The White House rejected Democrats’ demands to pull immigration enforcement out of Minnesota in the wake of the ICE shooting this week, saying that would “give in to terrorism,” and blamed sanctuary city politicians for encouraging the victim to confront officers.
Vice President J.D. Vance also blasted news media for inflaming the situation. He said some journalists have explicitly accused the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer of murder for his fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman Wednesday.
He said Renee Good, the victim, was “brainwashed” by the political left into being part of the confrontation with federal officers that ended with her death.
“I can believe her death is a tragedy while also recognizing it is a tragedy of her own making, and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers,” he said.
He rejected calls to calm tensions by canceling the federal immigration enforcement surge into Minnesota.
“We’re not going to give in to terrorism on this,” the vice president said at the White House.
SEE ALSO: Vance calls media coverage of Minneapolis shooting ‘absolute disgrace’
The shooting has deepened the gulf between supporters of President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies, who tended to see the shooting as justified, and his opponents, who thought otherwise.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, while urging state residents to cool their violent protests, said the Trump administration had created the conditions that led to the shooting.
He blasted federal officials for refusing to share responsibility for investigating the shooting. He said participation by the state’s special police shooting investigators would help wary residents accept the findings.
“If you truly want to de-escalate this situation, the logical conclusion would be to follow that procedure and allow Minnesota to participate,” the governor said.
Demonstrators gathered at various spots in Minneapolis on Thursday to hurl snowballs, rocks and insults at federal officers and state and local authorities.
Mr. Walz specifically called for the attacks on his state officers to stop and delivered a more gentle prod to lay off federal authorities as well. He said the attacks could be the excuse Mr. Trump uses to justify a more heavy-handed approach.
SEE ALSO: Walz tells Minnesotans to cool it with violence
“Don’t give ’em what they want. Don’t give ’em the unrest they want. Don’t give in to allowing them to bring more folks here,” the governor said at a press conference.
That was more measured than the response of Minneapolis’ mayor, who delivered an expletive-laden call Wednesday for ICE to get lost. It was also less accusatory than the message of Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, who joined the leaders of the Congressional Black, Hispanic and Asian Pacific American caucuses in blaming Mr. Trump for Ms. Good’s death.
“Over the past month, the president has repeatedly inflamed tensions, espoused hateful rhetoric and intensified attacks on Minnesota and immigrant communities. That rhetoric, coupled with ICE’s increasingly violent actions and unchecked operations, created the conditions that led directly to this death,” the lawmakers, all Democrats, said in a joint statement.
Local Democrats across the country also seized on the situation.
In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner vowed to prosecute any federal law enforcement officers who “commit crimes” in his city.
In California, before Gov. Gavin Newsom’s State of the State address, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas held a moment of silence to honor Ms. Good. He described her as a “U.S. citizen murdered by ICE yesterday in Minneapolis.”
Mr. Vance said he couldn’t see how anyone could look at the videos of the confrontation Wednesday and conclude that the ICE officer committed murder.
“The idea this was not justified is absurd. I think everybody knows this in their heart,” he said.
He lashed the press for its treatment, calling it “an absolute disgrace and it puts our law enforcement officers at risk.”
He said Ms. Good was part of a broader “left-wing network” that has been tracking and publicizing immigration officers’ movements and, at times, going beyond that to orchestrate confrontations.
“That officer had every reason to think he was under very serious threat or injury, or in fact his life,” Mr. Vance said. “What I’m certain of is that she accelerated in a way where she ran into him. I don’t know what was in her heart, and what was in her head, but I know that she violated the law.”
He called Mr. Walz “a joke” for his handling of the situation.
Minneapolis closed public schools for Thursday and Friday, citing safety concerns.
Those apparently stemmed from an incident Wednesday, after the shooting, where federal immigration officers were involved in a confrontation outside a city public high school.
Like the shooting, both sides saw the incident differently.
The Minneapolis Federation of Educators said the officers used “tear gas” on those present and “abducted” a school staffer, who was later released. Another union member said it was pepper spray, not tear gas.
The Department of Homeland Security said the officers weren’t targeting the school, its staff or students. They had encountered someone who had rammed an automobile into a government vehicle, and the subsequent chase ended at the school.
When they were pulling the driver from the vehicle, bystanders pelted the agents with objects and a school staffer assaulted a Border Patrol agent. The department said no tear gas was used.
• Seth McLaughlin and Mary McCue Bell contributed to this report.
