By Julia Harte, Matt Tracy and Curtis Williams
Jan 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is sending “hundreds” more officers to Minnesota, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in remarks that aired on Sunday, after tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis to protest the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent.
The officers would be deployed to bolster the safety of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officials already in Minnesota, Noem said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program. Some 2,000 federal officers have already been dispatched to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in what DHS has called its largest operation ever.
The new deployments began even as more than 1,000 rallies took place nationwide on Saturday and Sunday to protest the federal government’s deportation push and Wednesday’s fatal shooting of 37‑year‑old Renee Good by an ICE officer.
Video from Chicago, Pittsburgh and other cities showed crowds in the streets on Sunday, though none appeared to be as large as Saturday’s gathering in Minneapolis.
Thousands of people marched peacefully in New York City on Sunday, stopping in front of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue where demonstrators blocked traffic and chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” The New York Times reported.
Minnesota officials have called the shooting of Good unjustified, pointing to bystander video they say showed her vehicle turning away from the agent as he fired.
Noem and other U.S. officials have maintained that the agent acted in self-defense because Good, a volunteer in a community network that monitors and records ICE operations in Minneapolis, drove forward in the direction of the agent who then shot her, after another agent had approached the driver’s side and told her to get out of the car.
In a separate Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Noem said other video footage showed Good protesting ICE agents at other locations earlier on Wednesday morning, but did not say if or when it would be publicly released.
Minnesota authorities on Friday said they were opening their own criminal investigation into the incident, after some state law enforcement officials said the FBI was refusing to cooperate with state investigators.
White House Border Security Czar Tom Homan said on “Fox News Sunday” that he wanted to let the investigation play out, but that he “truly believe[s] that officer thought his life was in danger to take that action.”
(Reporting by Matt Tracy, Curtis Williams, and Julia Harte; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sergio Non, Bill Berkrot and Diane Craft)
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