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Woman Shot, Killed by ICE Officer in Minneapolis; Minneapolis Mayor: DHS Claim of Self-Defense is "Bullsh--"; Minneapolis Mayor Tells ICE "Get the F--- Out" After Agent Kills Woman; Police Chief: "Very Concerning" that Woman "Blocking Traffic and Not the Subject of any Law Enforcement Operation" was Shot; Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) Discusses About the Minneapolis Shooting of a Woman. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 07, 2026 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:34]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're following breaking news out of Minneapolis after a deadly shooting that involves an ICE officer. We just got some new video in of the incident a short time ago and a warning that what you're about to see is disturbing. There is crude language in this. This is graphic and we do not know the context around this. We don't know what happened before this video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. Shame. Shame. Oh, my (expletive) god. What the (expletive). What the (expletive). You just (expletive). What the (expletive) did you do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Protesters are gathering at the scene at this hour. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said this about the incident a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, DHS SECRETARY: It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was our ICE officers were out in enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The mayor of Minneapolis is also speaking out calling that official line from federal authorities a lie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR JACOB FREY (D) MINNEAPOLIS: They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is (expletive).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's go out to the scene now. CNN's Whitney Wild has been tracking this story.

Whitney, what more are officials there saying?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you heard, it was a profanity, at least, press conference from Mayor Jacob Frey. Very angry. He believes that the narrative coming out from the Department of Homeland Security is simply untrue. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement earlier that -- this was their narrative that they laid out -- that this person had, you know, basically was trying to block these ICE vehicles as they were conducting a targeted operation. They say that the vehicle drove toward an agent who feared for his life and feared for the life of other officers and members of the public and discharged a firearm. They are saying that this shooting was, you know, based on their statement, it appears they believe that this shooting was completely justified.

Obviously, Mayor Jacob Frey has a completely different perspective on that. You know, we -- you've seen this video. We are still getting more video from people who are on the ground here. I spoke with one man who saw it play out, and that man told me that he did not see anything that he believed suggested that any of those ICE agents were ever in grave danger. Let me walk you through what we're seeing here on the ground right now.

There has been a crowd here for several hours in the aftermath of the shooting. People here are very angry. What you're hearing now is, you know, a lot of anger that's being directed toward the Minneapolis Police Department. We've seen multiple federal law enforcement agencies on scene here, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, Customs and Border Patrol. Locally, we're seeing the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office (ph) and the Minneapolis Police Department.

It looks like, actually, they're taking away some of the barricades that they had before here, so I'm not clear on if they're condensing this scene at all, but this -- this is interesting, because before they had -- you -- you might not be able to see it, but before they had bike racks here, and they appear to be taking it away, so it's possible that they feel like the scene has been analyzed and they're ready to move out here. Can you see them taking the bike racks and putting them on the back of the vehicle? I think that signals that they're getting closer to feeling like this investigation is wrapped up.

Again, this crowd is very angry. I spoke with multiple people today who say that they did not ask for this. They're angry ICE is here. They were scared something like this would happen, and now they know that a member of their own community has lost her life. A 37-year-old woman has lost her life today. Again, this all comes amid this ramped- up immigration effort here where DHS has 2,000 DHS agents spread throughout the Twin Cities. Again, their largest immigration operation to date.

[15:05:02]

Again, people here in Minneapolis are very angry, and were very angry about that operation at all. Now, today, their anger is heightened. And right now, it is being directed toward the Minneapolis Police Department. They think in this moment is protecting ICE and not them, so a lot of anger here in Minneapolis. Back to you.

KEILAR: All right, Whitney, we know it's probably difficult for you to hear us, but we could certainly hear your report, and we thank you for it there.

Let's turn now to Josh Campbell.

And as Whitney noted, Josh, this is a ramped-up recent immigration effort. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was in Minneapolis yesterday highlighting it. Earlier today, before we heard from local and state officials, we heard from DHS Secretary Noem, who was saying that the ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.

Walk us through the video, because a lot of people are going to look at this. And again, there's a lot of context around it, we don't know, but they're going to look at this, and they're going to have questions about whether it matches with what we're hearing from Kristi Noem.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, and she also quickly came out and declared this an act of domestic terrorism, which objectively, if you look at that video and what we see, there is no indication yet and no proof that the Department of Homeland Security or the Secretary have provided that this is domestic terrorism, which means violence in pursuit of a political aim. This is a very legalistic term.

We know that in the past, Noem has had issues, for example, struggling with the concept of habeas corpus when she was testifying before Congress, but that's important because for her, the top official to declare this domestic terrorism means that there are potential other ramifications. And again, what we see in the video is it appears that these ICE agents approach this woman who were in her car. They're attempting to get her out of the vehicle. We know that she was not the subject of an enforcement action itself, and so there will be a question about why they were attempting to detain her.

But as the vehicle then moves away, you actually see her turn the wheel, the tires go to the right. And so, again, that question is raised. If her goal was to run down a federal agent and she had the opportunity of one standing there in front of her, why did she then cut the wheel of the car to try to get away? So, a big question there, but the actions of that officer himself will also be obviously under review.

Legally, agents can use deadly force whenever the subject of that force poses an imminent threat to themselves or someone else. That person -- that agent has to articulate what the threat was. Now, we do see in that vehicle from -- from that video that the vehicle does appear to make contact with that agent, so at that point under policy, the agent could articulate, look, I was in fear for my life. I have this vehicle coming at me, but there will also be a big question which every law enforcement officer from coast to coast knows a lot of this comes down to judgment. Just because you can do something, should you? Could that agent have moved out of the way if this was someone who was, you know, fleeing and didn't -- you know, wasn't an indication of any -- other type of violence?

Brianna, a good point that I also want to raise, which you had brought up, was the proximity of other agents who were near the gunfire that erupted. We saw just, you know, that agent near the window that was mere inches from where the direction of travel of that bullet would have been. I'm here in Los Angeles where we had recently another incident where an immigration agent was attempting to take a suspect into custody. The agent opens fire. He shoots the suspect. He also shoots a U.S. marshal that is there trying to help with the immigration detention.

And so there have been a lot of big questions raised about these aggressive tactics by these immigration agents. Are they operating under lawful order? Obviously, the President says yes. This is his big push across the country to try to crack down on unlawful immigration, but the question of how these agents are going about it certainly have raised a lot of eyebrows even within the law enforcement community itself, and now, obviously, we're seeing this very questionable incident play out here.

Last point I'll make is that if the past is any type of, you know, prologue, we probably won't see this agent prosecuted because the DHS secretary has already publicly exonerated him and said that this agent was in fear for his life, which is unusual because any time a federal agent opens fire in this country, typically, we see a lengthy investigation week, sometimes months, sometimes a year. Here, we already have top officials coming out mere hours after it happened saying the agent was right.

SANCHEZ: Josh Campbell, thank you so much for that context.

Let's join -- let's discuss now with Jason Chavez. He's a Minneapolis City Council member joining us on the phone.

Sir, thanks so much for being with us. I just want to start with your reaction to what has transpired in your community.

JASON CHAVEZ, MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Oh, yes. Thanks for asking, man. So, to begin with, my thoughts are right now with the victim and the victim's loved ones who was murdered by ICE.

[15:10:03] This was an individual who was out in our community because they care and love our immigrant neighbors, and the agent who murdered our neighbor needs to be arrested and fired immediately from doing this work of immigration enforcement. Our community is in a lot of pain right now because what happened here is something that neighbors will not accept and will not allow, on top of the continued immigration enforcement that is only simply tearing families apart. So, our community is tremendously heartbroken today.

SANCHEZ: It sounds, Jason, like you have some context for what may have transpired before the video that we watched was captured. Do you know exactly what that woman was doing there beforehand and -- and what led to her getting in her vehicle and -- and having contact with law enforcement? Can you walk us through that?

CHAVEZ: I don't have all the details to share with all of you today, but what I do know is that we have community observers across our community that are watching for the violations that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and federal officials are enacting, not only on our immigrant community, but our community members here across Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota. And once you see the video that you all just shared and talked about publicly, you can see that there is nothing wrong that the individual who was murdered by ICE did.

And what's -- what's just simply wrong is that we have the federal government trying to say that they did nothing wrong when we know that they're splitting families apart and they just literally killed somebody. So, we know that that officer needs to be held accountable.

SANCHEZ: And -- and just to clarify, you've been able to confirm that this was a -- a community observer that -- that was there to watch these ICE agents?

CHAVEZ: What I do know is that there was a variety of community observers on site when this was happening.

SANCHEZ: I see. I -- I also am curious to get your thoughts on the message from the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, saying that ICE agents should, in -- in different words, should get out of that area while also saying that the community, as we're watching folks throw what appear to be snowballs at law enforcement officers, should show their better angels, should not give, in his view, the federal government what it wants and an opportunity to militarize the city of Minneapolis. What are your thoughts?

CHAVEZ: Well, if people are throwing snowballs and then ICE is throwing literal bullets at people, that's just an uneven fight. I think the fact that we have a federal government here just splitting families apart is something that our neighbors will not be accepting, which is why you're going to see our community members being on the street, making sure they're watching and patrolling, driving neighbors to work, making sure that people can get to work safely and back home.

What I will say, though, is that our community members are going to continue to be on the streets, not only for justice, but to make sure that our immigrant neighbors are protected.

SANCHEZ: Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez, thank you so much for sharing your afternoon with us.

Let's go straight to Whitney Wild because it -- it looks like the scene as law enforcement officers are leaving is having protesters respond angrily to their presence.

WILD: Yes, absolutely. What we saw just a few minutes ago was a collapsing of the perimeter, but we still see law enforcement trying to leave here. I think people are pretty angry. They're -- they're driving pretty close to the crowd, as you can see. That, you know, as soon as that perimeter collapsed, Boris, what we really saw was people begin to -- to condense onto the law enforcement vehicles, and they were throwing snowballs at them, coming as close as they can. So, let me walk you through.

Did you -- did you see that? Can you see that there's -- they're throwing what looks like snowballs or maybe chunks of ice at the vehicles? People here are really angry, and right now, because the Minneapolis Police Department is among the law enforcement still on the ground, that anger is singularly directed toward the Minneapolis Police Department, and that highlights the real challenge for law enforcement in cities where ICE is descending on this area and causing these flare-ups between the public and law enforcement.

Minneapolis police were not involved in the shooting, and yet they are here taking the heat that -- that people feel because of what they saw ICE do here in Minneapolis. Right now, what you're seeing is people walking here. We're on Portland Avenue. We were at East 34th and Portland Avenue. Now we're walking along Portland Avenue toward East 33rd, and you're seeing people really trailing these law enforcement vehicles and throwing, again, piece -- snowballs and -- and chunks of ice at these vehicles, Boris.

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KEILAR: And we're continuing to watch this. This is a live feed that we are getting an aerial view of law enforcement. They have removed that perimeter where they were investigating the scene, as Whitney explained.

And Whitney, you stay with us.

But we have them moving, obviously, away from the scene, and people are following them.

Josh Campbell, you're watching this. Tell us what you're seeing. It does appear now that there is some distance between those law enforcement vehicles and people on foot, though they continue to follow after them.

CAMPBELL: That's right. And, you know, I spent a lot of time in -- in Minneapolis over the years, and what the police will allow oftentimes is if you have people that want to engage in a peaceful protest, I don't mean throwing projectiles at, you know, law enforcement, but if they want to take to the street and march in order to make their voices heard, a lot of times the police will help facilitate that.

You look at that vehicle down at the bottom left of your screen, where you can see the lights on, the deck lights, that looks like an MPD car. And so, we've seen that oftentimes with protests. I've been down there in the middle of them reporting, and what the police will do is essentially try to clear traffic to allow people to try to come out and peacefully protest. The moment that turns non-peaceful, we will obviously see a different posture from law enforcement.

But I think right now, if -- you know, you're the Minneapolis Police Department and city officials there, the goal is to try to let out some of the steam that is now continuing to build there in the community, with obviously community members extremely angry by what just transpired. And also, it's worth pointing out that this is not -- not necessarily a bad thing from a law enforcement perspective, because there is still a crime scene that has to be investigated.

And if you have people that will then disperse from that area, that may actually make it easier for the agents who are there conducting the shooting review investigation to collect their evidence to do any type of analysis that they need to do. And so, this is something that we will continue to watch. I think, you know, there are a lot of big questions that we still have.

Obviously, we have one angle of a video. There are reports of another angle of a video. Are there others out there that will show exactly what transpired? But looking at the one video that we have cleared so far, I'll point out something, you know, that I mentioned just a short time ago, that from a law enforcement perspective, if someone is using their vehicle as a deadly weapon, and an agent can articulate that they were in fear for their life, they can lawfully use deadly force.

Again, there's always a question of judgment. Are there other options? Are there other things that the agent could have done? And so that will be a big question here, is for officials to actually provide some type of determination of, you know, what that agent was thinking, what was going through their mind. We know that officials have essentially exonerated the agent who was involved. And, you know, admit, when you look at that video, you can actually see that vehicle making contact, the front left of that vehicle with the ICE agent who was there. But again, they'll come down to a matter of question, could that agent have moved out of the way? They're not required to retreat. There's no duty to retreat when facing someone who may be potentially violent.

And so, this -- that's why this is such a powder keg, because there are essentially two aspects of this. There's the policy, the law, you know, what agents are allowed to do. And there's an issue of judgment, just because you can do something, should you. That is why we're going to continue to, I think, see this outrage, because that agent's decision to pull his weapon, if he indeed found himself in a -- in a situation where he's in fear for his life, caused the death of a local resident there. And so again, this will be something to watch. And this is not the first time, obviously, that we've seen the city of Minneapolis and its officials there try to grapple with law enforcement action that then inflames the community. And so again, the goal now is for law enforcement to try to keep this

peaceful. It's also incumbent, and I know this based on, you know, my reporting from that city, incumbent upon community leaders as well to come out and try to assert their voice, assert their persuasion to try to make sure that people can protest if they want. But if this starts turning violent, especially as the evening hours begin, we could be looking at something very differently.

And so obviously, all the obvious -- all of us hope that we continue to see what we see now. And that's, you know, peaceful protests.

SANCHEZ: Josh, thanks so much for your perspective there. Again, we are awaiting a press conference with Governor Tim Walz, who is set to discuss this shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an ICE agent. I - I want to bring in -- actually, let's go to Whitney Wild, who's now been able to access the actual site, the scene of where the shooting transpired after investigators towed the car away, the vehicle away, and finished their work on that site.

Whitney, what are you seeing?

WILD: Right now, we're seeing people come and put flowers and incense where this woman died. Boris, this is a -- a striking scene. There is still blood in the snow. That is how fresh this scene still is. This is not something that Minneapolis residents will forget.

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This is a poignant moment here in Minneapolis. As people I've spoken with point out to me, they never asked for this. They never wanted this. And now here we are reporting on the loss, they say, of one of their own, of their 37-year-old neighbor, a friend, who has lost her life after this shooting with an ICE agent.

Boris, again, we are here at Portland Avenue and -- between East 34th and East 33rd. And this -- this is the first-time members of the public are getting to see actually where this woman was shot and were her -- it -- it was right here at this spot, Boris, where her car crashed. And now members of the public getting their first chance to see this. This is a really extraordinary moment, Boris.

KEILAR: It really -- it really is, Whitney. As they are there, their first chance at the scene putting flowers in what is obviously a scene that is at the heart of these two competing narratives about what happened. I -- I do want to stay with you there, Whitney. I don't know if they're -- I don't mean to put you on the spot, and I know there are a lot of people there who are grieving, but if there is anyone there who does want to speak to you about sort of what this is meaning to them, but this just seems like -- as you were talking to people there in that intersection sort of adjacent to this where they were all kind of waiting, it seems like they were maybe waiting for this moment to do this, right?

We saw some people going down the street towards those police vehicles and then obviously some people moving over here towards the scene. WILD: That's right. I -- I think that this is a chance for people to

feel like they can pay their respects to this woman. You know, some -- I spoke with one woman earlier today who said that she knew her and is working to get us in touch with someone who went to the hospital with her. Again, this was a friend, a neighbor, a chance -- this right now is a chance for people to show her that her life mattered, that she will not be a number, that she will not be a moment that -- that quickly goes away.

And so, as you see people here now embracing their hands together, their heads lowered, taking a moment to remember her, to again pay their respects to her and make sure that this moment matters beyond tomorrow, beyond next week and forever here. Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly. Whitney, thank you so much.

Just a changing scene there in Minneapolis as police have just lowered that perimeter after taking stock of the scene where a woman whose identity we do not know yet, 37-year-old woman -- 37-year-old white woman, that is all we've been told by local officials about who passed away when she was shot by an ICE officer.

SANCHEZ: Juliette Kayyem is now joining us, a CNN National Security Analyst.

Juliette, I wonder what you make of all of this and -- and what your thoughts are.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, I -- want to start with sort of two questions, two pools of questions. The first is, what do we mean when we say an ICE agent? We can't pretend like this just happened out of nothing. We know that ICE base is exponentially growing because of the resources the Trump administration put behind the deportation effort.

That recruitment has led, by their own admission, to different standards about who is coming in, how quickly they come in as an ICE agent, and what kind of training they get. So, my first question is, who -- what -- what does ICE agent mean? Is it a legacy ICE agent? Because then that gets to the questions Josh was talking about, about, you know, what kind -- you know, what kind of judgment is being used. Is it someone new who recently got deployed because they want these thousands of ICE agents out? Is it someone from a different federal agency?

We know ICE is grabbing from FBI, DEA, and -- and other agencies. So, I have that question, which is, who -- we may never learn the name of the agent, but who is this person in terms of ICE, because one of the things I've been exceptionally nervous about is when you recruit law enforcement quickly, they don't have time to gain judgment. And then you throw them out in these, what we know are very contentious deployments with communities that are afraid or doing things that they might not otherwise do. We don't know at this stage. And that is, you know, it's the responsibility of law enforcement to show judgment.

Okay. The second question I have is use of force rules for DHS. We've heard a lot of talk that she was trying to ram him over.

[15:25:02]

This was an act of domestic terrorism.

Based on my experience, nothing I see is consistent with that narrative we're hearing from the Trump administration. That's just based on my experience. We may get more images. What we do know is that even if that were the case, there are use of force rules for law enforcement. You don't get to just shoot anyone. The whole point of law enforcement is that they are trained to deescalate.

The Department of Justice has very stringent rules about shooting at moving cars. DHS rules are a little bit different. So, I'm very -- one of the questions I have is what were -- what's the engagement or the use of force rules that this deployment was under? Was it -- and -- and that matters because decades of experience has to have told legitimate law enforcement that it's not a great idea to shoot into a moving car. One is because the agent can move out of the way, assuming it's a threat. And second, because the moving car of someone shot could then be a danger to the rest of the community.

So that's the context that someone like me looks at this. There's going to be a lot of narratives and politics. But just from a national security and law enforcement perspective, these are the questions that I come to this with, and nothing that DHS has said so far, either the forgiveness of the agent before there's any investigation or accusations about the victim, a dead victim, civilian, is -- is visible right now in the videos I have seen.

KEILAR: Yes, and Juliette, to your point, we have Priscilla Alvarez here, you've done some reporting on the training. I mean, how quickly was the recruiting of these ICE agents, some of the newer ones, as they were ramping up the staff?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and I just want to stress here that we do not know who the officer is. In fact, many of those who have been going through this new recruitment process, my understanding is that a lot of them are not yet gun toting. So, we just need to be clear that we don't know who this officer is and if it is perhaps a veteran of ICE or someone who was -- who newly joined.

But to flesh out a little bit about what Juliette was explaining there, I have been reporting on the recruitment process. It is a process that typically took months. Under the Trump administration, they cut it down to 47 days. There were, according to multiple sources, some cut corners on the front end, for example, eliminating the interview process and the provisional clearances with the promise of a background check down the line. There were some recruits that showed up that weren't physically able to conform to the training and do the training that was necessary.

So, there were a lot of hurdles and fits and starts in the process and the recruitment push here. Again, the administration had 10,000-person goal by the end of last year. They have touted that they have reached that goal. But the question is how many of those are actually out on the field. And we have not gotten clarity on that. I just asked the Department of Homeland Security if this officer who was involved in this shooting has been put on administrative leave. I have not yet received an answer to that.

I will say there is one instance that I can recall that the administration has taken that step. It was not a shooting, but it was an ICE officer who tackled a woman in the halls of an immigration courthouse in New York City. That was a moment in which there was a statement in which -- in that they did -- and they put the officer on administrative leave. We don't have the answer yet on who this person is and whether they are still working right now.

KEILAR: And right now, let's talk with Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas.

You've seen these videos. We have to be clear. We don't know what happens before the video of the shooting. We haven't seen that part. You've heard what DHS Secretary Noem has said. You've heard what local and state officials are saying. What are your questions right now as you are hearing this information?

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Well, I mean, what I have seen is the video, and all Americans should watch that video. And it doesn't look like that ICE officer is in danger from this woman that was driving the car. And it looks like he shot her unnecessarily and killed her. And under Donald Trump, ICE has become a rogue agency. It's -- you've got a DHS secretary who's unqualified for the job. ICE has been caught lying. And a judge a few months ago wrote an over 200-page order talking about that.

They've been lying about who they've deported, where they've deported people to, who they've arrested, how long they've detained people. And so, this is an organization that really doesn't have much credibility anymore and is abusing communities, including U.S. citizens, across the country.

KEILAR: You are part of what is a call from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to tell ICE personnel that they should leave Minneapolis.

[15:30:01]

What is the role of Congress right now, considering Democrats are in the minority...