Minneapolis ICE Shooting Sparks Dispute Over What Happened (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: 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. No. No. Shame. Shame. Oh my f**king God. What the f**k? What the f**k?

[00:00:25] Speaker 2: What the f**k did you do?

[00:00:39] Speaker 1: Protesters are gathering at the scene at this hour. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said this about the incident a short time ago.

[00:00:49] Speaker 3: 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.

[00:01:06] Speaker 2: The mayor of Minneapolis is also speaking out, calling that official line from federal authorities a lie.

[00:01:14] Speaker 4: 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 b******t.

[00:01:28] Speaker 2: Let's go out to the scene now. CNN's Whitney Wilde has been tracking this story. Whitney, what more are officials there saying?

[00:01:37] Speaker 5: Well, as you heard, it was a profanity-laced 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. This person was basically 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, 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'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 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 and the Minneapolis Police Department. It looks like, actually, they're taking away some of the barricades that they had before here. I'm not clear on if they're condensing this scene at all, but this is interesting because before they had, you might not be able to see it, before they had bike racks here, they appear to be taking it away, so it's possible that they feel like this 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. The 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 are spread throughout the Twin Cities. Again, their largest immigration operation to date. Again, people here in Minneapolis are very angry, and were very angry about that operation at all. Now today, their anger is heightened. Right now, it is being directed toward the Minneapolis Police Department, who they think in this moment is protecting ICE and not them. So a lot of anger here in Minneapolis. Back to you.

[00:04:30] Speaker 1: 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. 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.

[00:05:28] Speaker 6: 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, I just 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 wheels 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 agent has to articulate what the threat was. Now, we do see in that vehicle, 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 is someone who was fleeing and wasn't an indication of any other type of violence? And 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 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 a pass is any type of 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, weeks, sometimes months, sometimes a year. Here, we already have top officials coming out mere hours after it happened, saying the agent was right.

[00:08:46] Speaker 2: Josh Campbell, thank you so much for that context. 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?

[00:09:05] Speaker 5: Right now, we're seeing people come and put flowers and incense where this woman died. Boris, this is 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. 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. Again, we are here at Portland Avenue between East 34th and East 33rd, and this is the first time members of the public are getting to see actually where this woman was shot. 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.