Analysis: Shooting being characterised in starkly different wayspublished at 22:44 GMT 7 January
22:44 GMT 7 January
Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent
It is almost inevitable that the fatal shooting of a civilian in Minneapolis by an ICE officer will exacerbate already high tensions in the city.
Both the Trump administration and Democratic state and local officials are characterising the incident in starkly different ways.
Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post, blamed a “professional agitator” and a “radical left movement of movement of violence and hate”. Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, offered an expletive laced call for immigration enforcement officials to leave the city.
Given that there is video of encounter, the American public will have the opportunity to pass its own judgement.
Minnesota has become a battleground on the immigration issue in recent months, as hundreds of immigration enforcement officials conduct operations in the area.
The increased enforcement comes as Donald Trump has derided the state’s large Somali immigrant population after members of the community were convicted of a widespread fraud in the distribution of federal Covid aid. Allegations of further corruption in state social services led to Tim Walz, the state’s Democratic governor, to abandon his re-election bid last week.
In a press conference earlier, Walz called the shooting “totally predictable” and “total avoidable” but warned against violent protests.