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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Large Protest After ICE Agent Fatally Shoots Woman; Senator: Shooting Victim Identified as Renee Nicole Good; Ice Agent Shoots and Kills 37-year-old Woman in Minneapolis; DHS, Local Officials Give Conflicting Accounts of Deadly Ice Shooting; U.S. Military Seizes Oil Tankers. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired January 07, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: "-- is not part of anything like that at all." Adds that, "Renee was one of the kindest people I've ever known. She was extremely compassionate. She's taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being."
Donna Ganger has lost her daughter tonight.
Thank you so much for joining us as our breaking news coverage this hour continues with Anderson Cooper and AC360.
[20:00:29]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening our focus tonight is Minneapolis, the large protest near the sight of the killing of a woman, an American citizen. She was shot and killed there by an ICE officer amid a ramped up federal immigration crackdown in the city with the deployment of 2,000 federal agents.
Now, what you're looking at is a large protest that we have been watching over the last several hours. In a moment, we're going to play for you two videos of the shooting and what occurred before it. Two videos from different angles, and you can decide for yourselves what you see. Now, the shooting is already being fiercely debated. The Trump administration calls it self-defense against what they call an act of domestic terrorism. Minneapolis Democratic Mayor, who I'll speak to in a moment, calls that, "bullshit."
I'm going to show you the first video, and we're going to show it to you multiple times because it is chaotic and confusing, and you're going to see the shots being fired. You won't see the woman killed. She's not visible inside the SUV she's driving. But a warning, it is just tough to watch. This first video is 28 seconds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(VIDEO OF SHOOTING INCIDENT IN MINNEAPOLIS.)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, as you see, it's confusing. So, we're going to play it again. This time were going to circle the officer who fired the fatal shot. So you can see his movements and how he came to be standing where he was.
Now, this video begins with that officer going around the back of the woman's vehicle, the woman's SUV, while apparently being recorded by a bystander on his phone. Now the officer is holding something which looks like his phone, pointing back at that bystander. Take a look again. This is a full 28 seconds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(VIDEO OF SHOOTING INCIDENT IN MINNEAPOLIS.)
BYSTANDER: No, no! Shame! Shame! Oh my (bleep) God. What the (bleep)! You just -- what the (bleep) did you do?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So you see the movement of that officer and how he ended up in that spot? We're going to show it to you once more, this time in slow motion. Let's start that.
You can see one officer walk over to the car. The car's reverse lights go on and the officer pulls on the door handle with his right hand, while eventually reaching inside the open window with his left hand. He's the one who said to the lady in the car, get the eff out of the car or the vehicle.
The other officer is now in front of her car, and her reverse lights go out. When the car begins to move forward, the officer unholsters his weapon. He fires once it appears toward the windshield a second time, what appears to be her open window and a third shot immediately afterwards.
The car then goes careening down the street, and as you see the officer re-holsters his weapon.
Now, we've also obtained a second video filmed from the other side of the incident. So, it's a different angle, and I want to play that for you, too. In it, the officer who fires the shots is in the middle of the right side of your screen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(Video of shooting incident in Minneapolis.)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So we're going to play this video again with the officer who shoot circled. So, you can again more clearly see his location in relationship to the vehicle, which was going to be an important question moving forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(Video of shooting incident in Minneapolis.) (END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Again, let's look at that in slow motion to further assess the officer's location in relationship to the vehicle.
The officers in this one, the right side of your screen, eventually, he backs up a step or two. It appears he comes into contact with the forward moving vehicle and fires three shots.
Now, there's still a lot we do not know about what happened today. Here's what we do know.
We know the woman killed has been identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. That's according to Minnesota Senator Tina Smith. The City of Minneapolis says the incident happened around 9:30 A.M. local time, just two hours later or so, the Department of Homeland Security posted this on social media, calling what the driver did an act of domestic terrorism, and that was echoed 30 minutes later by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTI NOEM, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.
An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot to protect himself and the people around him. And my understanding is, is that she was hit and is deceased.
[20:05:47]
COOPER: So she is saying that the woman attacked the officers and those surrounding them. Those were her words and attempted to run them over and ram them. She says the officer who shot three times did so to protect himself and others around him.
Thirty minutes after that, local officials held a press conference. This was the Mayor's reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNEAPOLIS: They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The mayor also had very strong words for the deployment of immigration and customs enforcement officers in his city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FREY: To ICE, get fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, later this afternoon, President Trump posted about the incident on social media. It read in part, "The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self-defense".
Tonight in Minneapolis, at the scene of the shooting today, residents and activists gathered for a vigil. The makeshift shrine with chants of say it once, say it twice, will not put up with ICE. Those are some of the images of the crowds that gathered. With me now is the Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey.
Mayor, I appreciate you talking to us. You heard the comments from President Trump, from Secretary Noem. They say the ICE officer acted in self-defense. There's obviously a huge disagreement about what the videos show. Have you completely made up your mind or do you still have questions?
FREY: I'm not going to preempt the investigation that will be taking place. I'm told, by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension at the state. But I got two eyes. I saw the same videos that you saw and the notion that this is domestic terrorism on the form of the victim, yes, it is positively ridiculous. I mean, the way that ICE is behaving is reckless, not just in this incident, but numerous others and here's the thing, the chief and I have been saying, not just privately, but very publicly for well over a month, that something like this was going to happen, either a civilian, a police officer, or even an ICE agent getting injured badly or killed.
And so, look, I saw exactly what happened. I mean, what you saw was the victim taking at least, like a three-point turn. This was clearly not with any sort of intention to run somebody over, but to get out of there. And you don't need a legal degree to know that that does not authorize the use of deadly force.
COOPER: You hear in the video one officer telling her to get the eff out of the vehicle. He is trying to open up the door. That's when she does. You say was a three-point turn. She moves, she's going backward, and then she's moving forward in a slightly turning direction. What kind of an investigation, you think she was trying to get away?
FREY: That's what it appears to me, that being said, again, I'm not going to preempt an investigation that will be underway by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and obviously need to--
COOPER: And that's a state organization?
FREY: That's a state organization and the state has said that that is going to be the entity that is, at least in part, stepping up to review what took place.
That being said, again, the narrative that ICE is spinning immediately after this was that this was purely self-defense and that the act by the victim was some sort of domestic terrorism. That, and I'll say it again, is bullshit. That is bullshit.
The way they've been conducting themselves is also bullshit and we all need to be very clear eyed about what's happening, because, by the way, this is not just about Minneapolis. This is about the endurance of our republic. The things that are taking place are not just illegal, they are unconstitutional. They are coming in here. They are claiming it's about safety and it ain't.
They are claiming it's about enforcing the law and it's not. What they are doing is terrorizing communities. They are ripping families apart and they are creating danger, as we saw where they claim to be creating safety.
That's not okay in Minneapolis. That's not okay in any city in the entire country. If you care about the endurance of our republic and you care about the President of the United States and an administration abiding by the Constitution, whether you are a Democrat or you're a Republican, now is the time to stand up. This ain't okay.
[20:10:39]
COOPER: Have you -- has your Police Department have others expressed concerns about the training of these ICE officers in terms of operating in an urban environment, any kind of crowd control, interacting with you know, people who are videotaping them?
Is this what they are trained, which I assume your police officers have training in that?
FREY: I don't think the ICE agents know what the ICE agents are doing. Our police officers are deeply trained.
Look, over the last five years, our Police Department has dramatically improved. We are the change that we all want to see. We are making those changes literally as we speak. And by the way, crime is down in virtually every category, in virtually every neighborhood, crime is down.
Now, juxtapose that against what we're seeing from some of these federal agents. They are not trained in. They are not abiding by constitutional law. They certainly are not deescalating tense situations, because I don't know if what we saw by these federal agents in this most recent instance is de-escalation. I guess I don't even understand the definition of the word.
COOPER: Secretary Noem criticized you directly in a news conference a short time ago. I just want to play that and let you respond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NOEM: Because Governor Walz and Mayor Frey refused to protect Minnesotans, and instead they protect these criminals, that's why we are here and we didn't just show up yesterday, we've always been here. By not working with us, Governor Walz and Mayor Frey are putting those criminals and prioritizing them over our children and our grandchildren.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The secretary said -- ICE is staying. You're calling for ICE to leave. What happens now? And what do you say to her accusation?
FREY: First off, when I hear that, that sounds to me like someone that does not believe a word that she is saying. We have worked with federal agencies, by the way, substantially around investigating violent crime, preventing narcotics trade, getting guns off the street. We've worked with the U.S. Attorney's Office substantially. We've driven down crime on the North Side, for instance, crime is and specifically, shootings are at an historic low.
So, look, we're pro-law enforcement. We're anti-violating the Constitution. We're anti-crime, but we're pro getting ICE out of here because I got to say, they are causing so many problems in our city. You know, the stated reason again, is safety. But what we are seeing is that they are tearing families apart. We are seeing people that are terrified to go outside, go to their local businesses and now, exactly what we said would happen, happened. I hate to be right here.
COOPER: Well, finally, what is your message, not only to ICE but also to residents in your city? We've seen this large protest tonight. Are you concerned about what may occur tomorrow? What's your message to citizens?
FREY: Yes, my message to ICE, pure and simple, is to leave. My message to our community is that this is our moment to stand up and do the right thing. You've got this federal government that is going to show up with hate. We're going to show up with love. You got this federal administration that is going to come in to try to sow anger and chaos. We're going to show up with peace. We're going to do this right. We're going to be our best versions of self.
This federal government wants to have an excuse to militarize Minneapolis and bring additional occupation to our city. We won't let them -- we're going to do the right thing. We're going to be filled with hope. We're going to get justice, and were going to make sure that were doing right, not just by Minneapolis, but we're going to be an example for other cities throughout the country to follow. This is going to be a moment.
COOPER: So tomorrow, do you tell residents, don't protest, don't confront anybody, stay home. Calm down, what do you say?
FREY: No protest, great, First Amendment, awesome. Speak out. People are angry, I get it. If you can't tell, I'm angry. But let's not take the bait. They want residents of Minneapolis, they want me to make some sort of mistake in their mind, that would authorize, at least in their mind, a deployment of a whole lot more troops. We know how devastating that would be to our community. We know how dangerous that would be to safety in our city. And we all recognize, for those of us that care deeply about our immigrant community. And I do, having deployment of additional troops is not the right route at this moment or any moment here.
And so, what we are going to do is meet that hate with a whole lot of love. We're going to do the right thing in Minneapolis. We're going to, of course, speak out, of course, express First Amendment rights. We're going to do that peacefully and I have a really good feeling that we are united in fine fashion to get this done correctly.
[20:15:27]
COOPER: Mayor Jacob Frey, I appreciate your time tonight. I'm sorry we're talking to these circumstances.
We have much more ahead tonight.
Up next, we'll get a live report from Laura Coates in Minneapolis, where the large crowd has gathered near the site of today's fatal shooting.
Later, this is not the first time a federal agent has pulled guns on a U.S. Citizen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ICE OFFICER: Get out of here or I'll shoot you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here or what?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We'll take a look at some of the other tense moments in recent months that have played out in neighborhoods across the country.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:10]
COOPER: More now on our breaking news tonight out of Minneapolis after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman, a U.S. citizen earlier today. These are images of the large crowd that had gathered at the site of the tonight, as we've been reporting. Federal and local authorities have conflicting views on the incident. I want to go to CNN anchor Laura Coates, who is in Minneapolis tonight.
Laura, what have you been seeing on this evening?
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: Just moments ago, Anderson, the crowd began to move away from the protest area, which was staged near the vigil where candles, flowers are illuminating the very scene where somebody lost their life earlier today. And now someone said, shouting, you wanted to see us, you want them to see us, and we've got to march, we've got to march. Others implored people to make sure that they were safe and peaceful. They have begun marching. There is a drum that is guiding people as we're walking down, you can see the lights ahead of us include things like the Foshay Tower, the IDS building in Downtown Minneapolis, which is also where you will find the police station and other government buildings, Anderson. They're on the move right now, and we are going with them.
COOPER: What is the law enforcement's presence like there?
COATES: You know what? There is not a huge law enforcement presence where we are. There is a huge community presence. People are angry, Anderson. I spoke to a number of people, including a set of three daughters whose father had been deported to Mexico back in 2018. They described that they themselves wanted to come because they were so taken with somebody who they believe was simply trying to stand up for their own rights and did not want to navigate the system alone.
Others are shouting profanities about ICE. Others are very angry about what has happened and frustrated, saying, no ICE here, not in our city. Here we are a few blocks away from where George Floyd was killed. We are now about a mile or so from downtown Minneapolis. People are angry. The temperatures are frustrated. It is peaceful and not in terms of the sound and the loudness, but they are angry and want their views to be heard.
I will also note about ten minutes ago there was a big tuba that was playing "This Little Light of Mine," and the crowd broke out in song familiar speaking about and singing about that really poignant moment.
COOPER: Laura Coates, thanks very much. Laura is going to be anchoring live from Minneapolis at 11:00 P.M. Eastern.
Joining me right now is former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, former Secret Service agent, Jonathan Wackrow, and former NYPD deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism John Miller.
And I want to put those videos back up because, I mean, this is what it boils down to in terms of how people see this.
What do you guys see from a law enforcement perspective, particularly this video of the officer who shot from the other, the second vantage point that we have seen, the contact he made with the vehicle?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So, in one sense, the officer places himself in front of that vehicle, which creates a situation where this is almost bound to happen. The car starts to move forward. You're going to perceive that as a threat. The second thing you see is he opens fire. He fires at least what we get from the audio is three shots. And that is basically against DHS policy, which is policy states you're not supposed to shoot at a moving vehicle.
COOPER: You're not supposed to.
MILLER: Right, and the idea is that it is inherently dangerous and usually ineffective. The policy says if you are forced to shoot at a moving vehicle, you should also consider what happens when you shoot the driver of a vehicle that's speeding, which we see here. It goes out of control and crashes, and what is the danger to others.
So, one of the things there is from a tactical standpoint, was this a smart way to operate? One of the fascinating things we learned from the Secretary of Homeland Security today was that the agent who fires the shots in June had been rammed by another vehicle, Secretary Noem claims.
COOPER: This is what she says.
MILLER: That's right and dragged for 50 yards.
COOPER: I mean, there's no body camera.
MILLER: We haven't isolated what incident that was or where it was. And we are aware from past descriptions of encounters with people in vehicles and ICE that they have a tendency at DHS, at least on the headquarters level, to, exaggerate the occurrence.
So, this raises a number of questions, and the investigations here are going to be you know, from the FBI and DHS, was it tactically bad to create this situation? Was it within policy as a shooting for the deadly force policy? And then there's the legal part, which was it criminal?
COOPER: John, I mean, again, we're playing this video because I do think this is a really crucial moment. Obviously, you know, some people will look at this and say, well, look, she was trying to hit him. Others will say, well, look, he could have backed two more steps back and then --
MILLER: It's important to note that before he makes contact with the car, if that's what we see in this video, he has already fired.
COOPER: I'm not -- yes, I'm not sure when the first shot you think that has occurred?
[20:25:08]
MILLER: I've looked at a number of times.
COOPER: He's already fired when he's made contact with the vehicle.
MILLER: Yes.
COOPER: It seems like he puts a hand on a vehicle.
JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So he puts his non- shooting hand down and basically, he bounces himself off of it. But when we look at this video, we have to look at it through two lenses.
One is the legal lens and Elie and I talked about this earlier, which is, is this a justifiable shoot under the law and there are certain circumstances there. And then there's the judgment call, the judgment call of the officer on the scene could he have gotten out of the way?
Now, your point of he has already been struck by a vehicle in previous operations --
COOPER: Allegedly.
WACKROW: Allegedly, then he should know from a tactical standpoint, I am going to get off center. I am not going to be in front of this car. But Anderson, let me just give you my perspective.
I have been that officer. I actually have been in the exact same situation, but I did not shoot. Early 2000, Astoria Boulevard outside the Neptune Diner, we were making an arrest. I found myself in that exact same position. My weapon was drawn. It was pointed at the driver.
We knew that at that point in time, there were weapons in the car and any type of furtive movement would have, you know, made me pull that trigger. The reason I didn't is because when I look behind, there were people walking along the sidewalk. I knew that if I shot that driver, he was going to veer off, most likely to the left into there was a Dunkin Donuts right across. You know exactly where I'm talking about.
The judgment call that you have to make, that any officer or agent has to make is milliseconds. In my case, I did not take the shot. In this case, they did. Decisions have consequences.
COOPER: Three shots.
WACKROW: Three shots.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Can I just follow up with you, Jonathan?
WACKROW: Yes.
HONIG: If there were no bystanders, would you have fired that shot?
WACKROW: Most likely, yes.
HONIG: Okay.
WACKROW: But the totality of the circumstances was and that's the way you have to look at this both from a legal standpoint and from a judgment call.
COOPER: I just want to play the video with sound. Just to the question you raised about when the first shot, when it will play that and then we're going to take a quick break and well come back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(Video of shooting incident in Minneapolis.)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no. Shame. Shame. Oh my (bleep) God. What the (bleep)! You just -- What the (bleep) did you do? (END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:31:26]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": We're following the Breaking News out of Minneapolis tonight where protesters gathered after an ICE agent shot a woman earlier today, killing her. Officials said the victim had attempted to run the agent over in what Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, calls an act of domestic terrorism. Minneapolis' Mayor Jacob Frey says that's BS. He wants ICE out of the city. And as you heard just moments ago, he says they'll get justice.
Back now with the panel. Jonathan, again, from your experience, and you were literally in an experience like this, and I want to show the video again, the close-up, slowed-down video from the second angle. What do you think could have gone differently?
JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So, what could have gone differently actually precedes this. It precedes the shooting. It's how that contact with law enforcement, when the pickup truck first shows up and those two agents get out.
COOPER: Let's go back to the video that Jonathan's talking about, which is the original video we showed, the preamble to the shooting from the other angle. We're going to get that up. So you say the incident really began much earlier.
WACKROW: There.
COOPER: There, here.
WACKROW: We had --
COOPER: Because she actually -- you hear someone in the car, the woman in the car seems to tell one car to go around her.
WACKROW: It shows. Now these officers and agents are walking up, but there was no verbal commands. There was no show me your hands. There was no identification of police. It's implied by their markings in the situation. But there were moments that this could have stopped.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: They didn't say get the F out of the vehicle.
WACKROW: They did say -- they did say that. But really, from a law -- is that a lawful command? I would have said -- identified myself as police. Police, show me your hands. Put the car in park because, at that point, she's in reverse. She's actually in reverse at that first contact. Put the car in park. Turn the engine off.
(CROSSTALK) COOPER: It looks like he is drawing his gun now, right? He's drawn -- while she's in reverse, he's drawn his gun. It looks and as you're right, John, there was -- it looked like the first shot was fired before there was any sort of touch.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: That's right. And the DHS policy on this reads, DHS law enforcement officers are prohibited from discharging firearms at the operator of a moving vehicle or other conveyance unless the use of deadly force against the operator is justified against the standards articulated elsewhere in this policy.
And it says because, you know, that it's not going to stop the car and the car may go out of control and hurt somebody else.
COOPER: Jonathan, does it surprise you that the officer has removed his gun while she is backing up?
WACKROW: Again, we had to look at it. This is -- from a legal standpoint, it's going to be judged. So you can see the weapon --
COOPER: Yeah.
WACKROW: -- just being drawn right now. So the vehicle is in motion. He fears that there's potentially some level of threat. We don't know what he's looking at, though. We're looking at this from behind. He is looking at it inside the vehicle. So, again, when it comes down to this investigation, his statement of why did you feel that your life was at imminent risk in this moment that you not only drew your weapon, but the moment that you pulled that trigger, something -- did you see something?
COOPER: The statement by Noem, I know you have some thoughts on it because she does say that it was to protect his own life and other officers surrounding him. He seems to be the only officer.
WACKROW: The rest of them seem shocked. The rest of them are shocked.
MILLER: There is two important points there. Number one is, because of his experience allegedly of being dragged in another incident, he could be worried that this officer who has his hands on the car may be pulled along or dragged by the car. But the other thing which goes to the opposite is that look at his direction of fire.
[20:35:00]
Look at where his two partners are. There is literally a foot between his partner and that door and the woman who was killed by that shot. He is firing directly at his two colleagues who are in the line of his fire. Even in Jonathan's example of the shoot -- don't shoot --
WACKROW: Yeah.
MILLER: -- that beyond pedestrians would be another real concern, which is as this car is moving, am I going to hit one of the other officers? WACKROW: Ricochet. There's so many things that could jeopardize officer safety in this moment. Again, you have the license plate. You know -- you will know who this is. Pick her up later.
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: (inaudible).
WACKROW: Pick her up later. It's not worth the consequences that could happen from this. But it did.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Two major problems with Secretary Noem's statement. One, a lot of it seems to be contradicted by the video. But two, how on earth are the Feds going to do an impartial, fair investigation of this that wins the confidence of the public when you have the secretary of DHS and the president, based on zero investigation, coming out and publicly declaring all clear here?
Ordinarily, the way this would work, Anderson, is the FBI would run the criminal investigation of this, separate from ICE. ICE would not have a part in the criminal investigation. They'd work with DOJ, with U.S. attorney's offices, and decide whether this is a legally justified or unjustified use of force.
How could -- first of all, I don't even know that they'll do that in this case, given that the president and DHS secretary have already decided. And if they do run this investigation and they conclude this is a justified shooting, how is that going to have any independence or any credibility?
COOPER: So the mayor of Minneapolis says that the state police essentially are investigating.
HONIG: So it is very, very rare to see state-level charges against a federal officer, an ICE officer, for excessive use of force. It is possible for the state to bring those charges, but if they do, they're going to run into major legal obstacles. There will be an argument that this federal agent is entitled to immunity because the argument will be he was a uniformed acting in his federal capacity, ICE agency. And the supremacy clause, which basically says the state cannot get in the way of the Feds trying to carry out federal priorities.
So it could be, Anderson, there's a chance that Minnesota state prosecutors lodge state-level charges against this ICE officer. That can happen, but they're going to have a major uphill legal battle if they do file those charges.
MILLER: And one last thing that, you know, we go based on the video. We can play it over and over. We can circle. We can zoom in. The thing that's going to have tremendous weight here in the criminal side of this investigation is the perception of the agent at the time. Not what we know, not what we saw, but what did he see? And sometimes in these cases, where you have that tunnel vision, you see the car moving forward. If his perception was I was convinced she was going to drag my partner and run me over.
They're going to have to measure that against what would a reasonable agent with the same training and tactics have done.
HONIG: Not in hindsight.
MILLER: Right. Not in hindsight.
HONIG: At the time. And I think that that's what's complicating this is we're looking at this all in hindsight and analyzing it.
COOPER: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
HONIG: The law does not.
COOPER: Very quickly. Thanks, everyone. More of our Breaking News coverage. We had some in Minneapolis venting their anger at ICE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: ICE, down, down. ICE, down, down. ICE, down, down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We'll take you back to live to Minneapolis for the latest on what's happening on the streets. Also ahead, the U.S. military seizing two giant oil tankers, including one vessel with links to both Venezuela and Russia. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:42:24]
COOPER: I want to play again the video of today's fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman, American citizen, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minnesota. Now, the exact circumstances remain under dispute. Tonight, the Democratic Mayor of Minneapolis angrily denouncing the shooting as excessive use of lethal force. President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, quick to call it an act of self-defense. Not the first time the president's surge of immigration enforcement action in major American cities has caused fear and concern. This is a video from a November incident outside Chicago, in which a U.S. Border Patrol agent pulled his gun on civilians.
With me now are former senior adviser of President Obama, David Axelrod and Republican Strategist, Brad Todd. David, you've lived through what happened in Chicago.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. And you know, I really related to what Mayor Frey said. The threat that's being visited on these communities is coming from ICE and from the Border Patrol, and I've seen this movie before. We had an incident in September that was just like this where a man was stopped. In this case, he was an undocumented person. He'd been in Chicago for a long time, dropping his kid off at school. He gets stopped. He is scared. He tries to pull away. There are agents on each side and one guy pulls out a gun and shoots him. And then, much as in this case, the DHS announced that the agent who had shot was seriously injured and was at the hospital and so on. And then, video surface of that guy, after the shooting, walking around the scene and telling people he was fine. It was just a couple of scratches. So, time and time and time again, there were excessive uses and reckless uses of force and then and lies about them to the point where, Anderson, there was a federal court judge who issued a 233-page ruling to curb the actions of ICE.
And she said, while defendants may argue that the court identifies only minor inconsistencies in their stories, every minor inconsistency adds up and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to believe if -- to believe almost anything that defendants represent. I mean this is a -- this really should be of concern to everyone. I mean I don't know who these people are. They wear masks. We don't know where they came from. We know they're being recruited, offered big bonuses to join with promises of routing the infidels from the country.
COOPER: Right. Protecting the culture and --
AXELROD: And the question is what kind of people respond to that sort of thing.
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COOPER: Right.
AXELROD: Did they do background checks? What do they do?
COOPER: Brad, you hear David. What do you say to the idea that ICE is emboldened to use force, and do you have any concerns about the quality of the people that they're hiring?
BRAD TODD, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think that ICE needs to constantly re-evaluate their tactics and the strategies and whether people -- whether their officers are being trained properly on the use of excessive force. We'll find out if this was excessive force during an investigation here. But, let's keep in mind --
COOPER: Will there be an investigation, you think?
TODD: Let's keep in mind though, David, they're doing something we haven't done before. This country hasn't been serious about enforcing our immigration laws for a long time. And so, this is new territory doing this and they're doing so in a hostile environment. The Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, told citizens to show up, show up in front of ICE. He has encouraged people like Ms. Good to go out and disrupt the work of law enforcement.
Minneapolis has an ordinance, in fact, that prohibits the police from even helping in crowd control. So that's -- if police had been there today and they had told Ms. Good, you got to get out of the road, you're perpendicular to a law enforcement activity, this would not have happened.
COOPER: By the way, I just -- I just interviewed the mayor. He did not use the word disrupt as far as I remember. He did say, talking about people exercising their rights to speak out.
TODD: He said -- no, I'm talking about weeks ago. He said people should show up and go protect their neighbors. He's encouraging people to go disrupt this law enforcement work, that's irresponsible.
AXELROD: You know, if there weren't people out there, we saw this in Chicago, the community organized, and people across the spectrum and from many different communities, suburban and local, if they weren't out there with their cell phones videoing these tactics, then we would not know what was going on. We would not know the facts.
TODD: But David -- David --
AXELROD: But Brad, let me make one other point because I want to correct something you said. There actually were far more people deported in given years under President Obama and he targeted people who actually were criminals. 70 percent of the people who are being apprehended by ICE in these cities have no criminal record beyond the fact that they're in the country illegally, but no violent crime. And yeah, and the president took a lot of heat from his own constituency. They called him Deporter in Chief but he thought it was important.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: So let's just remember that.
TODD: But David, you've been plenty critical of Joe Biden too, and you know that we had an endless wave of illegal immigration under Joe Biden.
AXELROD: (Inaudible) That's a different issue.
TODD: Democrats have done -- did nothing to stop it. But let's go back a second. Mayor Frey told citizens to show up. They have a city ordinance that does not let the police, not only does not let them cooperate, they can't even participate in crowd control. And if the Minneapolis police were helping ICE through this process, this would not be this disorderly.
It wouldn't be this chaotic. And our ICE agents, who've been threatened at home and had death threats, they wouldn't be maybe in a position where they felt like they were threatened by these protesters. We have to get local law enforcement engaged in helping enforce the law.
AXELROD: All over the Chicago area, and I think you'll see it here, the manner in which ICE has conducted itself, releasing tear gas canisters around schools when kids are coming out from school and doing the kinds of things that are so provocative that, of course, you're going to engender a reaction. I would say this --
TODD: I'm troubled by that. (Inaudible) David. (CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Nobody would argue that these kind of tactics make communities safer. Minneapolis is not safer tonight because of what happened out there today or because of what they're doing. So, you know --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: David, ICE is not trained for crowd control, but the Minneapolis police are trained for crowd control. And we're asking ICE agents to do something that's not in their training. Minneapolis police should be out there.
AXELROD: I don't even know what their training is, Brad. That's one of the problems. We don't know how they're being trained for these. They're going into these cities and they know what they're going to face. They know what the situation is. They know that there's going to be -- there are going to be people protesting and so on. What kind of training are they doing? Do you know? I don't think so. I don't think anybody does.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: But, David, wouldn't you agree that we shouldn't be encouraging Ms. Good to go out and people like that? The families lost their mother and they've lost it because Democratic politicians told them to go out in the streets.
AXELROD: No, I don't agree with that because I think that it's important for citizens to go out and chronicle what's going on, so that the country can see and their communities can know exactly what's happening. If you don't do that, it's very clear that DHS is not going to tell the truth because, as the judge said, they have a history of not doing that. So it's important for people to be out there and protect their community by cataloging exactly what's happening.
COOPER: Yeah. David Axelrod, Brad Todd, appreciate it. I'm joined now by Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth from Illinois. Her state has seen its share of federal agents patrolling its streets. Senator Duckworth is also a member of the Armed Services Committee. Senator Duckworth, what is your reaction to what happened in Minneapolis today? What may happen in another city tomorrow?
SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, (D-IL) ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Well, Anderson, I want to speak a little bit to what Brad was saying. He said, you know, if there were police officers doing crowd control that would help. We had police officers helping with crowd control and ICE tear-gassed 27 of Chicago's finest CPD officers who were out there actually trying to help with crowd control.
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ICE has not made Minneapolis safer, and they certainly didn't make Chicago safer. And in fact, in Chicago, they, at one point, from the roof of a building, a sniper shot a priest who was on the sidewalk praying for ICE. And so, I mean, they shot him with pepper spray -- with pepper bullets.
The problem that I see here from the videos that I've seen, it looked like this person was trying to leave. And remember, the person responsible for killing the victim is an ICE officer. And now, we have a six-year-old child who's an orphan.
COOPER: Are you concerned? I mean, do you have much information? Is anyone in Congress looking into who's being hired, the training or lack of training they're actually getting? Because, I mean, there was an incident where an officer pulled his gun on civilians, actually took two civilian citizens into his vehicle, drove them around, according to our reporter, for several hours in his vehicle, no Miranda rights, nothing, and finally deposited them at an FBI office because he didn't know what else to do with them. And they were let go because the FBI was like -- that was in Evanston, Illinois.
DUCKWORTH: Yes, I'm deeply concerned about the training that these officers are or are not getting. We certainly have -- members of Congress have certainly asked that question. We've not gotten answers. I certainly have not received any information from DHS on what type of training these new ICE agents are receiving, the newly hired ones. I will tell you, Anderson, that they actually detained several members of one of our aldermen's -- Alderman Rodriguez's chief of staff was actually detained by ICE for taking video, for passively taking video of the actions that they were taking on the streets.
And so, she was just simply exercising her First Amendment rights and she was actually out there peacefully and they actually detained her. So, they have a history, at least from Chicago, of detaining innocent civilians, of grabbing American citizens, of really violent action on peaceful protesters.
And so, I'm not surprised that they're doing what they're doing in Minneapolis. And if they're not well trained, you can see why you have instances like this happening. And it's tragic because again, we now have a six-year-old child who's an orphan.
COOPER: In past incidents, in past years, the FBI would likely lead an investigation. Do you think that's even going to happen in this case?
DUCKWORTH: I don't think so because I don't see these similar investigations happening out of the incidences that happened in Chicago, for example. They're simply letting this go.
And unfortunately, my colleagues in the Senate, my Republican colleagues, are also not holding DHS or the Trump administration accountable either. And so, they're basically getting away with whatever they're doing and lying to the American people. But thank goodness, we have citizens out there videotaping and the videos don't lie.
The videos are showing us what is actually happening, putting a lie to what ICE is saying. Remember that they also recently apprehended, arrested through one of my colleagues, the Senator from California, to the ground and claimed that he never identified himself when he spoke up at that press conference. And in fact, he did.
He said, hey, I'm a U.S. Senator. I want to ask questions. And they detained him. So if they can do this to a U.S. Senator, they can do it to anybody and we have to stop them.
COOPER: Senator Tammy Duckworth, I appreciate your time tonight. We're going to continue to follow this. We're going to go back to Minneapolis, get an update from CNN's Whitney Wild, who's also on the scene where a large crowd has gathered near today's fatal ICE shooting.
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COOPER: Over the evening, we have seen large crowds in the streets of Minneapolis after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman earlier today. CNN's Whitney Wild is there.
Whitney, you were there immediately after the shooting happened. What's the scene right now?
WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, it is very calm. It is completely quiet because this is steps from where this woman lost her life.
Let me show you what you see behind me. This is a vigil that has grown significantly in the last several hours. You see there are hundreds of candles, bouquets, all these people here taking a moment to look at this vigil, reflect on her life, reflect on what this moment means.
Anderson, this is just so striking. This is right where she spent her last moments. Most of these people here, I'm sure, did not know her and yet they still took time to come out and pay their respects to her, Anderson.
We have seen large crowds. We saw it condense a little bit earlier today. It was quite angry. A lot of that anger was directed at the federal law enforcement who is here, the Minneapolis Police Department, who many people told me they felt like was not protecting them, but was instead protecting ICE. Now, what you see is this moment of real reverence for this woman whose life was lost at the hands of an ICE officer, Anderson.
COOPER: What was the scene like in the aftermath of the shooting earlier today?
WILD: It was quite volatile. Pretty quickly, law enforcement cordoned off the area, and the scene stretched several blocks. People at the edges were very angry. They were yelling at the federal law enforcement and yelling at the Minneapolis Police Department.
In some cases, they were throwing snowballs and chunks of ice at the federal law enforcement vehicles as they left that scene. Minneapolis Police secured that scene for several hours as the FBI processed it. They are the investigative agency now. Once that scene was cleared and Minneapolis Police began to lift the barricades, people began to come into this area again where she lost her life, and they were very angry. They were throwing snowballs and ice at Minneapolis Police Department.
So, it was a really striking moment here, Anderson, because Minneapolis Police taking that heat from the public for something that they were not involved in, and yet the public felt like they were where they were going to direct their anger in that moment, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Whitney Wild, we appreciate the reporting. Whitney Wild is on the scene there where this deadly shooting took place earlier today, according to local officials, around 9.30 a.m. or so in this morning. We have been showing you multiple -- we have two angles on it. There may be more videos to come in the hour --
