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Amid heated protests in Minneapolis following the killing of Renee Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross, federal agents have repeatedly invoked Good’s death to threaten the lives of observers and demonstrators in Minnesota.
In multiple confrontations in the Minneapolis area, agents repeatedly referred to civilians learning their lesson — in an apparent nod to the use of deadly force in Ross’s killing. In a video posted to Reddit, a masked ICE agent can be heard repeatedly admonishing a driver to “go home to your kids.”
“Stop fucking following us,” the ICE agent screams.
Phil Maddox, a local resident, told The Intercept he recorded the video on Sunday morning during a quick drive around his neighborhood to keep tabs on federal agents in the area. After briefly following one unmarked car, he said another car boxed him into an alley, and he found himself surrounded by agents, including at least one with his gun drawn.
As the video continues, Maddox pans his phone camera to reveal another agent standing by the passenger-side door with a handgun drawn. Stomping back past the car, the first agent continues his tirade, telling Maddox that he won’t “like the outcome” if he follows the agents.
“You did not learn from what just happened?” the ICE agent asks. “Go home to your kids.” Maddox said he immediately interpreted the question as a threat.
“They’re saying, ‘Get in our way and we’ll shoot you,’” Maddox said. “‘We have immunity, we can do what we want, and you should fear us.’”
Understanding what “learning your lesson” means as a warning goes beyond Maddox. The phrasing has been widely interpreted as a threat by protesters, activists, and advocates on the ground in Minneapolis.
“That’s a veiled threat, 1,000 percent,” Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for the immigrant rights group Unidos Minnesota, told The Intercept. “They can’t exactly say it, but the way they reference Renee Good — they’re using that to strike fear.”
“That’s a veiled threat, 1,000 percent.”
The threats have come amid broader scenes of violence inflicted against protesters in the Twin Cities by roving bands of ICE and Border Patrol agents. Thousands of agents have been deployed in phases by President Donald Trump as part of a massive immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities. Over the weekend, agents were captured on camera pepper-spraying observers and smashing car windows while followed closely by protesters blowing whistles and yelling at them. (The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE and Border Patrol, did not respond to a request for comment.)
“This is a classic situation of overreacting, over-policing, and ultimately use of excessive force,” said Andrew G. Celli Jr., an attorney specializing in police misconduct and constitutional rights. “It’s tragic but predictable that the reaction has been as strong as it has been. And of course, when you have that kind of reaction that gets provoked, then the police, whose job it is to oversee and control crowds and demonstrations — they can sometimes overreact, and so it becomes a vicious cycle.”
On Sunday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that hundreds more federal agents would be deploying to the region, adding to the more than 2,000 agents who made up the surge that began on January 6. The violence continued on Monday as federal agents unleashed clouds of tear gas on a residential street, according to footage posted to social media.
Monday’s clashes set the stage for a lawsuit filed by state and local officials in Minnesota seeking to end Trump’s surge of federal agents, which the administration claims is aimed at combating social-services fraud in the state.
In an 80-page complaint filed in Minnesota District Court, the state of Minnesota, joined by the city governments of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, detailed a litany of abuses by federal agents under the aegis of what the Trump Administration has dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” and the social, political, and economic impact it has had on the state. The suit, led by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, demands an end to the operation.
“When the federal government itself violates legal rights and civic norms on such a broad scale and public panic is high, state and city governments bear the costs—both tangible and intangible,” the complaint read. “Defendants’ agents’ reckless tactics endanger the public safety, health, and welfare of all Minnesotans. Additionally, Defendants’ agents’ inflammatory and unlawful policing tactics provoke the protests the federal government seeks to suppress.”
More than one agent has been caught on camera in recent days invoking the idea of “learning” a “lesson.” In a video posted to TikTok, one federal agent warns two separate people in separate vehicles that they have not learned the lessons of recent days — an apparent allusion to the killing of Good.
@milaisconfused44 ♬ original sound – mila❕⸆⸉
“You don’t fucking learn — what’s fuckin’ happened in the last couple of days,” the agent says to someone as two other agents pat down the occupants of a car. Seconds later, the agent approaches a woman filming from a second vehicle and issues a similar warning.
“Listen, have y’all not learned from the past couple of days?” says the agent, who was clad in tactical gear without any insignia identifying his agency. “Have you not learned?”
“Learned what?” the woman responds. “What’s our lesson here? What do you want us to learn?”
In response, the agent appears to swat at the phone in the woman’s hand.
“Following fucking federal agents,” he says, before the video cuts out.
It was unclear what happened after the apparent swat at the phone, but the original poster of the video later said on TikTok that both she and the woman filming were safe.
Numerous other videos have captured agents violently attacking protesters, including one agent who appeared to tackle a man filming an interaction in the street, another chasing down and tackling a man at a gas station, and multiple agents piling onto a Richfield Target employee in the store entryway.
In multiple instances, agents can be heard accusing protesters of impeding their efforts. Filming the police, though, is not a crime. A majority of courts repeatedly and across jurisdictions have held that there is a constitutional right to record police and other law enforcement carrying out their duties in public places, so long as an observer doesn’t interfere with officials and complies with reasonable orders, such as keeping a safe distance.
“You can follow them around, you can film them, you can say, ‘Hey, fuckhead,’” said Celli, who is a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP. “But I will tell you, after 25 years of representing people who do just that: You will likely get arrested. The Constitution is only as good as the people willing to follow it.”
Adding to the chaos, Celli said, is the fact that the agents from ICE and Border Patrol may be out of their depth when it comes to street-level enforcement.
“These guys are not street cops,” Celli said. “They’re not accustomed to this, and they’re not trained for this. This isn’t what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Maddox, who remained calm throughout the recorded interaction on Sunday, said only later did fear set in over what could have happened. He remained angry, however, about the impact that the raids were having on his children and on his neighbors, many of whom are Latino.
“No one feels safer with [ICE] here,” he said. “My kids are scared their friends are going to get nabbed, or that their friends’ parents or relatives or their neighbors will get nabbed.”
