Minneapolis, 8  Jan 

Federal officials and Minneapolis leaders clashed on Wednesday over sharply differing accounts of a fatal shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during a federal immigration operation.

While President Donald Trump’s administration described the killing of a 37-year-old woman as an act of self-defence amid its immigration crackdown, city officials disputed that version, citing video footage from the scene.

The woman was shot while seated in her car in a residential neighbourhood south of downtown Minneapolis, about 1.6 kilometres from the site where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.

Videos recorded by bystanders and shared on social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped in the middle of the road, demanding that the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.

As the Honda Pilot begins to move forward, a second ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls out his weapon and fires at least two shots at close range, stepping back as the vehicle advances.

It is not clear from the videos whether the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then struck two cars parked along the curb before coming to a stop. Witnesses can be heard shouting in shock.

Renee Nicole Macklin Good died of gunshot wounds to the head.

On social media, she described herself as a poet, writer, wife and mother, and said she was from Colorado. Calls and messages to her family were not immediately returned.

Public records show Macklin Good had recently lived in Kansas City, Missouri, where she and another woman sharing the same address started a business last year called B. Good Handywork.

In a video posted from the scene, a woman identifying Macklin Good as her wife is seen sitting near the vehicle, sobbing. She said the couple had recently moved to Minnesota and had a six-year-old child.

The killing sparked protests, with hundreds of people gathering in anger soon after the incident. It is at least the fifth death linked to the aggressive US immigration crackdown launched by the Trump administration last year.

The ICE officer involved has not been publicly identified. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described him as an experienced officer and said he had previously been injured in June after being dragged by the vehicle of an anti-ICE protester.

Noem said the officer was struck by the vehicle during Wednesday’s incident and was taken to hospital before being discharged.

“Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation, and took actions to defend himself and defend his fellow law enforcement officers,” she said.

According to Noem, officers had just completed an operation and were attempting to return to headquarters when they encountered a group of protesters. She said officers were trying to push a vehicle out of snow when the situation escalated.

She alleged that the woman blocked the officers with her vehicle and refused to follow commands.

“She then weaponised her vehicle, and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over with it,” Noem said. “This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said there was no indication that the driver intended to harm officers when he briefed reporters on the incident.

Mayor Jacob Frey rejected Noem’s description, calling it “garbage”, and said videos of the shooting showed that the killing was avoidable.

Frey criticised the deployment of more than 2,000 federal officers across Minneapolis and St Paul. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people,” he said