Minneapolis ICE shooting brings back painful memories for community

The deadly shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in a residential neighborhood in south Minneapolis has brought back painful memories of another high-profile incident in which a civilian died at the hands of a law enforcement officer.

The May 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police occurred less than a half-mile away from where a federal agent on Wednesday fatally shot Renee Good while she was in her vehicle.

At the time, Floyd’s death sparked a global reckoning over racism and racial justice that still reverberates today.

For Floyd’s aunt, Angela Harrelson, Wednesday’s shooting hit too close to home. She told CBS News the common thread between the two incidents was that Floyd and Good “weren’t treated like human beings.”

The circumstances surrounding both controversies are very different, but both Floyd and Good’s deaths were captured on cell phones, clips that went viral almost immediately and generated very different reactions.

“The fight is in here always,” Harrelson responded when asked why the reaction to Good’s death was not as chaotic and violent as that of Floyd’s. “The fight has always been in here. We’re just being strategic. But we know what we have to do.”

Another reason things might be different is that so much has happened in this community in the last six months, which is still grieving the September shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in south Minneapolis that killed two children and wounded 21 others, as well as the June assassination of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband.

Minnesota is also reeling from the ongoing billion-dollar fraud scandal, in which federal prosecutors say nearly 100 suspects, mostly immigrants from Somalia, stole taxpayer money by billing the state for nutrition, housing and behavioral health services that never actually happened.

“In Minnesota, when you look at it, this has been a time like none other,” Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth said. “Something that makes Minnesotans stand apart is, when we choose to, we can pull together.”