Sawt Falasteen - Protesters, US law enforcers clash after immigration agent kills woman

Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot in the head on Wednesday as she apparently tried to drive away from agents in the northern US city as they approached her car, which they said blocked their way.

Vice President JD Vance said, without providing evidence, Good was part of a "broader left-wing network" opposed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and insisted the officer acted in "self-defense."

The White House asserted that US law enforcement was under "organized attack” and presented a version of the shooting disputed by officials in Minnesota, who contend that federal forces are making the streets more dangerous.

Large, noisy crowds gathered around Minneapolis in protest on Thursday, chanting slogans against ICE. Federal immigration officers armed with pepperball guns and tear gas wrestled several protesters to the ground. More protests are planned.

In a separate incident Thursday afternoon, US immigration enforcement agents shot and wounded two individuals in the western city of Portland, local police said.

"Two people are in the hospital following a shooting involving federal agents," a statement from Portland Police said, adding a man and a woman were wounded by "apparent gunshot wounds." That incident was still unfolding.

- 'Smoke and mirrors' -

Trump and senior officials have claimed that in the Minneapolis incident, Good was trying to kill the ICE agents.

"I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either," the president told The New York Times.

Footage from Wednesday shows an agent attempting to open Good's car door before another officer, standing near the front bumper, fires three times into the moving Honda SUV.

The vehicle veers into parked cars, as horrified onlookers hurl abuse at the federal officers before her bloodied body appears slumped at the wheel.

Good leaves behind a wife and a six-year-old, officials said. More than $800,000 has been fundraised for her family.

At a protest outside a federal building in Minneapolis on Thursday, Sherry Garcia Meier called the administration's claims "smoke and mirrors."

"We have someone sitting at the head that wants to divide this whole country, that's going into other countries where he doesn't belong," she said, in reference to Trump.

Good, a US citizen, was not the target of immigration enforcement action and was only suspected of blocking traffic, police said.

Vance alleged Thursday that Good was part of a broader effort "to attack, to doxx, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job."

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said "law enforcement are under organized attack."

- Immigrant deportations -

Protests in Minneapolis grew after Minnesota state's Democratic Governor Tim Walz called it a "patriotic duty" to demonstrate.

"Watching that woman get murdered yesterday -- no more. This can't continue to happen. And I can't sit home and just watch it," 62-year-old Shanda Copeland told AFP at a protest in the city on Thursday.

"I feel like at least I'm here and I'll raise my voice as loud as I can."

Minneapolis schools were closed Thursday and Friday in anticipation of unrest.

Walz said Minnesota must participate in the shooting probe alongside federal investigators -- otherwise Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "is judge, jury and basically executioner."

"The idea that this was not justified is absurd," he said.

Wednesday's incident came during protests over immigration enforcement in southern Minneapolis, where locals are expressing widespread anger over Trump's vow to arrest and deport "millions" of undocumented people.

The victim's mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune her daughter "was probably terrified" and "not part" of anti-ICE activity.

Religious leaders addressed crowds at the scene of Good's death, where a memorial of flowers and candles was growing.

Nearby, Abdinasir Abdullahi, 38, a naturalized US citizen originally from Ethiopia, told AFP he goes nowhere without his passport for fear of ICE.

"They don't trust if I say I'm a citizen, they don't want to trust you," he said.

V.AbuAwwad--SF-PST