Familiar groups mobilize immediately after ICE shooting of Minnesota protester
Within hours of a Minnesota protester being fatally shot after allegedly attempting to run over ICE agents, a familiar network of far-left protesters for causes ranging from communism to climate change mobilized across the country.
The unidentified woman, who Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said was 37 years old, was killed at the wheel of her car just after 11 a.m. ET. Federal authorities said she had tried to run over ICE agents who were part of a 2,000-strong team sent to the Twin Cities to round up and deport illegal immigrant criminals.
"I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch," President Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and 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."
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the woman was shot in the head, and later pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.
Almost immediately, groups with causes as diverse as socialism, communism, climate change, Palestinian rights and the Democratic Party launched what seemed to be coordinated protests online and in American streets, using similar language. The effort from left-wing groups with no obvious shared cause echoed protests over the weekend, when many of the same groups sprang into action in the hours following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
"It's the same network of people that have thousands of Americans blocking the streets, waving communist and terrorist flags and attacking law enforcement and innocents," said Brandy Shufutinsky, director of the Education and National Security Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "They are stoking the grievance industry that they built."
While authorities said an investigation was underway, the protest groups were quick to brand the killing a murder. A sentiment analysis of relevant social media posts by left-wing groups showed the graphic and emotional language used in the posts was designed to provoke moral outrage and mobilize people to take to the streets. For example, posts told people to "get in the streets now," "hit the streets" and "get to the White House ASAP."
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"The state is the enemy, the state is the murderer! Resistance is justified," wrote Fight for a Future, an organization who openly advocates communism.
At 1:24 p.m., the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, a fixture in left-wing protests, announced an "emergency rally" in New York City's Foley Square for Thursday. The rally was also promoted by a group dubbing itself "NYC ICE Watch."
Indivisible, the Democratic Party-aligned nonprofit and PAC that was at the forefront of protests against Tesla and the Trump administration, shared a picture on Instagram of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees ICE, with two Xs over eyes, a symbol often used to portray someone as dead.
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"Kristi Noem get the f*ck out of NYC right now," the post read in both English and Spanish. The post was shared by 50501, a newly established organization that played a lead role in the #NoKings protest against President Trump.
"EMERGENCY ALERT. THIS IS AN ALL HANDS ON DECK MOMENT!" wrote 50551 on Instagram at 11:50 a.m.
Indivisible's post echoed the language of Frey, who had moments earlier called on ICE to "get the f--- out of Minneapolis."
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At 2:44 p.m., Refuse Fascism, a socialist organization active in protests against Israel and the Trump administration, posted a message on Instagram decrying the incident.
"From Venezuela to the streets of Minneapolis, the trump [sic] regime murders and demonizes whole peoples and countries without any pretense of the rule of law," the group wrote.
At 3:33 p.m., the Party for Socialism and Liberation's Columbus, Ohio, called for an "emergency protest from Columbus to Minneapolis."
"ICE out! ICE has murdered a legal observer in Minneapolis," the Instagram post read. "We fight back!"
At 3:06 p.m., the Palestinian Youth Movement, which organized campus protests following the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas, weighed in.
"The time is rise and resist is now (sic)," the group posted on Instagram.