Former FBI, CBP agents say Minneapolis ICE shooting likely to be ruled justified

Former federal agents say that the Minneapolis ICE shooting that left one woman dead will likely be ruled a justified use of force by investigators.

The officer-involved shooting in Minneapolis this morning, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, occurred during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in the city. 

When officers ordered a woman to exit her vehicle which was blocking the road, video footage shows the woman accelerated, hitting one officer. That officer fired several times into the vehicle, striking the woman, who later died of her injuries. 

“In my mind, when I saw this, I immediately said, ‘justified shooting,’” Jonathan Gilliam, a former FBI special agent, Navy SEAL, and federal air marshal, told Just the News. 

“That's the thing people have to realize, if you aim a vehicle at a human, it's the same as aiming a gun at them, but if you step on the gas, it's no different than pulling the trigger,” Gilliam explained on the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Wednesday.  “And when the response is for the officer to shoot you, that's because they're doing the same as if you pulled the trigger of a gun. They're trying to eliminate the threat.” 

Art Del Cueto, Border Security Advisor at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a former border patrol agent with more than 20 years of service, agreed that the shooting would likely be ruled as justified. 

He said investigators usually look for three things when determining whether a use of deadly force was justified, “Did [the suspect] have the means? Did they have the intent, and did they have the opportunity” to put officers in harm's way. 

“I think all those three things have been met when they were attacking a federal agent,” Del Cueto told Just the News on Wednesday. 

Secretary Noem in a press conference on Wednesday also said she believes that the use of force was justified. 

“This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism,” Noem said. The ICE agent responded by firing "defensive shots," and “used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues,” she added. 

However, these assessments have been disputed by local officials, especially Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who challenged the Noem’s description of events.

“So, 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,” Frey said at a press conference. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.” 

Del Cueto said that it is possible that local or state authorities could bring charges against the agent, using their own interpretation of the facts in the case. 

“Knowing their political leanings, they're now going to be able to indict, they're going to be able to say, ‘hey, there's enough evidence there to form a bigger case,’ and then you don't know how long that case is going to sit on their desk,” Del Cueto said. 

“So, in a situation like this, it could very well put this agent in what we call the rubber gun squad, which means he'll be sitting there waiting for local authorities to finish their case, and that whole time he won't be out in the field. So this could be a very worn out and long process.”