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I.C.E. Agent Shoots and Kills Woman in Minneapolis; Outrage After I.C.E. Agent Kills Woman in Minneapolis; Police & Protesters Face Off After I.C.E. Agent Kills Woman; Law Enforcement Agents Fire Pepper Balls at Protesters in MN. Aired 9-9:20a ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: This is the scene in Minneapolis with protesters are taking to the streets after immigration agent shot a

woman dead. It is 08:00 a.m. in Minnesota, it is 06:00 p.m. here in Abu Dhabi. I'm Eleni Giokos. This is "Connect the World".

The other major stories that we are covering this hour, the latest that we know of President Trump's plan for Venezuela. It could take a long time.

Right, I want to check in on the U.S. market futures of the DOW retreating from that 49,000 mark, and people were hoping would hit 50,000 yesterday,

but we're now currently just above 49,000 down four tenths of a percent in terms of the market futures.

S&P is also looking weaker, but just below 7000 points. NASDAQ also on the back foot. We'll check in on those numbers a little later in the show. In

the meantime, want to take you to our top story. She was a neighbor, not a terrorist. That is how people who knew Renee Nicole Good are remembering

her.

The 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was killed Wednesday by an immigration and customs enforcement agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Now

you're looking at live pictures of today's protests in freezing cold weather in Minneapolis. The deadly shooting has sparked outrage over the

Trump Administration's immigration crackdown.

Meantime, U.S. Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem is defending the I.C.E. agent who fatally shot Good in her vehicle. She says Good tried to run him

over. State and local officials are disputing that claim. And members of the Minneapolis City Council have condemned the shooting right now.

I want to show you two videos of that incident. First, a warning this video you're about to see is tough to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- No. no -- Oh my -- God. What the -- did you do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: All right, we've also obtained a second video recorded from the other side of the incident. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- Oh my God --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Joining us live now from Minneapolis, Law Enforcement Correspondent Whitney Wild. We've just seen those two different angles of that incident,

and you can hear the distress in people's voices, and tensions are high. What can you tell us in terms of the mood right now in the city?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that there are some smaller protests that are starting to bubble up this morning,

where I'm standing, it is very quiet. This was the scene of a large vigil last night. There were hundreds of people here who paid respects to a woman

they did not even know, and even this morning, that vigil is still glowing here.

Let me show you what it looks like. This is, Eleni, the spot where Renee Nicole Good lost her life. I was here minutes after the Minneapolis Police

Department took away the barriers, allowed people to come and actually see where this incident happened, and beneath the snow is her blood still.

That is how fresh that scene was when this vigil began to pop up. People were putting flowers around where the crash happened, in between pieces of

broken tail light that peppered this area. Now you see a moment of real reverence for a woman again, who most of these people did not know.

There are dozens of candles, dozens of bouquets of flowers, notes to her in death, one cross here, saying, rest in peace. Your memory will forever be a

blessing, Eleni.

GIOKOS: Yeah, a truly sad story. Give me an idea of how people are responding to the news, and pretty evident in the video footage that we

also just saw that the woman who was shot by U.S. citizen, Renee Good was denied immediate medical care.

WILD: It is one factor that has really enraged people here in Minneapolis. I spoke with a witness who said that he saw this all unfold. He caught it

on video, and he said that he heard people -- heard a man saying, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor. Let me help. And the law enforcement here said we

have our own medics, and would not allow that civilian doctor to help this woman in any way.

Instead, the video shows that federal agents picked her up, basically by the arms and legs and walked over to the corner here, Minneapolis police

said that when they arrived on scene, their officers were able to try to render CPR to her, but we know that she was taken to the hospital where she

was pronounced dead, Eleni.

[09:05:00]

But then the news that there was a doctor on scene who may have been able to provide some immediate care for whatever that would have been worth. You

know, if that had been a life saving measure, we will never know, but it is another factor that has really angered people here in Minneapolis.

GIOKOS: All right. Whitney Wild, thank you for that update. We'll check in on you a little later. All right, CNN Priscilla Alvarez has more on what

the Department of Homeland Security is saying. She joins us now from Washington. You know, we've been hearing some of the commentary from Kristi

Noem. Give me us an understanding of their line and their perspective on this.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they released a statement only hours after the incident, and it is the statement and the story that they

have stuck to over the course of the last several hours, that being that the officer that was involved in this shooting had been firing what they

called, quote, defensive shots.

They say that the woman in the vehicle was trying to, quote, run over agents. You played the video earlier. I'll let our viewers review that and

assess their thoughts on it, but the Department of Homeland Security is essentially making the argument that this was a defensive maneuver by the

I.C.E. officer who was involved in the shooting.

Now we don't know much about the officer. Still the Homeland Security Secretary saying you see her there yesterday in that press conference that

he is, quote, experienced that he had been hospitalized and then discharged and is currently with family. Now this comes against the backdrop of there

being around 2000 agents who had been deployed to Minnesota over recent days as part of what the administration has touted their largest

immigration operation to date.

These are agents that have flown in from all over the country. So, it's unclear if even the officer was that was involved in this was based in

Minnesota, given that so many parachuted in over recent days. The other element of this is surprise among federal law enforcement over the

officer's conduct, because deadly use of force has to be justified by an imminent threat of serious injury and or death to the subject.

So, it's unclear here whether this would have met the threshold. Many sources that I've talked to still just have a lot of questions here as to

why the officer conducted himself the way that he did. Now the Department of Homeland Security says that the FBI is investigating this.

They have deferred questions to the FBI over the matter. Certainly, this is something that is going to be investigated. We've also heard local

officials who say that they want to do their own investigation into this. So still, almost 24 hours later, a lot of questions remain as to why the

incident unfolded it the way it did.

The last note that I will provide you, because it gave us a little more detail from the Department of Homeland Security perspective yesterday is

that they said that prior to the shooting. There have been protesters that had been impeding the operations under way.

So that is, we don't have all of the video evidence here, but that's certainly part of this that will probably be included in the investigation.

GIOKOS: Yeah. Yeah, Priscilla, stay with me. We're actually looking at live pictures now from Minneapolis, where the protests are now in the streets,

and the law enforcement is basically holding the line there as well. Really important moment, and it's really early there.

It's very cold temperatures, using people take to the street. We've also seen an increased call of people in Minneapolis and Minnesota, frankly, for

I.C.E. agents to leave, are they likely to listen.

ALVAREZ: The Department of Homeland Security has said essentially no. In fact, the secretary was very blunt about that yesterday, saying that they

are going to remain on the streets of Minneapolis. Now for some context here, I.C.E. has been operating in cities around the United States for

years, and including Minneapolis.

The difference, of course, here is that it has -- the administration has fixated on this state and this city, and deployed a really historic number,

at least in recent history, of officers to this particular location, around 2000 in total. So, the administration says they are absolutely not leaving

that they are going to continue to conduct their operations.

And those are the signals that I have been receiving this morning as well, and it just adds to the already simmering tensions that have been building

up over recent days between the local officials and the federal agents on the ground.

GIOKOS: Yeah, and we still look showing those images from St. Paul in Minnesota, and you can see Border Patrol agents there on the ground,

staying close by. All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you for that update.

[09:10:00]

We'll check in on you later. The FBI is investigating exactly what happened in Minneapolis. CNN's Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John

Miller, explains what they'll be looking for.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: The first question is, it appears when the vehicle and the agent make contact, he has

already opened fire on the vehicle, and the vehicle is attempting to escape. There's a bunch of issues here.

One is it is against pretty much all tactical policy of major law enforcement agencies to place yourself in front of a moving vehicle and

draw your weapon. The DHS policy is not to shoot at a moving vehicle. It limits what can be done about shooting at fleeing felons, because it

endangers the other people around.

Something that jumps out at me, and Chuck Ramsey brought this up earlier, the former police commissioner, that as he's firing at the woman who is in

the driver's seat. He is firing literally a little more than a foot away from two of his partners who are standing in that same place in that line

of fire.

So, it raises a number of tactical concerns, and that's how it's going to be looked at. What were the tactical issues here? What were the policy

issues here? But most important, what were the legal issues here? Was that agent legally justified? How will he articulate why he thought he was

legally justified?

And key to that is, how will that be measured against what a reasonable agent with similar training would have done in the same circumstance. So,

is the car coming towards him to run him over or to escape? Should he have stepped aside to get off the X and de-escalate the situation in that they

could arrest that person later, or should he be fired at a fleeing felon, and if so, what was the felony?

So far, the woman who ended up being killed in this had not committed a specific crime other than interfering with the agents by having her car in

the street. So, a lot of questions that are going to -- needed to be answered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Right, the shooting of Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday is just the latest incident in Donald Trump's second term that underlines the

dangerously polarized nature of America's politics in his latest column, CNN's Senior Politics Reporter Stephen Collinson puts it like this.

Good's death came against a backdrop of Trump's dystopian attempts to portray Democratic-run cities as hell holes where migrant gangs run riots

and regular Americans fear for their lives. He used such depictions to justify draconian tactics like the dispatch of the National Guard into some

cities last year.

Stephen joins us now to further look at this. Stephen, good to see you. And as we begin this conversation, I want to look at live pictures that we

getting from St. Paul. It looks like a calm but also tense situation. What do these pictures and the anger that we are seeing and inserted today say

about the wider issue?

And how people you know are willing to get into the streets to make their voices heard?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Well, I think it was interesting after the shooting occurred, that the Democratic Leaders of

Minneapolis, the mayor, the governor, they were saying things like, Trump wants us to react to this with unrest and violence.

We must not give them that show. So, this is a deeply political charge situation. This killing took place just one day into a surge of I.C.E.

Immigration and Custom Enforcement Officers into Minneapolis on an enforcement mission to try to crank up the numbers of undocumented migrants

that are being pulled in by the government for deportations.

So, this is a very tense political situation. I think a lot of people ahead of this were concerned that when you put these numbers of officers, armed

officers, into the streets, into this political situation in Minneapolis, or anywhere, sooner or later, you're almost certain to get this kind of

incident.,

The risks of innocent people being caught up in this, whatever the particulars of this particular incident, which is still not fully clear,

although many people are drawing their own conclusions from the bystander videos that we're seeing, you're going to get this kind of incident

happening.

Whereas often after something like this, you would expect the leaders in Washington to call for calm to try to stop more political ramifications

from this. You had the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, come out immediately and say that the woman involved was perpetrating domestic

terrorism.

Trump called this, you know, a sign of radical left-wing agitation. That pretty much from those videos does not seem to be the case.

[09:15:00]

GIOKOS: Yeah, you've also called this draconian, Trump's draconian tactics, and we've seen the sort of fracture playing out in the streets over the

past year, and it's pretty evident the images we're showing you today are people wanting for something to be done about the way that I.C.E. is

conducting itself.

I wonder if this is going to be a turning point in the way that I.C.E. has been managing these immigrations, you know, this integration strategy,

clearly, that's spooked so many people across the United States.

COLLINSON: Well, I think at least immediately in the short term, the answer is no. You heard from Priscilla there that the Department of Homeland

Security says it's going to continue what it's been doing in Minneapolis, as to the question of whether this becomes a moment that changes politics.

It's probably too early to say this incident actually happened about a mile away from the place where George Floyd was killed by a police officer with

a knee on his neck in 2000 that by stand a video went viral and caused a national and even international political movement. It's possible, in

retrospect, that this --

GIOKOS: Yeah. So, Stephen, I just want to stop you there, because it does, indeed, and I just want to talk to what we're seeing right now. And it

seems the Border Patrol has, what seems to have arrested a man, and they're escorting them out. We also hear from our CNN Reporter that pepper balls

have been used, clearly to try and disperse the crowd.

It seems that it was calm earlier. Things are getting a lot more tense, and you can see Border Patrol there on the front line, you know, waiting

standing guard. You know, these images are not going to only resonates across the United States, but the world is watching, Stephen.

COLLINSON: Yeah, that's true. This is a week in which, not only have you had this incident, you've had the toppling of Maduro in Venezuela, and talk

that the United States might be invading Greenland. I think it shows a presidency that is no, or very few constraints on it, and is basically an

example of an administration that's wielding what it believes is expansive power, and it has the right to do so, and it believes it's strong.

All of this is going to have a political ramification. I think what you're seeing here is a protest outside a federal building, those kinds of things,

or what we've seen elsewhere in the United States, like Los Angeles, for example, where protests outside of federal building prompted the president

to call in the National Guard, adding a further level of tension onto the streets.

Those kinds of deployments were previously outlawed by the Supreme Court. But, you know, all of this is the kind of show I think that the Leaders of

Minnesota were worried about, because they don't want the situation to escalate even further and to give the administration, you know, another

prompt to amp up the level of security that's in place.

GIOKOS: OK. Again, I'm just looking at these images. This is a protest at St. Paul, Minnesota, after the killing of U.S. citizen yesterday. Really

important to note, you've got people on the ground there. We just saw Border Patrol what seems to have detained someone.

We also hearing reports from our reporter on the ground of pepper balls being used. It seems that it is getting a lot more tense than in terms of

the early morning pictures that we're seeing Stephen, but I want to draw on. OK. All right, so I'm just getting information from our -- All right,

we're just getting information from our producers.

We're going to hand over to our U.S. domestic colleagues. We've got Ryan Young on the ground there at St. Paul, Minnesota. Let's listen.

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