VIDEO Tensions rise in Minneapolis after woman fatally shot by anti-immigration police. The far left is to blame, says JD Vance: “The president supports ICE. I support ICE. We all support ICE”

American Vice President JD Vance on Thursday qualified the armed incident in Minneapolis (in the state of Minnesota in the north of the USA), in which an agent of the Immigration Service (ICE) fatally shot a woman, as “a tragedy caused by the extreme left”.

“No one wants an American citizen to be killed. It is certainly a tragedy. But it is a tragedy caused by the extreme left. They have radicalized a very small segment of the population, teaching them that ICE agents are engaged in a large-scale violation of human rights,” argued the US vice president in a press conference held at the White House, writes News.ro.

Pressed by reporters about who he thinks is behind what he described as “a broader left-wing network,” Vance said it's one of the things “we're going to have to find out.”

“You see friends of this woman or other people who are eyewitnesses basically saying that she was there to engage in obstructing a legitimate law enforcement operation. How did she get there? How did she find out about it? There's a whole network,” the vice president added.

JD Vance considers the events in Minnesota “an attack on federal law enforcement.”

“This was an attack on law and order. This was an attack on the American people,” he said.

He continued to criticize the media coverage of the event, calling it “an absolute shame”.

JD Vance appeared, at times, to raise his voice and argued that the heightened rhetoric surrounding this event “puts law enforcement agencies at risk every day.”

He also stated that the victim “was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America.” Vance went on to say that she was “part of a larger left-wing network aimed at attacking, blocking, harassing and preventing ICE agents from doing their jobs,” without providing evidence to support her claims.

VP VANCE: “What that headline leaves out is the fact that that very ICE officer nearly had his life ended, dragged by a car six months ago, 33 stitches in his leg. So you think maybe he's a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him with an automobile?”

“What that headline… pic.twitter.com/IdZohSEvLo

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 8, 2026

The White House says the entire administration “fully supports” ICE

His comments come as federal and local investigations into the incident have just begun, CNN notes.

Vice President JD Vance fiercely defended the ICE agent who opened fire on the woman: “The president supports ICE. I support ICE. We support all of our law enforcement agents.”

For her part, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the entire Trump administration “fully supports” ICE and condemned what she called the “sinister movement on the left” that has spread across the country. “President Trump and his entire administration fully support the heroes and heroines of ICE,” Leavitt said.

“Yesterday's deadly incident in Minnesota occurred as a result of a larger, sinister left-wing movement that has spread across our country where our brave law enforcement officers are being subjected to organized attacks,” she charged.

His and Vance's comments largely echo what the White House and administration have said in the hours since an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Tensions rise. The FBI is blocking the state authorities' investigation

As a result of this incident, tensions between Minnesota Democratic officials and federal authorities deepened on Thursday. The victim was an American citizen, a 37-year-old mother with three children. She was fatally shot by an agent of the US Immigration Service, an incident that drew condemnation from local officials and sparked widespread protests in the state and beyond, reports Reuters.

State and federal officials have given starkly different accounts of the incident in which an unidentified ICE agent fatally shot U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCA) said Thursday that it initially agreed with the FBI to conduct a joint investigation into the incident, but the federal agency “changed direction” and took sole control of the investigation. The decision, according to BCA Commissioner Drew Evans, means the state office will no longer have access to evidence at the scene, case files or witness interviews.

“As a result, the BCA has regrettably withdrawn from the investigation,” Evans said.

Keith Ellison, the state's Democratic attorney general, told CNN that the FBI's decision is “extremely troubling” and that state authorities can investigate with or without the cooperation of the federal government. He added that the evidence he has seen, including some that has not yet been made public, points to the possibility of state-level charges.

US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in New York that the BCA has not been “eliminated” but has no jurisdiction.

Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, a former Democratic vice presidential candidate, said at a news conference that any federal investigation without the state's involvement would likely be considered a “cover-up.”

“And I'm only saying this because people in positions of power… from the president to the vice president and up to Kristi Noem have already made judgments and told you things that are verifiably false,” he said.

JD VANCE on the ICE agent in Minneapolis: “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.” pic.twitter.com/UtbUELU0TE

— Digital Gal (@DigitalGalX) January 8, 2026

The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good was among 2,000 federal agents that President Donald Trump's administration announced it would send to the Minneapolis area in what the Department of Homeland Security described as “the largest DHS operation in history.”

DHS officials, including Kristi Noem, have defended the shooting as self-defense and accused the shot woman of trying to hit the agents in an act of “domestic terrorism.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, called the claim “nonsense” and “a mess,” based on eyewitness videos of the incident that appeared to contradict the government's version.

Both Frey and Walz called on Trump, a Republican, to withdraw federal agents from the city, saying their presence was causing chaos on the streets. But the New York Times reported that the administration has dispatched more than 100 additional Customs and Border Patrol agents from other cities in the wake of Wednesday's shootings.

What the eyewitness videos show

The videos show two masked agents approaching Good's car, which was parked perpendicular to a street in Minneapolis. As one of the officers ordered Good out of the car and grabbed the door handle, the car backed up slightly and then began to drive forward, veering to the right in an apparent attempt to leave the scene.

A third officer, who was filming the scene before moving to the front of the car, drew his gun and fired three times as he jumped back, the last shots aimed at the driver's window after the car's bumper appeared to have passed his body.

The video footage does not appear to show that there was contact, and the officer remained standing, although Noem said he was taken to the hospital and released in the meantime. Trump declared on social networks that the woman “ran over the ICE officer”.

🚨 Videos don't lie.

So here is slow-motion footage showing ICE agents illegally detaining a US citizen in Minneapolis… and shooting her as she tries to drive away.

Watch closely: she never drove towards an agent.

The agents attempted to aggressively force her out of her car… pic.twitter.com/RLk5Qrjbzb

— Jesus Freakin Congress (@TheJFreakinC) January 7, 2026

Minnesota law allows the use of deadly force by an officer only if the officer would reasonably objectively believe that it is necessary to protect him or others from immediate death or serious injury. Federal legislation has a similar standard.

Protests in several US cities

The shootings put the city on alert, with thousands of people taking to the streets to protest. On Thursday morning, hundreds of demonstrators gathered at a federal immigration court building, chanting “shame” and “murder” at armed and masked federal officers, some of whom used tear gas and pepper spray against protesters.

Protests continued or were planned in other cities, including New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Gov. Tim Walz put the state's National Guard on alert, and Minneapolis public schools were closed Thursday and Friday as a precaution.

Renee Nicole Good had a 15-year-old daughter and two sons aged 12 and 6, according to the Washington Post. She graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia in 2020 with a degree in English, university president Brian Hemphill confirmed in a statement. “This is yet another clear example that fear and violence have unfortunately become commonplace in our country,” Hemphill said. “May Renee's life remind us of what unites us: freedom, love and peace.”

While at ODU, she won a student poetry award, according to a 2020 Facebook post by the university's English department, which described her as a native of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Good's mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was “compassionate” and not the type of person to confront ICE agents.

The Minnesota operation, part of Trump's national anti-immigrant campaign, was also organized in response to a politically charged investigation into allegations of fraud against Minnesota non-profit groups in the Somali community. Trump attacked Somalis and Somali-Americans in Minnesota, calling them “trash.”