MINNEAPOLIS: Civil liberties and migrant-rights groups called for nationwide rallies on Saturday to protest the fatal shooting of an activist in Minnesota by a US immigration agent, as state authorities opened their own investigation of the killing. Protest organisers said more than 1,000 weekend events were planned across the country demanding an end to large-scale deployments of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ordered by President Donald Trump, mostly to cities led by Democratic politicians.
Minneapolis became a major flashpoint of the Republican president’s militarised deportation round-ups on Wednesday, when an ICE officer shot and killed a 37-year old mother of three, Renee Good, behind the wheel of her car on a residential street. The violence came soon after some 2,000 federal officers were dispatched to Minneapolis in what ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, called the “largest DHS operation ever.” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, condemned the deployment as a “reckless” example of “governance by reality TV.”
On Friday night, throngs of demonstrators staged a “noise protest” outside a Minneapolis hotel believed to be lodging a visiting contingent of ICE agents. Video posted by activists on social media showed protesters, some wearing brightly coloured inflatable costumes, creating a din by beating on drums, banging pots and pans, yelling through bullhorns and blowing on brass instruments and whistles. Others directed high-power flashlight beams at the hotel’s windows. The crowd thinned after yellow-vested state police in riot gear marched into the area and declared an unlawful assembly. — Reuters
