Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed the man, a US citizen whose identity has not been released, died at a hospital after suffering multiple gunshot wounds. Video footage circulating on social media shows a group of federal officers wrestling a person to the ground before several gunshots ring out, the latest disturbing imagery to emerge from a city increasingly feeling like occupied territory.
What We Know About The Shooting
The incident occurred shortly after 9 a.m. Central Time near 26th Street W and Nicollet Avenue on Minneapolis’s South Side. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed a US Border Patrol agent fired the fatal shots during what officials described as a “targeted operation.”
DHS claims the man was armed with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, reportedly a Sig Sauer Emperor Scorpion, and carried two magazines. The agency said he “resisted attempts to be disarmed.” However, Police Chief O’Hara offered a crucial detail that complicates the federal government’s framing: he said police believe the man was “a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry.”
The circumstances remain deeply unclear. DHS has not explained what led to the confrontation, why the man was targeted, or whether he posed an actual threat when agents opened fire. The video does not appear to show the moment shots were fired, only the chaotic wrestling match that preceded it.
Third Shooting In Three Weeks
Saturday’s killing is the third shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis since January began. On January 7, ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, as she sat in her SUV. Video analysis by the Washington Post raised questions about administration claims that Good weaponized her vehicle against officers. One policing expert noted the officer approached with a gun in one hand and cellphone in the other, hardly the posture of someone who perceived a genuine threat.
A week later, on January 14, another ICE agent shot Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg during a disputed altercation at his home. DHS claimed agents were “ambushed” during a traffic stop, but family members and video evidence contradicted federal accounts.
The pattern raises urgent questions about training, rules of engagement, and whether federal agents deployed to Minneapolis are operating with adequate oversight or appropriate restraint.
Minnesota Officials Demand Federal Withdrawal
Governor Tim Walz did not mince words following Saturday’s shooting. “I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning,” he wrote on social media. “Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was equally blunt. “I just saw a video of more than six masked agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death,” Frey said at a press conference. “How many more residents, how many more Americans, need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?”
Senator Amy Klobuchar called for immediate action: “To the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress who have stood silent: Get ICE out of our state NOW.”
Tear Gas And Chaos At Scene
Within an hour of the shooting, protesters converged on the scene, where they confronted federal officers with chants of “shame, shame, shame.” Law enforcement responded with tear gas and other crowd-control tactics, filling streets with dark clouds that sent people scrambling.
Local business owners opened their doors to shelter demonstrators from the chemical agents. Some protesters erected makeshift barricades using dumpsters and trash cans to block streets, a vivid illustration of how deeply the federal presence has frayed the relationship between residents and law enforcement in a city still processing the 2020 police murder of George Floyd.
The shooting comes one day after thousands marched through downtown Minneapolis in frigid, subzero temperatures to protest ICE operations. Hundreds of businesses closed in solidarity, and airport police arrested roughly 100 people during a demonstration at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The Bigger Picture
President Trump has deployed an estimated 3,000 federal agents to Minneapolis as part of his promised mass deportation campaign. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin suggested tensions could ease if state and local officials cooperated more fully with federal immigration enforcement.
But local leaders frame the standoff differently. Mayor Frey has called the operation “political retribution” rather than legitimate law enforcement. The Trump administration’s choice to make Minneapolis a showcase for aggressive immigration tactics, critics argue, has less to do with public safety than with punishing a politically progressive city that vocally opposed the president.
What’s not in dispute: three people have been shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in less than three weeks. One was a mother sitting in her car. Another was a man who, according to local police, had every legal right to carry the firearm that federal agents say justified using lethal force.
The question Americans should be asking isn’t whether Minneapolis residents will accept this new normal. It’s whether the rest of the country will.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.