Walz Issues Warning Order to Prepare Minnesota Guard After Deadly Shooting Involving ICE

Gov. Tim Walz prepared the Minnesota National Guard to be deployed in the state after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot protester Renee Nicole Good during an operation in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

“I’ve issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard,” Walz said during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.

“We have soldiers in training and [are] prepared to be deployed if necessary.”

The Democrat, who was picked by then-Vice President Kamala Harris to be her 2024 vice presidential nominee, urged Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem not to send “any further help.”

Walz, who has been vocally against federal immigration enforcement in his state, previously said that ICE operations were going to turn violent and that he refused to let Minnesota be used as a “prop in a national political fight.”

“What we’re seeing is governance designed to generate fear, headlines, and conflict,” Walz said in the Jan. 7 press conference.

“It’s governing by reality TV, and today that recklessness caused someone [to lose] their life.”

A 37-year-old anti-ICE protester was shot in the face behind the wheel of a car on Wednesday morning as federal immigration agents were conducting duties.

An undisclosed number of immigration officers were hurt in the process but are expected to make full recoveries, per the Department of Homeland Security.

The name of the ICE officer who fired the shots has not been revealed.

Noem said the agent was acting in self-defense after “one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers” as law enforcement was trying to move their vehicle out of the snow.

President Donald Trump accused the “radical left” of targeting law enforcement.

“I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

“It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.”

Meanwhile, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said that the officer’s use of self-defense was a “garbage narrative.”

“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying,” Frey said in a news conference from city hall.

Wednesday’s escalation between federal agents and demonstrators followed the Department of Homeland Security’s deployment of 2,000 additional immigration agents to Minneapolis.