ICE shooting in Minneapolis echoes what feds did in Chicago
Wednesday’s shooting of an unarmed Minneapolis woman by an immigration enforcement agent resembles two recent Chicago-area incidents. And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security response for Minneapolis follows the agency’s playbook for Chicago.WBEZ reporter Chip Mitchell has reviewed hundreds of incidents that took place during the federal government’s deportation blitz in the Chicago area this past fall. He spoke with WBEZ host Melba Lara.
Below is a transcript of Mitchell's interview with Lara. Listen to audio of the interview by tapping the red "Listen" button above.
Transcript
Melba Lara: The woman who was fatally shot Wednesday, Renee Nicole Good, is not the first person killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Trump took office. An agent shot and killed a suburban Chicago man. Tell us about that case.
Chip Mitchell: His name was Silverio Villegas González. He was 38 and originally from Mexico. He was a father and the caretaker of his two children. Like many people caught up in the deportation campaign, he had no serious criminal record, just traffic offenses. On September 12, he’d just dropped off one of the kids at school. ICE agents in Franklin Park, a suburb west of Chicago, tried to stop his car. They were on both sides of it. Villegas backed up, then started moving forward. Before he got too far, one of the agents shot him at close range. And that’s similar to what we saw Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Lara: What did the Trump administration say about Villegas’s death?
Mitchell: Right after the shooting, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that Villegas had driven his car at agents, struck one of them and dragged him “a significant distance.” That statement said the agent was “seriously injured” and that an agent opened fire in fear for his life. But none of the available videos show Villegas driving at agents. Some footage first obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times shows the agent who killed Villegas telling local police he was “dragged a little bit” and it was “nothing major.”
Lara: OK, that’s the fatal shooting by agents in the Chicago-area deportation blitz. There’s also a nonfatal shooting.
Mitchell: Yes. The person hit was Marimar Martínez, 30, a U.S. citizen. On October 4, she was in her car on the Southwest Side, honking and yelling at U.S. Border Patrol agents in an SUV. At one point, the vehicles were side-by-side and collided. One agent, Charles Exum, got out and shot Martínez five times, leaving her with seven wounds. Soon thereafter, a Homeland Security spokesperson said agents had been “assaulted” and “rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.” The feds brought criminal charges against Martínez and a man involved in a collision more than an hour later. What happened next was really something: Exum, the agent who’d shot Martínez, sent some text messages to a group of friends. He was bragging about the shooting. Within a couple months, the U.S. attorney’s office here in Chicago dropped the charges against Martínez.
Lara: On Wednesday, President Trump said Renee Nicole Good, the slain Minneapolis woman, had struck the officer who shot her. An administration spokesperson labeled her a “domestic terrorist.” But video footage shows she did not hit the agent and he was not in her path. How do the statements from Washington compare to what officials said after the two Chicago-area shootings?
Mitchell: They’re similar. In each case, the administration’s strategy is to get out a full-throated defense of the agent who has shot someone and to attack the person who was shot. That’s before any careful review of evidence or an investigation into whether the agent should face criminal or administrative charges. In the case of Marimar Martínez, the woman who survived seven gunshot wounds, the Homeland Security Department stuck to its story even after the charges against her were dropped. So, no matter what we see in videos from the Minneapolis shooting, the Trump administration may not change its tune.
Lara: The FBI will be investigating the Minneapolis shooting. What do we know about investigations into the Chicago-area shootings?
Mitchell: The FBI was supposed to be investigating both of these shootings. We asked the agency for an update Wednesday morning. The agency declined to provide more information. Apart from whether the agents who opened fire in the two incidents should be charged criminally, there’s a separate matter: whether either agent violated work policies and should be disciplined. ICE, for example, prohibits officers from using deadly force merely to prevent an escape. On Wednesday, we reached out to ICE, the Border Patrol and Homeland Security, asking for an update on potential discipline. We did not hear back.