Minneapolis’ police chief is criticizing federal immigration agents after a confrontation with protesters and an attempted arrest of a woman in which an officer kneeled on her back as she lay atop a snow bank and then tried to drag her to a car.
Tensions have been rising in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as federal authorities continue an immigration crackdown focused on the region’s Somali community, the largest in the country.
Onlooker video of the confrontation Monday in a Minneapolis neighborhood showed people yelling at Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to release the woman, claiming she is pregnant and couldn’t breathe. After kneeling on her, an agent later dragged the woman by one arm on her back toward a vehicle.
“Let her go! Let her go!” onlookers yelled as the agent dragged the woman at an intersection close to a Somali business district. The woman was let go.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara told a news conference Tuesday that city police were called to the confrontation by a federal agent who said officers needed help.
When police arrived, they did not see violence against federal officers and left in an effort to de-escalate the situation, O’Hara said. He added that “other law enforcement agencies” may have been using “questionable methods.”
“We have been training our officers for the last five years very, very intensely on de-escalation,” O’Hara said. “But unfortunately that is not, that is often not what we are seeing from other agencies in the city.”
Lauryn Spencer was driving on her lunch break when she heard whistles and honking, which observers have used to warn others of an ICE presence.
She said she approached the scene and began recording immediately, but was shoved back by an officer when she tried asking the woman on the ground what her name was. Spencer said she and others in the crowd were also sprayed with chemical irritants by one of the agents.
“They were being very aggressive from the beginning, like there was never a time where they attempted to use diplomacy,” she said. “I didn’t see anybody throw any hard items. The snowballs were definitely being thrown, but we didn’t start throwing snowballs until they started dragging her around by her wrist.”
Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said federal officers were targeting a vehicle when protesters “threw rocks, chunks of ice, assaulted officers and used pepper spray” against the officers. The officers sustained multiple injuries including cuts, McLaughlin said in a statement, adding that two people were charged with assaulting federal officers and remain in custody.
Officers tried to arrest the woman shown in the video because she “rushed an ICE vehicle and attempted to vandalize it,” but the officers abandoned the arrest after being swarmed by protesters, McLaughlin said.
Hodan Hassan, a former Minnesota state legislator, said she believes ICE tactics are becoming more harsh as the Minneapolis-St. Paul operation continues.
“The first week, they were not very aggressive. They were stopping people. Second week, we saw them really aggressive,” she said.
The clash in south Minneapolis occurred just a couple miles away from where George Floyd was killed by a city police officer kneeling on his neck. Scenes from that death shook the country and set off a nationwide racial justice movement and demands for police reform.