MINNEAPOLIS — A federal officer shot a man in the leg during an attempted traffic stop Wednesday night, the Department of Homeland Security said as a crowd of protesters gathered near the shooting site, about 12 miles from where an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good last week.
The agency said the shooting happened just before 7 p.m. after law enforcement officials were attacked with a shovel and a broom as they tried to complete a targeted traffic stop.
Minneapolis officials asked for calm and said the man was hospitalized with apparently non-life-threatening injuries.
“We understand there is anger,” the city said. “We ask the public to remain calm.”
The police chief later called for the crowd to disperse, saying the demonstration had turned unlawful, with protesters throwing fireworks, rocks and ice at police.
Tensions in the city have been running high since Good's death and the federal government's increased immigration enforcement. Just after the shooting, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz addressed residents in a planned speech, urging them to help create a record of the “atrocities” against Minnesotans by recording immigration agents, and he called on President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “end this occupation.”
The city also asked federal immigration authorities on social media to leave the city and the state immediately.
“We stand by our immigrant and refugee communities — know that you have our full support,” the city said.
The increased immigration enforcement and agents are “creating chaos” and unrest, the mayor said.
“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in," Mayor Jacob Frey said at an evening news conference, where he compared the number of police officers in the city — 600 — to the number of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border officers — 3,000.
"We are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to protect order,” Frey said, while also warning protesters against “taking the bait.”
DHS said officers were attempting a traffic stop of a Venezuelan man, who they said is in the country illegally. The man left in a vehicle, which crashed into a parked car, and then ran away, the department said in a statement.
As the officer pursued the man, he assaulted the officer, according to the statement.
While the officer and the man were in a struggle on the ground, DHS said, two people came out of an apartment and attacked the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle, according to the statement.
The original man then got loose and also began attacking the officer with a shovel or a broomstick, the department said.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired defensive shots to defend his life,” the department said, adding that the man officers had been chasing was shot in the leg.
DHS said the man who was shot and the officer were in the hospital. The two other men are in custody, it said.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the officer shot the man during a struggle outside a home north of downtown Minneapolis. After he was shot, the man retreated into the home and refused to come out, O’Hara said.
Federal agents entered the home, and the man was taken to a hospital, O’Hara said. He said that a person may have assaulted the officer but that he was not sure who.
The FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are processing evidence at the scene, he said.
In a live video posted to Facebook on Wednesday night, members of a family pleaded for help as they described a man who they said had been shot in the leg by ICE officers.
The video, recorded inside a home, showed several people frantically speaking Spanish to what appeared to be 911 dispatchers, one of whom seemed to be translating for the other. The video did not show anyone who appeared wounded.
“Please, help us. We have children,” a man says after several people tell the dispatcher that the person in question had been shot in the leg.
It was not immediately clear whether the shooting described in the video was the same one federal and city officials referred to. NBC News has geolocated the video to the same neighborhood in north Minneapolis where officials said the shooting occurred. The video was posted around the time of the shooting.
The person who posted the video did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“They were chasing my husband for about half an hour,” a woman in the video can be heard telling dispatchers. “They were trying to crash into him and he got to the house, and since we closed the door on them, they shot him.”
After Wednesday's shooting, a crowd gathered in the Hawthorne neighborhood and continued to grow in size and intensity before city leaders urged residents to go home.
“It is well past the line, and people need to leave,” said O’Hara, the police chief, adding: “This is already a very tense situation, and we do not need this to escalate any further.”
Demonstrations have been happening in the city since last week, when an ICE officer fatally shot Good, 37, a mother of three and U.S. citizen, in the head last week. Federal officials say the officer shot Good in self-defense, while others have sharply rejected DHS’ narrative. The confrontation is under investigation by the FBI. State and local officials have said the FBI is blocking them from participating in the case.
