Outrage has intensified over violent encounters between federal agents deployed by the Trump administration and residents in Minnesota following multiple arrests and another shooting by a federal agent this week.
“It is completely unacceptable that law-abiding Minnesotans are being thrown to the ground, detained, pepper-sprayed, and threatened,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Friday on X. “This endangers public safety and is fundamentally un-American.”
The soaring tensions come after a federal officer shot a man in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening, the week after an ICE officer killed Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three school-aged children. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin described the man who was shot as a “criminal illegal alien from Venezuela” who, with other individuals, assaulted a federal law enforcement officer “with snow shovels and broom handles,” she said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called federal agents’ presence in the city “unsustainable.”
“There’s 600 MPD officers working to keep our streets safe. Meanwhile, they have sent in 3,000 federal agents. America, this is not the path we can be on,” Frey said in a statement Wednesday. “I have seen conduct from ICE that is intolerable.”
On Thursday, FBI Director Kash Patel said his agency arrested a person who “allegedly stole federal government property out of an FBI vehicle” in Minneapolis the night before. Patel said the person belongs to the Latin Kings gang and has a violent criminal history, but he did not identify the man.
DHS also said federal law enforcement officers arrested an armed U.S. citizen who allegedly assaulted them at a protest in Minneapolis on Wednesday night. The person “threatened violence against law enforcement officers while pointing at his bag,” which officials said contained a gun and ammunition. The suspect “kicked a metal smoke cannister at officers” before pushing one of them, according to a DHS statement Thursday.
DHS posted photos of the person with his eyes blacked out but did not identify the suspect by name. It’s unclear which agency made the arrest. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
“This is not the peaceful protesting that the First Amendment protects,” the department said in its statement.
But federal agents have been documented violently arresting people in Minnesota for infractions that appear to be as minor as approaching an encounter between protesters and officers.
On Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a woman who said she was on her way to a medical appointment, smashing her car window and dragging her out of the vehicle. The woman, Aliya Rahman, told The Associated Press she was taken to a detention center where she said she was denied medical care and lost consciousness. A DHS spokesperson, however, referred to Rahman as an agitator who “ignored multiple commands by an officer to move her vehicle away from the scene.”
Residents across Minnesota have expressed anger and alarm about the Trump administration’s violent and even lethal use of force in their state, describing agents’ tactics as an “invasion,” a “military occupation” and a “storming of the state by the federal government.”
Minnesota officials have called on federal agents to leave the state.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, warning that he would deploy the military to crack down on protesters. He repeated his threat on Friday, saying that Gov. Tim Walz and Frey, both Democrats, have “totally lost control” and that if he is “forced to act, it will be solved QUICKLY and EFFECTIVELY!”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty told MS NOW in an interview that Trump’s threat to send military forces into Minnesota is “frightening.”
“We are under attack by our own federal government, which is unprecedented,” she said.
Walz, meanwhile, has urged Trump to de-escalate his rhetoric and Minnesotans to remain peaceful.
Moriarty also told MS NOW that Minneapolis police have the “legal authority” to arrest ICE agents engaging in criminal behavior, echoing Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s warning in December that officers may intervene when they witness ICE agents using unlawful force.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.