US border patrol agents shot two people outside a Portland hospital on Thursday, triggering sharp criticism and heightening tensions a day after federal immigration officers killed a woman in Minneapolis, according to a Guardian report.
Portland police found a man and woman with gunshot wounds about three miles from the shooting scene after the man rang for help, the Portland Police Bureau said. Officers applied a tourniquet before both were taken to hospital. Their conditions remained unknown on Thursday night.
The shooting happened outside the Adventist hospital campus in east Portland, police said. Authorities confirmed the injuries came from a shooting involving federal agents.
Emergency dispatch audio obtained by FOX 12 Oregon suggested the man told a 911 operator he had been shot twice in the arm whilst his wife was hit in the chest.
Border patrol agents had stopped a vehicle whilst searching for a man they suspected of being an undocumented immigrant linked to a Venezuelan gang, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.
An agent fired after the driver tried to run them over, according to the statement. The driver then fled with the passenger.
Portland mayor Keith Wilson challenged the federal account. “We know what the federal government says happened here,” he said at a news conference. “There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time is long past.”
Police chief Bob Day said the FBI was leading the federal investigation.
The shooting came a day after an immigration officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, 37, in Minneapolis. Democratic representative Maxine Dexter, a doctor whose district covers the shooting site, said both injured people were alive, but their injuries’ extent remained unclear.
Dexter called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to withdraw from Portland. “ICE has done nothing but inject terror, chaos and cruelty into our communities,” she said. “Trump’s immigration machine is using violence to control our communities—straight out of the authoritarian playbook.”
Wilson called a halt to immigration enforcement operations in the city. “We cannot sit by whilst constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts,” he said. “Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarised agents.”
Oregon state senator Kayse Jama, who lives near the shooting scene and came to Portland as a Somali refugee decades ago, told federal agents: “This is Oregon. We do not need you, you are not welcome and you need to get the hell out of our community.”
Civil rights advocate Zakir Khan pressed the hospital to release security camera footage immediately.
A witness at the medical building told the Oregonian he saw federal officers chase a Toyota pickup into the car park and attempt to trap it. One officer hammered the window, the witness said. The driver reversed and moved forward repeatedly, hitting a car behind them, before turning and driving off.
Portland saw months of protests last year focused on an ICE processing centre in the city’s south waterfront. Donald Trump attempted to deploy national guard troops in response, but a federal judge blocked the move, saying Trump’s claim that the city was “war-ravaged” by small-scale protests “was simply untethered to the facts”.
Senator Jeff Merkley urged protesters to stay calm. “Trump wants to generate riots,” he wrote on X. “Don’t take the bait.”
Police chief Day made a similar appeal. “I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” he said.
A banner on Portland’s city government website advised residents: “Respond with calm and purpose.”
About a hundred protesters gathered outside city hall on Thursday evening, chanting “Abolish ICE!” A smaller group returned to the ICE facility in south Portland, many wearing animal costumes that have helped ease tensions in recent months. Police later used force to clear protesters from the street outside the facility, arresting six people including a young man who normally wears an inflatable frog costume.
Tensions remained high across several major US cities following the Minneapolis shooting.
The FBI seized control of that investigation on Thursday, and Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said its access to case materials, witnesses and evidence had been withdrawn.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denied the state agency had been excluded, describing it as a jurisdictional matter.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the state “must be part of this investigation”.
The Trump administration defended the deadly Minneapolis shooting by accusing Good of “domestic terrorism” and claiming the ICE agent acted in “self-defence”.
That account contradicts widely shared witness video, which shows the driver had turned her wheels away from the agent before he shot her three times as she tried to drive away.
(information from The Guardian/image source: Reuters/John Rudoff)
