FBI takes over investigation into murder of woman by ICE agent in Minneapolis police news

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 rising tensions over the incident across the state.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement that BCA will no longer be involved in the murder investigation of 37-year-old Renee Nicole McLin Good.

On Wednesday, a federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole McLin Good, a mother of three, in her car.

“The investigation will now be led solely by the FBI, and BCA will no longer have access to the case materials, visual evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation,” Evans said Thursday.

He said it was initially agreed that the BCA would investigate the shooting, but the U.S. attorney’s office changed this.

Minnesota’s Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison told CNN that the FBI’s decision was “deeply troubling.”.

State officials could investigate with or without the federal government’s cooperation, according to Ellison, who said that given all the evidence he has seen so far has not been made public, state charges were a possibility.

According to the Washington Post, Good leaves behind a 15-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 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 the 2,000 federal officers President Donald Trump’s administration announced would be deployed to the Minneapolis area in what the U.S. Department of Homeland Security described as “the largest DHS operation ever.”

DHS officials, including agency secretary Kristi Noem, defended the shooting as “self-defence” and accused the woman of trying to implicate agents in an act of “domestic terrorism.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, called that claim “bullshit” and “trash,” based on a bystander video taken during the incident, which appeared to contradict the government’s account.

Bystanders captured video of the incident and shared it online, revealing two masked officers approaching Good’s stopped car on a Minneapolis street.

As an officer ordered Good out of the car and grabbed his door handle, the car reversed briefly and then began moving forward, turning to the right in an apparent attempt to leave the scene.

A third officer, who was filming the scene before walking in front of Good’s car, pulled out his gun and fired three times as he jumped back, the last shot hitting through the driver’s window as the car’s bumper passed through his body.

The video did not show contact and the officer remained on his feet, though Noem said he was taken to the hospital and released. Trump said on social media that the woman crushed the ICE officer.

noise

In the wake of Good’s murder, protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis to condemn the actions of the ICE agent and the widespread ICE presence in the city, leading to sustained demonstrations.

On Thursday morning, about 1,000 protesters were at a federal building, where an immigration court is located, 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 by a large crowd of protesters, according to news agency AFP.

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 small towns in Arizona, North Carolina and New Hampshire this weekend.