{"id":198674,"date":"2026-01-30T19:10:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/minneapolis-ice-watchers-face-violence-teargas-and-arrests-they-keep-showing-up-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T19:10:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:10:06","slug":"minneapolis-ice-watchers-face-violence-teargas-and-arrests-they-keep-showing-up-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/minneapolis-ice-watchers-face-violence-teargas-and-arrests-they-keep-showing-up-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Minneapolis ICE watchers face violence, teargas and arrests. They keep showing up – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bystanders say they are determined to keep recording federal agents\u2019 actions: \u2018There will be absolutely no accountability unless people are documenting\u2019
\u2018ICE Out\u2019 strike and protests: what to know about demonstrations across the US<\/a>
Brandon Sig\u00fcenza saw his first federal immigration agent just one minute before he was arrested by one.
He and his friend, Patty O\u2019Keefe, were following ICE officers in their vehicle after receiving an alert that agents were nearby. Soon after arriving to observe the scene, an agent approached their car and sprayed chemicals into the front vents, then began shouting.
An agent yelled at Sig\u00fcenza that he was under arrest, so he said he put his hands in the air and waited for instructions. The agent didn\u2019t say to leave the car. Instead, they smashed the two front windows, pulled Sig\u00fcenza out of an unlocked door and slammed him against the car.
\u201cI told him, \u2018Sir, my passport is in my pocket.\u2019 He said, \u2018Shut the fuck up,\u2019\u201d Sig\u00fcenza, a US citizen, told the Guardian.
Sig\u00fcenza and O\u2019Keefe were put into separate vehicles and taken to the BH Whipple federal building, a facility just south of the Twin Cities where agents take people they have arrested \u2013 both US citizens and immigrants they intend to deport. They were held there for hours before eventually being released.
The killing of Alex Pretti by a federal officer on Saturday, less than three weeks after the killing of Renee Good, brought heightened attention to the brutality observers and <\/em>bystanders <\/em>are facing in Minneapolis<\/a> as they witness and document immigration enforcement. Volunteer observers told the Guardian they have been subjected to violence since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge in early December.
Observers who had been detained by federal agents and released, many without charges, told the Guardian they were denied access to medical care, phone calls and lawyers.
Still, even after federal agents killed two bystanders in Minneapolis, Sig\u00fcenza said he was determined to keep observing and recording the federal agents\u2019 actions.
\u201cIf we don\u2019t document and film federal agents, then they can shoot you 10 times and then say that you\u2019re brandishing a firearm and it ends there,\u201d he said. The fact that bystanders and community members were able to capture the agents who shot Good and Pretti, and present evidence to refute the Trump administration\u2019s claims about those incidents, he said, speaks to the power of bearing witness.
\u201cThere will be absolutely no accountability unless people are documenting,\u201d he said.
F<\/span>ederal agents have been taking an increasingly aggressive approach against observers \u2013 using so-called \u201cless lethal\u201d weapons such as chemical irritants and projectiles against onlookers at the scene of immigration raids.
RM, an observer who asked that their name remain anonymous because they feared further retaliation from federal agents while patrolling, said that they were at the scene of a raid \u2013 on the same day that Good was killed \u2013 when agents smashed their car window and sprayed chemical irritants directly into their car.
Then an agent cuffed RM and used a pain-inducing restraint to drag them out, crushing their wrist in the process. Afterwards, agents drove RM to the Whipple building. When RM told one of the agents he looked rather young, they pushed them down and held their face into the ground. The agents yelled at RM, who is trans, saying, \u201cDo you like the dirt, queer?\u201d, they recalled to the Guardian.
They were not offered water to clear the irritant out of their eyes for more than an hour. Eventually, they were left to wash their face at a broken, low-pressure sink inside the cell where they were held.
\u201cThe whole incident was painful and humiliating,\u201d said RM. When they were released about three hours later, without any charges, they were finally able to wash in a shower. It took almost an hour to fully rinse off \u2013 and the irritant spread and burned their skin even as they tried to wash it off. \u201cThat, I would say, is the most painful experience of my life.\u201d
These escalating tactics, observers told the Guardian, seem to be designed to intimidate and deter them from monitoring the activity of federal agents, warning their communities and bearing witness to immigration arrests.
In a statement to the Guardian, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that \u201crioters and terrorists have assaulted law enforcement\u201d. The agency said that \u201cdespite these grave threats and dangerous situations our law enforcement as followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.\u201d The statement did not give a spokesperson\u2019s name and did not address multiple questions about the use of force against RM and other observers, nor did it address questions about why agents have been smashing the car windows of observers.
Jac Kovarik, who has been volunteering as an observer for nearly two months now, said that agents had tried a number of times to intimidate them, including by taking photos of their former house and car.
In December, Kovarik was arrested by agents and taken to Whipple. They were patted down, told to remove all their jewelry and put all personal belongings into a bag, cuffed at the ankles, and taken to a cell. They were denied a request to make a phone call.
Other observers found Kovarik\u2019s information in their car, and informed neighbors that they had been detained. An attorney eventually came to Whipple, and Kovarik was released after about seven hours in detention. They, too, were never charged with a crime.
On another occasion, after Good was killed, Kovarik was on patrol with a friend when agents routed them from the friend\u2019s home and drew guns on them.
\u201cThat was a huge escalation,\u201d Kovarik said.
A<\/span>ttorneys told the Guardian that the DHS had been regularly denying them access to clients held at the Whipple building \u2013 which has become a home base for the thousands of immigration officers who have swarmed the Twin Cities. The building is also the first stop for immigrants detained in the recent enforcement surge, and the spot where dozens of bystanders and observers have been held after arrest.
On Wednesday, the Advocates for Human Rights and a detained individual filed a class-action lawsuit<\/a> challenging detention practices, alleging a pattern of denying lawyers confidential communication with their clients at Minnesota facilities including Whipple.
In a statement to the Guardian, the DHS categorically denied that people detained at Whipple were unable to access attorneys.
Sig\u00fcenza was eventually able to meet with a lawyer, but the door to the room where they met would not close, and agents were able to listen in, he said.
Observers who were detained at Whipple provided corroborating accounts that agents appeared disorganized and unclear about who, exactly, they were holding at the facility.
Wes Powers, who was arrested and detained there on 8 January, told the Guardian he witnessed agents accessing Facebook and personal social media accounts on the same cellphones they were using to photograph detainees and their identification cards.
Sig\u00fcenza said that at one point during his detention he was brought into a cell with three men who identified themselves as from Homeland Security Investigations. They seemed to insinuate he was in a lot of trouble and they could help him if he would give them the names of protest organizers or undocumented neighbors. They said if he had family members outside the US who wanted to enter the country, they could help with that as well (Sig\u00fcenza is of Mexican descent).
\u201cI told him, \u2018I\u2019m just trying to protect my neighbors.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Oh, where are your neighbors from?\u2019\u201d Sig\u00fcenza said. \u201cHe thought I meant my nextdoor neighbors. I just meant my community generally.\u201d
Meanwhile, Tippy Amundson and Heather Zemien, neighbors in the Brooklyn Park suburb of Minneapolis, had a different experience than most while being detained.
They saw federal agents at an apartment building and were alerting people to their presence by honking their horns on 22 January. Agents told them to leave, but as they were leaving, they saw a police officer and stopped to ask some questions.
Then a federal agents\u2019 vehicle blocked their car and the agents accused them of calling the cops. The agents pulled them out of the car and arrested them. An agent put Amundson\u2019s phone on a console in the vehicle, but she was able to use Siri to call her husband.
A few blocks into the drive, an agent in the front passenger seat started having a seizure, and the women told the other agents what to do and how to help. Amundson moved his weapon so she could put him on his hip and held his head up so he wouldn\u2019t choke on his own tongue.
After emergency services arrived, and after helping the agent through multiple seizures, they were again handcuffed and brought to the Whipple building.
Amundson\u2019s husband alerted her state representative, who quickly worked to get them released. Between the aid rendered to the agent and the knowledge of a representative on the way, Amundson and Zemien said \u201cthey pretty much rolled out the red carpet for us\u201d at the Whipple building \u2013 they got water and a bathroom and a heater.
They were out within three hours and were cited for impeding federal officers.
\u201cI\u2019m not well,\u201d Amundson said in the aftermath of the experience, noting she had not been eating. \u201cBut I\u2019m well supported and I\u2019m well cared for.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bystanders say they are determined to keep recording federal agents\u2019 actions: \u2018There will be absolutely no accountability unless people are documenting\u2019\u2018ICE Out\u2019 strike and protests: what to know about demonstrations across the USBrandon Sig\u00fcenza saw his first federal immigration agent just one minute before he was arrested by one.He and his friend, Patty O\u2019Keefe, were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-198674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}