Minneapolis police appeared to be missing in action as anti-ICE agitators carried out a series of alarming incidents, some violent, throughout the city on Saturday. In some instances, the mere perception that an individual might be pro-ICE was enough to draw the demonstrators’ ire.
One media outlet went so far as to claim that the MPSD had “completely turned over the city to leftists, as they are now forming groups to hunt down anyone who appears to support ICE, with this man [in the clip below] being saved by the feds just moments before being beaten for simply wearing camo.”
Actually, the beating stopped when one of the agitators shouted to his comrades, “He’s one of us.”
In an extraordinary development on Saturday, anti-ICE agitators mistakenly identified a group of five tech engineers who were having lunch at a Minneapolis deli as undercover ICE agents and accosted them.
Alpha News later spoke to “Lee,” one of the five, who recounted the episode. Lee explained that as the men were eating, one of them received an alert on his phone from an anti-ICE Signal chat group he belongs to titled, “SW Minneapolis Rapid Response.” The message said that “plainclothes ICE agents” were dining at the Clancy Deli and that it had been “confirmed by the owner” of the restaurant.
“My friend was shocked,” Lee said. “He’s on the [anti-ICE] side politically. He lives nearby. He’s eaten there before. And suddenly he’s seeing messages saying we’re ICE.”
It wasn’t long before protesters “surrounded the restaurant, shouting insults and blowing whistles in their ears as they attempted to leave.”
“One of us is pro-ICE, one anti-ICE, others on the fence,” Lee told Alpha. “After this, I think some of them are rethinking everything.”
In another case, a man wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the U.S. flag and the word “freedom” was forced to take it off if he didn’t want to get hurt.
Independent journalist Nick Sortor posted video of an ICE supporter being struck by rioters with a flag pole in a parking garage, “causing severe bleeding.” [I’m unable to embed the clip, but it can be viewed here. Fox News covered the story here.]
In the clip below, rioters refused to let an elderly woman with a walker cross the street. As she tried to advance, a group chanted, “Off our streets. Nazi scum.”
One X user offered a plausible explanation for this “fascist” behavior: “The psychology is simple: they’ve been told they’re fighting Nazis. Once you believe that, blocking an old lady from crossing the street isn’t cruelty. It’s righteous resistance. You’re not the bad guy. You’re stopping Hitler.”
Although not a sympathetic figure, Jake Lang, the alt-right, antisemitic, anti-Islam activist and J-6er (jailed for allegedly beating a police officer), visited the Twin Cities for a protest on Saturday. The clip below shows anti-ICE protesters pulling him into a counter-protest crowd. He was beaten and bloodied by the group even as he tried to get away in a red sedan.
On Sunday morning, Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported that “multiple ICE agents with rooms booked at the St. Paul Downtown Doubletree by Hilton received [a] notice today that their rooms are being cancelled & the hotel will temporarily close ‘due to heightened public safety concerns in St. Paul.'”
Right Angle News Network reported Sunday that “Anti ICE agitators, led by failed CNN host Don Lemon, stormed a Minneapolis church this morning, halting services and holding members hostage because they believed the pastor was ICE affiliated.”
Lemon narrates the video below. He explains that this is what happens “when you violate people’s due process, when you pull people off the street,” and “when you violate the Constitution.”
He compared today’s unrest to the protests of the Civil Rights Movement.
Finally, he explains that the “whole point of protest is to disrupt” and “to make people uncomfortable.”
I wonder what would happen if protesters burst into a mosque during prayers.
Somehow, I don’t think the protesters will win many hearts and minds by bursting into a church service.
Does any of this look like peaceful protest? Citizens gathering to exercise their First Amendment rights? To me, it feels like anarchy. The anti-ICE demonstrators, who are operating on the streets of Minneapolis with complete impunity, have crossed the line into riot territory.
Where were MPD officers on Saturday? Why did they yield to the agitators? Did Mayor Jacob Frey issue a stand-down order? We don’t know.
What unfolded in Minneapolis on Saturday was not the exercise of free speech, but the breakdown of civic order. When citizens are harassed for their clothing, mistaken for enemies based on rumor, blocked from crossing streets, or beaten in public while authorities remain conspicuously absent, something fundamental has failed.
Whether by directive or dereliction, the apparent retreat of law enforcement created a vacuum — one quickly filled by intimidation and mob justice. City leaders may dress this chaos up as “resistance,” but the scenes on the ground tell a far different story.
And we need to ask: Who is calling the shots in Minneapolis?
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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