Tensions continued mounting Thursday morning outside a federal immigration facility in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of an American woman by an ICE agent.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired three times into a vehicle driven by 37-year-old Renee Good, killing her, on Wednesday, and protests erupted around the city against the Trump administration's crackdown, and federal agents from various agencies faced off against demonstrators.
"You have the governor [Tim Walz] who said yesterday his National Guard is on standby to come in if they're needed," said CNN law enforcement analyst John Miller. "But he reminded people that's Minnesota's National Guard who are, you know, working for the people. We also saw in prior incidents where, in Los Angeles, in particular, where the White House and the Pentagon sent in National Guard from other states, in one case, the Marines to guard these federal buildings and facilitate the passage of these operations."
The demonstrators gathered around 7 a.m. to block the deployment of immigration patrols from a federal facility, and Miller predicated President Donald Trump and his officials could order more resources into the area.
"It certainly has the potential to accelerate this kind of encounter and these kinds of clashes, and what you will see is two different things," Miller said. "If this continues to escalate, one, the federal government will send in more resources. Don't be surprised if we see National Guards or Marines or guards deployed from other states federalized by the president. If this continues, but also do not be surprised as we learn from George Floyd, as we learn from Ferguson, that protesters and activists from other cities will flood into Minneapolis to say this has become the battleground of this issue."
CNN's Ryan Young reported live from the scene that some agents appeared to be inflaming tensions and possibly leaving weapons scattered on the ground.
"What we're seeing is a different level of maybe training per agent," Young reported. "There's some agents here who are trying to use de-escalation, and they're talking with the protesters and trying to walk them through it. Then there are other agents who are literally having conversations where they're antagonizing the protesters, telling them to 'bring it,' if they want to bring it, and they're they're using their body to physically push people down to the ground. We've watched that in several different occasions. That happened right here on the line."
Young noted that federal authorities appeared to be dropping some of their equipment as tensions flared.
"The other thing that we've noticed is some of these skirmishes, it shows a level of control when it comes to the equipment," Young reported. "It doesn't seem to really match what they should be doing. We've seen several of the Border Patrol agents dropping parts of their equipment. There are Border Patrol agents here with body cameras on, some of those have fallen to the ground. We've seen some of their agents in terms of pepper spray fall to the ground."
"One of the things that we've noticed is it seems like in the last half hour or so, more agents have arrived, and not only agents from Border Patrol, but it seems like some Homeland Security special response teams have arrived here, as well," he added. "I'm just going to walk you to the front of the line here and show you this. So this, for instance, this gentleman right here has been challenging a lot of the agents and getting in their faces nonstop. He's been doing a lot of the talking back and forth. You see, as we look down this line here, that you can see the faces of people. So this has been very interesting to watch as people have been screaming that there are murderers."
