Sawt Falasteen - Minneapolis locals protest 'inhumane' US agents after second killing

The violence has put new pressure and scrutiny on US President Donald Trump's aggressive deportation campaign, which has drawn demonstrators onto the streets of the Midwestern city.

"I think it was completely senseless, it was murder," said the young woman, who did not want to give her last name.

Federal agents shot to death 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, claiming he intended to harm them during a confrontation on Saturday.

However, video shared widely on social media and verified by US media showed Pretti never drawing a weapon, with agents firing at him seconds after he was sprayed in the face with chemical irritant and thrown to the ground.

"I think the way that the government is bringing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in to take away our neighbors and to pull families apart is completely inhumane. And if we don't speak out for them, then other people won't," she added during the protest on Sunday.

Pretti was killed less than three weeks after another Minneapolis resident, Renee Good, was shot dead by an ICE agent -- on a street just over a mile (1.6 kilometers) away.

Trump and his officials quickly defended the officer who fired the shots, who has neither been suspended nor charged.

- 'This is America' -

Coleen Fitzgerald, a 73-year-old retired construction worker, attended the protest wearing a clown costume and multi-colored wig and wig to mock the Trump administration.

"We started to have ICE people come up there and they're coming into our restaurants and they're going to people's homes and they're taking them," she told AFP.

"We can't live like this. This is America. We're supposed to be free and they're trying to take that away."

Fitzgerald brandished a homemade sign, "Hire clowns, expect a circus", against a backdrop of demonstrators chanting "our streets" and "ICE out now".

Thousands of federal immigration agents have been deployed for weeks to Minneapolis, after media reports on alleged fraud by Somali immigrants -- which Trump has seized upon.

The Democratic-led city has one of the highest concentrations of Somali immigrants in the United States.

The area around Pretti's killing was marked off Sunday by yellow caution tape with police cars parked across the road.

At a makeshift memorial near the site of the shooting, demonstrators gathered after the march to lay flowers and candles.

Locals wearing hats and coats huddled around a sea of bouquets. Some knelt despite the icy ground, with temperatures falling as low as -4F (-20C).

"Stop killing us," "Enough is enough. ICE out," and "Alex should be here" were among the slogans written on signs posted around the site.

W.Mansour--SF-PST