"There's 15 ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents, and they shot her, like, cause she wouldn't open her car door," a witness told 911 emergency dispatchers on the morning of Jan. 7, according to call transcripts that capture the fear gripping Minneapolis, the largest city of the U.S. state of Minnesota, reported Xinhua.
That call was one of dozens made as bystanders watched federal immigration agents shoot 37-year-old Renee Good while she remained in her vehicle, an incident that residents say has turned the Midwestern city into what feels like a community under siege.
"I witnessed it. Yes, bleeding," another caller told the emergency operator on that day, catching her breath. "She tried to drive away but crashed into the nearest vehicle that was parked. She had blood all over her," according to emergency call transcripts obtained by The New York Times newspaper.
When emergency responders arrived, they found Good unresponsive in the driver's seat with two gunshot wounds to her chest, another to her forearm, and a possible wound to her head, according to Minneapolis Fire Department incident reports.
In the days since, nationwide protests against the ICE erupted across the United States. Multiple residents have reported online that ICE agents have created an atmosphere that witnesses described as threatening and intimidatory while confronting civilians on the streets.
Brieella Johnson, 35, lives next door to the scene of a second ICE-related shooting in Minneapolis earlier this week, in which a man was shot in the leg.
"They threw smoke grenades in an effort to force the person to come out. Agents were aiming guns at the house," Johnson told reporters, describing what she and her daughter witnessed from their porch after hearing two gunshots.
Shawn Jackson and his wife, Destiny, both 26, were driving home on Thursday with their six children when they became trapped between protesters and federal agents.
"From the side, the front, and from behind me, it was nothing but ICE," Shawn Jackson told The New York Times. The couple tried to turn around, but agents deployed tear gas and stun grenades. A tear gas canister rolled beneath their car.
"It felt like our lungs was (were) burning. Water didn't help. Nothing helped at that moment," he said, noting that two of his children have severe asthma. The blast triggered the airbags, trapping the family as smoke filled the vehicle.
Destiny Jackson, temporarily blinded and struggling to breathe, worked to pull as many children as she could from the gas-filled car. Their six-month-old baby was briefly trapped in the car seat.
"My baby was completely unconscious, not breathing," she said. Bystanders rushed to help, using milk to neutralize the tear gas on the children while the mother received CPR instructions from emergency services over the phone.
The family was taken to a hospital and released the following day.
The heavy federal presence has paralyzed daily life in Minneapolis. Schools have been severely affected. "Students are terrified to come to school," said Dr. Brenda Lewis, superintendent of the Fridley school district, where roughly one-third of students were absent in the days following Good's death, The New York Times reported.
"Over the past several days, I have received hundreds of messages about offering a temporary virtual learning option for students who do not feel comfortable coming to school right now," said Stacie Stanley, superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools. Both Minneapolis and Saint Paul have begun offering remote learning through mid-February.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a non-governmental organization focused on constitutional rights, filed a lawsuit on Thursday that includes firsthand accounts from citizens briefly detained by the ICE.
Mubashir Khalif Hussen, 20, a Somali-American, said he was walking during his lunch break when agents stopped him. "At no time did any officer ask me whether I was a citizen or if I had any immigration status," Hussen stated in the lawsuit. He was "violently stopped, pinned to the ground, placed in a headlock, and taken away" with agents refusing to examine his U.S. passport until after detention.
Mahamed Eydarus, 25, was shoveling snow with his mother when masked federal agents arrived in unmarked vehicles. Agents told his mother to remove her niqab, a religious face covering, then separated the pair. After detention and release, the lawsuit states, "Mr. Eydarus is scared to go about his daily life in public, as he fears being again detained based on his Somali descent and appearance."
Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne summarized the mood in an interview with CNN: "Many of our residents are out there legally observing the operations of our federal government to ensure that our constitutional rights are not getting violated, and what I'm seeing firsthand is our constitutional rights being violated."
Comparing the situation to the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Payne said, "We have lived this already, and we're living it again, and this time we're living it through our federal government."
However, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the ICE, disputed allegations of misconduct, telling CNN in an email that "these allegations are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE."
As tensions remain high, attorney Antonio Romanucci, representing Good's family, is demanding the federal government preserve all evidence. "We don't know that we are going to get the truth only with the federal government investigating this," he told CNN Thursday.