this but it's unlikely to settle down this week is it? Absolutely not and I think you know I've been covering some of these ice raids as I said in other cities and what was very apparent to me and this was in Chicago was just the kind of you know disproportionate response that officers, ICE officers in particular have you know sporadically used against peaceful protesters around the country I was on the front lines in an immigration detention center in Chicago, got tear gassed with a bunch of peaceful protesters.

6:17And I immediately thought to myself, this is a lack of training. And there's been a huge push to hire more and more ICE agents. It's going to become the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country at some point. Billions and billions of dollars going into equipping, you know, officers all around the country. And I felt that sort of tinderbox feeling in Chicago. I felt it in New Orleans and it's very evident to me that that's what's going on in Minneapolis. This is a city that obviously has a history of protracted unrest in the aftermath of George Floyd. And really, you know, these officer involved shootings can often be the kind of sharp end of policy issues, you know, intersectional policy issues around the country.

6:55With George Floyd, it was about racism and policing. Obviously here it's about immigration enforcement as well. And I think, you know, it's very hard to predict exactly how it will unfold. But I'm, you know, obviously this is not going to be going away anytime soon. Yeah. And vigils and demonstrations, not just in Minneapolis, but elsewhere in America. I mean, you mentioned that there have been agents sent to other big cities like Chicago, like New York, like Los Angeles. So we could see this start to spread up across the country. Absolutely. I mean, I think what I have seen, you know, in the cities that I've been to is actually probably a degree of unexpected restraint from a lot of protesters.

7:33Yes, I've seen direct action. I've seen people kind of turn up and try to block cars. With an awareness of these risks. Exactly. Yeah. And I think people are kind of cognizant of, you know, the new sort of powers that Trump has endowed on federal law enforcement, the sheer size of it as well. And yeah, the disproportionate response, whether Trump's rhetoric and whether, you know, the actions of DHS are going to do anything to help that is another question. And I would suspect probably not. So we're expecting more protests through today, right? We're speaking early doors before many Americans have woken up, but definitely through Thursday, we're expecting more protests, more demonstrations, more vigils for Renee Nicole Macklin-Good.

8:14But obviously, there will also be investigations into what's happened and those investigations happening in these very extreme circumstances of claim and counterclaim. Walk me through what's likely to happen next, Oli. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously happened, you know, very recently, the investigation, you know, will continue. I mean, what you saw, you know, George Floyd is such a pertinent example of this when that footage came out, and we saw exactly what transpired after a pretty lacklustre law enforcement statement. initially there were demands from protesters to um you know indict the officers responsible and that happened pretty quickly in minneapolis obviously in that instance it was municipal police so it was local police with a local district attorney and um you know state attorney general being the main investigators this time the fbi are involved the fbi is obviously a federal agency which is you know under the jurisdiction of the trump administration so i think it's going to be a really interesting thing to see how that investigation unfolds what the political dynamics are and whether this results in a charge.

9:14It's already very, very rare for officers to be charged in fatal encounters with civilians in America already in a situation like this that is so polarised, it's going to be even harder to predict. Well, Oli, thank you so much for your time. Thanks so much. That's it for today. My thanks again to Oli Laughlin, The Guardian's US Southern Bureau Chief. You can keep up with his and all The Guardian's reporting over at theguardian.com. Today in Focus will be back with you as usual tomorrow morning We'll be back with you tomorrow night This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hough The producer was Bryony Moore The lead producer was Zoe Hitch

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