Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declared an emergency and ordered the state’s National Guard to prepare following the death Wednesday of a woman shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
- The incident occurred at the intersection of East 34th Street and Portland Avenue, sparking a tense standoff between federal and local law enforcement and protesters.
- “We have activated the State Emergency Operations Center, and the leadership of the state patrol and the National Guard is in contact with the Minneapolis Police Department,” said the Democratic official.
- “I want to be very careful here because Donald Trump will make this all about me. He will turn this into a political issue. This is about public safety and normalcy,” he said.
Walz said that “the state does not need more help from the federal government” after federal officials responded to the fatal incident earlier that morning in south Minneapolis.
“Donald Trump and Kristi Noem: you’ve done enough already,” Walz said at a press conference hours after the shooting.
The incident occurred at the intersection of East 34th Street and Portland Avenue, sparking a tense standoff between federal and local law enforcement and protesters.
Minneapolis authorities identified the victim as a 37-year-old woman. U.S. Senator Tina Smith described her as a “U.S. citizen” in a social media post.
As a result, the State Emergency Operations Center was activated, and Walz issued a warning order to prepare the National Guard.
“I want to remind everyone that a warning order is a notice to the public, and these National Guard troops are our National Guard troops,” Walz said.
Walz announced the measures to “be ready” to address “civil unrest,” recalling the summer of 2020, when mass protests erupted over police brutality following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police—the same city where ICE now fatally shot the woman, identified as a 37-year-old white U.S. citizen.
“We have activated the State Emergency Operations Center, and the leadership of the state patrol and the National Guard is in contact with the Minneapolis Police Department,” said the Democratic official.
The state leader announced these actions amid growing protests following the woman’s death, whom President Donald Trump had earlier accused of being a “professional agitator” for “aggressively running over an ICE officer” who fired “in self-defense.”
However, the governor called the shooting “unnecessary” and “preventable,” stating that the state faces a “chaotic situation caused by the largest deployment of federal agents in U.S. history without coordination with local authorities.”
“I want to be very careful here because Donald Trump will make this all about me. He will turn this into a political issue. This is about public safety and normalcy,” he said.
“We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous and sensationalist operations are a threat to our public safety and that someone was going to get hurt,” he continued.
Despite the “anger,” the governor urged protesters to demonstrate peacefully and “not take the bait” from the federal government, as Minneapolis was the epicenter of severe nationwide protests and riots in 2020 after Floyd’s death during Trump’s first term.
The official did not specify under what circumstances the National Guard or State Patrol would be activated but promised that these forces would be there to “protect” the population and their “constitutional rights.”
“We have about 7,500 troops at our training sites across the state. What happens is you give the National Guard a warning order, which is a notice that something might occur,” he stated.
Image: Opinion
