Donald Trump’s White House declares sudden Press Conference after Minnesota capturing
The White House issued a change to the daily schedule, with a press briefing added. It follows fury over the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman by an ICE agent in Minnesota
Donald Trump’s White House has announced an unexpected Press Conference today.
The Daily Schedule was updated to include a press briefing with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. The subject matter of the press conference has not been confirmed, but it follows rising fury over the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman by an ICE agent in Minnesota.
From early this morning hundreds of protesters gathered around an immigration enforcement centre in St Paul, Minnesota after an agent shot mother of three Renee Nicole Good as she attempted to drive her car away.
The press conference will take place at 1pm in Washington DC, which is 6pm UK time.
In a Truth Social post following the incident, Trump said video he’d seen of Minneapolis shooting shows the driver “violently, wilfully and viciously ran over” the ICE agent and the he appeared injured, none of which is true.
He also claimed the officer who took the shots is “recovering in hospital”. There’s been no suggestion of him being injured or in hospital.
“Based on the attached clip,” he wrote, “it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.”
After the incident, Minnesota Government Tim Walz tweeted: “I’ve seen the video. Don’t believe this propaganda machine.”
He later appeared before cameras, saying: “I have a very simple message: We don’t need further help from the federal government. To Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, you’ve done enough.”
Walz criticised the “total chaos” of the situation.
“It’s beyond me that apparently from the federal government, the Homeland Security director herself, has already determined who this person who, what their motive was, and they hadn’t even been taken out of the vehicle. We’re not living in a normal world,” he said.
“After this person was shot, federal agents are milling around, touching the vehicle at a crime scene — I don’t know what to tell you.”
He added: “Do you have no decency? We have someone dead in their car for no reason whatsoever. I don’t want to be right about this, but I said if they do this they’re gonna create a chaotic situation where someone innocent is gonna get killed. And they did it.”
Video of the incident shows an officer standing toward the front-left corner of the SUV as a second officer attempts to wrench the door open.
The driver steers to the right, away from both officers and begins to move, at which point the officer fired at least three shots at point-blank range. No other officers were in the path of the SUV when it sped towards parked cars and crashed, and the shooter walked away, apparently unharmed.
Yet within an hour of the incident, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a statement claiming the incident was an “act of domestic terrorism.”
“What had happened was our ICE officers were out in enforcement action, they got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis,” she said during a press briefing in Texas. Footage of the incident shows the street was clear of snow and no vehicles appear “stuck”.
“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.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey disputed the official account released by the Department for Homeland Security, which described ICE officers “fearing for their life” before firing into the victim’s vehicle.
“They are already trying to spin this as an act of self-defence. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly — that is bullshit,” he said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody getting killed. Your only reason for being in our city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing the opposite.”
