Transcript

LIVE PROTESTS AT ICE HOTEL After Murder of Renee Nicole Good | LIVE From Minneapolis

From MeidasTouch · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 3 h 12 min · 24,676 words · 304 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "LIVE PROTESTS AT ICE HOTEL After Murder of Renee Nicole Good | LIVE From Minneapolis", an episode of MeidasTouch published January 10, 2026 (3 h 12 min, about 24,676 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Twin Cities, ICE, Canopy by Hilton, St. Paul, Operation Metro Surge.

What this episode is about

Protests erupted in Minneapolis following the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent, igniting outrage against the Trump administration and demanding the withdrawal of ICE from communities. Activists gathered outside the Canopy by Hilton, a hotel alleged to host ICE agents, to voice their demands for accountability and an end to the violence associated with immigration enforcement.

Key takeaways

  • Protests outside Canopy by Hilton amplify a city's collective rage—when silence isn't an option, noise becomes a weapon.
  • Renee Good's shooting reflects a troubling trend: ICE's deadly encounters might mark not just individuals, but communities.
  • In a world fueled by misinformation, grassroots reporting is the antidote—supporting facts over fiction requires more than likes.
  • Allowing the FBI to investigate itself is like letting the fox guard the henhouse; independence is key in accountability.
  • The phrase 'Alligator Alcatraz' symbolizes a drastic shift from justice to oppression—when camps become the norm, hope dims.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Twin Cities, Canopy by Hilton, St. Paul, JT Saskcowski
  2. – 30:00: Twin Cities
  3. – 45:00: Twin Cities, Canopy by Hilton
  4. – 1:00:00: Twin Cities, Operation Metro Surge
  5. – 1:15:00: Twin Cities, Operation Metro Surge
  6. – 1:30:00: Twin Cities
  7. – 1:45:00: Twin Cities, Dakota Makoce
  8. – 2:00:00: Canopy by Hilton, Twin Cities
  9. – 2:15:00: Twin Cities, Canopy by Hilton, Operation Metro Surge, St. Paul
  10. – 2:30:00: Twin Cities, Canopy by Hilton, Kent Floren, Roosevelt High School
  11. – 2:45:00: Twin Cities, Canopy by Hilton
  12. – 3:00:00: Twin Cities

Notable quotes from "LIVE PROTESTS AT ICE HOTEL After Murder of Renee Nicole Good | LIVE From Minneapolis"

  • We, and when I say we, it's myself and John Fina behind the camera. We are here outside of the Canopy by Hilton in downtown Minneapolis. And that cacophony of noise that you…
    about Canopy by Hilton · at
  • This protest is outside of a hotel, the Canopy by Hilton, that activists say has hosted ICE agents here in the Twin Cities area. And this demonstration is about giving no rest…
    about Twin Cities · at
  • Had already been slated to be deployed here over the next 2 months on top of the already existing operation metro surge that ICE was already underway at carrying out here in…
    about Operation Metro Surge · at
  • To tell everyone, including the state of Minnesota and the United States, that this is Indian land. This is Dakota Makoce. That's what my sign says.
    about Dakota Makoce · at
  • All right, JD Saskcowski for Status Coup and I am here with Kent Floren.
    about Kent Floren · at
  • Now, but the murder of Berne Good was definitely a problem. But I am also a senior at Roosevelt High School where they attacked two days ago now and I am just so outraged and so upset and I just needed to be here. Yeah.
    about Roosevelt High School · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • JT — Person · 2 mentions
  • Pam Abdi — Person · 2 mentions
  • JT Saskcowski — Person · 1 mention · first at
    My name is JT Saskcowski. I'm a reporter for Status Coup News and tonight I am reporting alongside the Midas Touch Network.
  • Kent Floren — Person · 1 mention · first at

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Places & events

  • Twin Cities — Place · 39 mentions · first at
  • St. Paul — Place · 3 mentions · first at
    Of noise that you hear behind me is the collective rage of the city of Minneapolis, the city of St. Paul, the surrounding area, the state of Minnesota, and a large portion of…
  • Roosevelt High School — Place · 1 mention · first at

Full transcript with timestamps

All right, good evening everyone. My name is JT Saskcowski. I'm a reporter for Status Coup News and tonight I am reporting alongside the Midas Touch Network. We, and when I say we, it's myself and John Fina behind the camera. We are here outside of the Canopy by Hilton in downtown Minneapolis. And that cacophony of noise that you hear behind me is the collective rage of the city of Minneapolis, the city of St. Paul, the surrounding area, the state of Minnesota, and a large portion of the United States of America expressing rage against the Trump administration for killing Renee Nicole Good. She was shot and killed here two days ago by an ICE agent. That shooting is now under investigation by the state of Minnesota, the local district attorney's office, as well as the FBI.

This protest is outside of a hotel, the Canopy by Hilton, that activists say has hosted ICE agents here in the Twin Cities area. And this demonstration is about giving no rest to any agents who might still be staying inside tonight for the next 2 hours. This sound that you hear behind me will continue as a way to send a message to any ICE agents who might be inside the hotel to the hotel's management that ICE is not welcome here in the Twin Cities. They want the Trump administration to withdraw these agents to end the occupation of this city and cities across the country and end the killing of American citizens. End the killing of all people. We've now seen many deaths either in the custody of ICE or at the hands of immigration agents. a pattern of shooting deaths and shootings that have played out in city after city here across the country. The reason I can say that with so much conviction and

authority is because we have been on the ground in those cities for the last many months. We have been reporting across this first year plus now of the Trump administration on the ramp up in ICE activities that included the establishment of Alligator Alcatraz, a concentration camp in the United States of America built for the sole purpose of harming as many people as they could, separating as many families as possible, and tearing apart communities. We documented ICE raids in New York, the occupation of Washington DC, raids in LA. Two months we were on the ground near continuously in Chicago. We followed Border Patrol to Charlotte where they threatened our cameraman John Fina with arrest for attempting to document what Border Patrol was doing in that city. And now since the beginning of December, we have been on the ground here in Minneapolis and in St. Paul to lift up the voices of people here and

hear from them themselves about how they feel about the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policy. And I think this noise and the hundreds of people who are here speak for themselves just in that visual and in that sound. But we will be going into this crowd to hear from them tonight. Before we do, I have to say that to do this on the ground reporting where John and I are away from our families for days, weeks, months at a time, it costs a lot of money to status quo. And it's not something, this kind of reporting is not something that the social media algorithms just reward on their own. So if you can, a huge help would be to like this stream, share it, to spread it to as many people as possible to get the word out about what is happening here on the ground in the Twin Cities. Because otherwise, Trump administration, the right-wing media machine is attempting to drown out these voices with a river,

a sea, a flood of misinformation. We saw it play out today with the release of more video from the murder of Renee. good where the pre vice president nearly instantly as soon as that video was released was commenting on it, boosting it, trying to make it seem as though the Trump administration was somehow exonerated when in the opinions of many it only f uh served as further damning truth that an American citizen was murdered at the hands of immigration enforcement agents. So, please like, share this stream, get it out to as many people as possible. If you are able, the next best thing you can do to support lifting up truth and this time supporting the shoe leather on the ground journalism that we are doing is going to statuscoo.com/join for as low as $5 a month or 16 cents a day. You go to keep us here on the ground where we need to afford hotels, travel, food for while we are here. As

we report from dawn to dusk on what it is like to be in these communities day after day, week after week. We don't parachute in, tell a story, and then leave. We stay in these communities embedded for weeks, months at a time. So statuscoo.com/join is the best way that you can go about supporting us and helping keep us here on the ground. Some developments from today that I want to cover very quickly. First is that announcement of that independent investigation from the state of Minnesota and the local district attorney's office attempting to hold the Trump administration accountable for what happened here to Renee Nicole Good so that it is not just the FBI or ostensibly the federal government investigating itself for if the federal government did any wrongdoing but an outside party actually doing an investigation.

The second piece of news was a release of video that was filmed by the agent Jonathan Ross who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. Release of cell phone video that that agent was taking at the time where after he shot and killed her, the first words he said were, "I apologize for the language, but it was quote unquote [ __ ] bitch." With that, I want to go into this crowd. I want to hear from some of the people in here tonight in their own words. Express how the Twin Cities are feeling, the message that they are hoping to deliver and their reactions just the shocking events of the last two days. So, John, let's go ahead and make our way here into the crowd.

And perhaps John, you could start with just lifting up the camera, showing showing the people here how many hundreds of people are out here tonight. I'll know that there is in terms of noise, we've got a I'm seeing a tuba, a gong, people banging pots and pans and lifting up their own voices. anything to create a noise right now outside of Canopy by Hilton.

Spider-Man tonight. Sorry. Done. It's my cameraman, John. As soon as I can get his attention. Got somebody. What's your name?

Sierra. Sierra. Go ahead. All right. I am standing here with Sierra. Sierra, can I have you just start by spelling that for us please?

S I E R R A. And I'll note that it is so loud we we're not even really in the crowd yet. We're just standing on the very edges of them. It's so loud that Sierra and I are screaming just to be able to hear each other and putting our ears down by each other's uh uh mouths. So hopefully you can hear us on the mic more clearly than we can hear each other. But Sierra, why did you want to be out here tonight?

I can't even put into words to be honest. morals, human ethics, everything that this administration has not stood for. And it has infuriated me. And it's just it's to be frank, we're in Germany again. And I'm not going to let it happen again. And we're powerful in numbers, I guess, is probably we're more powerful in numbers. So that would be I I can't even put everything into words cuz I'm so upset

that that power in numbers that you're talking about. Are you feeling it here in this crowd?

Yeah, it makes me really proud to be from Minnesota. Minneapolis especially because we come together. We don't take uh we don't take anything from anybody. I don't know. Minneapolis I'm very proud to be from here and everybody's here as a community. It's everybody refers to it as a small town in a way. So, it's it's good to see everybody.

Absolutely. What was the message that you came to deliver tonight? And maybe a good place to start with that would be just your sign. What does your sign say?

I'm out. And they're going to be doing a large uh protest tomorrow at 1, too. So, I'm sure you all know about that. I just don't want to relive history again. I've came out to every single protest for the past I mean since George Floyd out here and I'm getting tired of it and I you got to come out for the people that can't make it and can't speak out for themselves and it's heartbreaking and I you're referencing you don't want to living through history. Can you talk about the how George Floyd's death, the resulting protests, how does that inform what is happening in Minneapolis now today?

I I think that we're a target. I mean, Minnesota is a target in a way. We're surrounded by unlike views, I guess, from other states, if that makes sense. I I I think it's just out. I don't know how to sorry I'm like trying to think of it on the spot but I think it's just we feel targeted my community once it's kind of once you hurt someone in our community we're not we all don't put up with it and it's game over kind of like

saying you feel targeted your community feels targeted targeted for what for the way that for the leaders that you've elected targeted for the color of the skin of the people who are here I When you say targeted, what are you referring to there?

I think it just goes back I mean everything. You go back into history as systemic racism, how it's present in our communities, our schools, um politics, policies, everything. It's present everywhere. And I just feel like the people here are I I don't know how to explain it, but they they're just I don't know. I feel like Minneapolis has always just been targeted against bad negative connotations and it's just unfair. It's unfair to all the people that live here in Minnesota, everybody in the country. The Trump Trump uh President Trump his administration have said that this deployment of ICE agents out here has been is meant to be about safety, about making communities safer.

I'm not going to ask you if you feel safer when those same ICE agents are killing people, but what are some issues that rather than spending billions of dollars on ICE, what are some programs that could that the federal government could instead put that money to that would directly benefit you or other people in your life? Like what are the struggles that you're living with right now that your friends and family are living with that you'd like to see the federal government actually address? Um, anything but this [ __ ] honestly. Um, that you can't afford groceries. A bag of groceries is $80. People can't find work. They don't get paid enough to work and they are afraid to come to work for these reasons. Um, they can put money towards women's health, women's research, health, um, putting money into our schools around here, putting money into mental health facilities, therapy, anything. by this [ __ ] to be honest with

you or anything. It's It's horrible. I don't know. I I have expressed so many times how upset I am and I just can't put it in everything.

No, I think you're doing great. Like, and I just want to emphasize there talking about access to jobs, affordable groceries. This was a president who ran on fixing inflation, who ran on improving the economy, supposedly the businessman president meant to put this country's economy back together again. And what we've heard, not only from Sierra, but from person after person that we have talked to out here and in other cities is the continued economic suffering that so many are living through right now. Sierra, you came here to protest. I'm not going to hold you up any longer from doing that other than to ask, is there anything else you would want to say while you have the platform?

Um, we are in Nazi Germany. Everybody needs to wake the [ __ ] up and get out and do what you can. Sitting at home isn't going to do anything. And I know it's scary to come out here. I know it's terrifying. It can be. You don't know what's going to be happening, but you can't just let him walk over. This is our state. This is our country. just can't can't let him come through. We're going to keep steam rolling unless you stop on the cell.

Yeah. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. I'll let you get back to it. It is loud out here. You heard Sierra make reference to there's going to be a protest tomorrow at 1:00. It's a rally in March. We'll be broadcasting live from that demonstration as well. So, if you want to be able to see again the action after action after action that the Twin Cities are putting on against the Trump administration right now in this moment as a way of pushing back against the continued ramp up of immigration enforcement efforts of terrorizing their cities. Get subscribed so you get notified as soon as we go live with those reports so you can see what those demonstrations are like on the ground.

And I should also say one more time, if you're able, statuscu.com/join. $5 a month. All it takes to keep us here on the ground covering event after event after event out here. All right, I'm going to go look for more people for us to interview. on. If you just want to survey the crowd again,

Very easy. I might take you up on that offer. Thank you. What's your name? Sorry. Kasa Kasa. Got it. I'm

all right. I am standing here with with Kasa Kasa Kasa sorry Kasa Kasa K Kata Kata thank you okay that's what I was screwing up so I'm standing here with Kata thank you very much for correcting me kata I want to start with just the noise maker of choice you brought along here with you what what did you bring and why

um well it's a bass air horn um I was at the store and they said And this is really loud. So that's why I got it. Go.

And you wanted to make this noise to send a message. What's that message that you are sending here tonight?

I mean that we don't want ICE in Minnesota. That we don't want the Minneapolis in the Twin Cities. That we don't want organizations in the Twin Cities supporting ICE, housing ICE. We've seen the Trump administration try to paint a picture that anyone who's resisting ICE right now or speaking out against the administration is somehow a rioter uh is somehow enacting violence. I just got to address that right off the cuff. Do you see any rioters here tonight? Did you come with any intentions of being violent?

No. I think the vast majority of people here don't want it to be violent. We're peaceful protesters. Everything that I've been to has been peaceful. We're just trying to look out for our neighbors. Take a stand. I mean, I We're doing what we can. What else can we do? when you when you saw the video of Renee Good being killed by an ICE agent, just your initial reaction, what were the the feelings that came up inside you when you see someone from your community, you know, someone who could be a neighbor, you know, being harmed like that, being gunned down by the federal government with your tax dollars. What What was going through your mind?

Um, I mean, at first it was sort of numbness. I think probably a lot of people that way where I don't think I really can meet them the day after. Um I mean my first thought which is sort of a selfish one I guess but was of like my friends that never like walks away who have been active parts of Icew Watch teams out there. That could have been one of them. We uh we just today the Trump administration or not I shouldn't say the Trump administration but uh Alpha News released a new video actually taken by the agent who fired the shots.

First of all, have you seen that video? Yes. Yes. Um at the very after uh agent Jonathan Ross uh fires uh and kills Renee Good, his first words are I apologize for the language, but they're [ __ ] [ __ ] What do what's the message that you feel like is being sent there? What's the regard that you feel like ICE agents have for your community, your friends and neighbors?

I mean, it's a hard I it's not a hard question to answer, but it's like that's not a way that you speak to anyone with respect, whether they've committed a crime or not, whether they're here illegally or not, whether they're a US citizen or not. Um, I mean it seems pretty clear using that language that they've not been trained. They don't have a protocol. They're just sort of going rogue and doing whatever they want and saying whatever they want. Who are they held accountable to? I don't know. Today we also heard that the state of Minnesota uh from uh Attorney General Keith Ellison that they are going to be launching their own investigation into the shooting even though the FBI is going to withhold evidence from that local investigation. What's your hopes for what a truly independent investigation into the shooting what it could achieve?

I don't know. I don't I I guess a better question might be like what is justice to you look like? What would you hope would be the outcome of a truly independent investigation?

Well, I would hope that that ICE officer would be arrested. Obviously, that he wouldn't be an ICE agent anymore. Um that I don't know. I don't know what can exactly logistically come of an investigation like that and not like a a positive outcome for the Twin Cities would obviously be that all ICE agents have to leave. I don't know if that's a realistic outcome of what would happen to this investigation or not. But I think that's what I was hoping that's what everybody here. I mean, I think that's what probably a lot of people are are feeling right now or hoping for right now. Um, when you look out at all of these people who have essentially come to say either the same thing or something very similar to the message that you came to deliver, what feelings are inside you of surrounded by all these people standing up together and saying ice out of Minnesota?

I mean, I think something that I've been feeling has just been the feeling of like I mean the feeling of like there is some hope and like Minnesota, the Twin Cities, Minneapolis knows how to organize. We have community networks already. People want to participate. It's like we've been set up for this from George Floyd and Mark 2020. And so it's it's I don't know there's really a feeling of like locally just in Minneapolis as a whole and then also locally within neighborhoods. I think there's a really strong feeling of like I'm a part of this. I can help out in my neighborhood and I can help neighbors.

You're you're out here with a what was it called again? A bazooka air horn. You got a bazooka air horn that I'm going to assume cost you a few bucks and a whistle. That's what you have to fight back against a federal government that has functionally limitless resources, billions upon billions of dollars to continue to put pressure on Minnesota if it wants. Um really what you have is your own spirit, your own drive to continue resistance, continue standing up. How long do you feel like you can continue to mount a resistance with this volume against the Trump administration?

How long do I think Minneapolis as a whole? I mean, I think as long as I can continue happening, I don't I don't see a situation where ISIS is still here, I think.

Absolutely. Uh the last piece that I want to end here is kind of jumping off of that with those limitless resources. We're hearing reporting today that ICE could deploy or the federal government is going to deploy as many as a thousand more agents on top of the 2,000 they were already sending over the next month. When you hear that that in response to shooting and killing someone that they are only going to ramp up the pressure, what's the message being sent to Minneapolis? What are you hearing from your federal government right now?

that that they're scared, I guess. I mean, that they think the 2,000 that they sent already isn't enough, but I don't think they sent 2,000 to any other city in the US, not to Chicago. Certainly, I don't think Portland, Oregon either. I I mean I think they noticed the strength of our community and accomplishing here and I mean they're calling for backup here. I think thank you very much for your time before I let you go. Anything else you want to add while you have the platform? Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. John,

let's get out of the crowd for just a second. I want to just take a step back from the crowd for just a second. We can get him still in the background. Move around a little bit. I pulled John out of the crowd just now just for my own just for my own sanity and for the safety of my own ears cuz it is so loud in there. And like I said, we are standing only on the edge only on the edge of this crowd. And you already hear the the the sound. I'm really hoping really hoping that uh you're hearing [ __ ] Ice. You're hearing [ __ ] eyes from the people out here. One of many, one of one of many voices that you're hearing.

And I'll say these young faces that you're seeing out here, we've seen them. We've seen young faces like that at protest after protest. Largely young faces, people of color coming out saying that they are scared about the future that awaits them, the country that they are being left to inherit and are terrified that either they, their parents, their friends, their loved ones are going to be next. But I want to acknowledge something that Kata just said in that interview just now, which is that she feels that the news that a thousand more agents, what we're hearing report is that a thousand more agents are going to be sent is that uh she sees that as a sign of weakness from the Trump administration that they are inherently scared. I'll note now the sound is is dying down out here as some speakers are getting ready to speak.

John, you want to try and get in there and like let's hear from some of the speakers? Pardon me. Pardon me. and taken away from their families. These ICE agents that are staying in these rooms are leaving unsecured guns, loaded weapons in the rooms. The housekeepers are having to go in and clean rooms around loaded weapons that they're leaving unsecured. Thank you.

Workers are terrified. Workers are staying home. Workers are not able to provide for their families cuz they're so scared to leave their homes.

Our workforce is struggling. You say you are struggling. Our community is struggling. This agenda of mass deportation will have a profound impact on all of us. We must continue to take action. We must continue to fight for our neighbors, our allies, our communities. They are being torn apart by a radical hatefilled agenda.

This is not just an immigrant and an allies issue. This is a core economic issue.

Are they louder? It wasn't all the way high. Excuse me. This is not just an immigrant or ally issue. This is a core economic issue that impacts our workers. US foreign workers and foreign foreign workers. This impacts all industries and all people. Abducting workers that keep airports, hotels, and restaurants open will make it hard for the businesses in our community to stay open and survive. Across the country, 17% of the workforce are foreign born. In Minnesota, 11% of the workforce are foreign born. That is 1 in nine workers.

These workers are pivotal parts of our communities. This state and this country cannot run without our immigrant communities. This campaign of mass terror is hurting us all. We must stand up. We must stand together. We must stand and fight for our neighbors. We must fight for those who cannot fight for themselves at this moment.

We must not stand by while ICE is murdering people in our streets. What do we do when we're under attack?

What do we do when we're under attack? What do we do when we are under attack? Stand up. Fight back.

Stand up. Fight back. Stand up. Fight back. Stand up. Fight back. Stand up. Fight back.

Stand up. Fight back. Stand up. Fight back. Showing you this crowd right now. You have a better perspective on it than I do cuz John's able to lift that camera up over the crowd. I can't see the edge of this crowd right now. It is hundreds, if not thousands, outside of the canopy by Hilton to make their voices heard.

Call for an end to murder of their neighbors. And now we are out here to cause problems for the hotels that are collaborating with us. And I'll say it again. I'll say it again. I'll say it. When we do this, it works. We get these out of these hotels.

Something else that is important to say tonight. We are out here in an act of mass nonooperation. And last non cooperation works. When we engage in mass cooperation, we show how powerful we are. And what's important to remember tonight is that this disruptive action is also peaceful. We are a nonviolent peaceful group tonight. Why are we nonviolent? We don't need to counter their violence to have power. We have power because of the numbers that we have. Look around. Look around. It's your power. Look around. Make eye contact. Make eye contact with someone in the crowd right now. Look around.

Make eye contact with this picture. These are your neighbors. These are your comrades. And these are the people. Why? This is why we're powerful. This is why we're powerful. So tonight we'll be peaceful. We're going to be nonviolent and we're going to cause a [ __ ] problem.

And we're going to do what do we want? Our house. When do we want it? Now. What do we want? When do we want it?

What do we want? When do we want it? What do we want? Where do we want it? What do we want?

Where do we want it? What do we want? Where do we want it? What do we want? What do we want it?

Why do we want? What do we want? What do we want? What do we want? What do we want?

I want to take this moment to call out the fact that the cameras you're seeing here through our camera are largely independent journalists or just people here in the crowd. There were a lot of national outlets, a lot of corporate media that parachuted in here the day that Renee Good was killed. We've been on the ground here for weeks since the beginning of December to tell the story of what is happening here in the Twin Cities. this important on the ground journalism,

lifting up the voices of these people, this loud majority of people who are out here to express their anger at the Trump administration for killing, victimizing their neighbors is not something that you will see on corporate media or if you will, it'll be a 12second sound bite. We're going to be live out here for hours. The importance of supporting independent media in this time is absolute. It's the only way that we can get a truly independent voice, a people centered voice in what is happening.

I can't thank enough. We can't thank enough here at Status Coup. work of the Midas Touch Network and lifting up not only our out outlet but also the voices of all of these people that you see around here tonight. I worked in corporate news for a while. I worked as a corporate local journalist and I can tell you right now what the coverage of this event will look like on the evening news tonight. It'll be 45 seconds. It'll be an anchor just reading over that there were some people who made noise outside of a hilt. It'll feature one sound bite from somebody in this crowd. And it'll feature one sound bite from someone who says that they didn't like the noise. or it'll feature a quick uh blurb uh some of the Trump administration's propaganda to make it quote unquote both sides as if these hundreds and thousands of voices are in any way equal to just what one person in the White House has to say

as if to suggest that that is a that this what is happening here is a 50/50 position. I hope it comes across through the camera. The power of the this collective group of voices are expressing right now. The energy that is in the air.

And not only do we try and center the voices of people and peoplepowered movements here at Status Goo, we don't take corporate funding. None. We are sustained thanks to individual donations. It's individual people giving us a few dollars here, a few dollars there, $5 a month to sustain the efforts that our small but mighty team is able to do here at Status. And I would put our journalism up against any other outlet with what we're able to do with that people built power. So, because we are only beholden to you, our audience, you know that these voices that we're showcasing here tonight, what I'm saying on this microphone has nothing to do has nothing to do with what any advertiser wants me to say or deems acceptable.

You see here a march now forming of these protesters led by that pickup truck led by that pickup truck where we saw those speakers speaking off of the backup just a few moments ago. And we're now moving with this crowd

as they take to the streets in downtown Minneapolis. We're moving up here to the front of this group so you can look back and again see the totality of this movement as they chant [ __ ] Ice. You're fully good. Nobody behind you.

I'm just taking a moment here to ensure my cameraman is safe since he has to do everything I'm doing except he's also monitoring a camera and walking backwards while doing it. Black ice. Black ice. Black ice. Black ice. Black ice. Black ice.

A reporter. Would you mind if I came here to deliver ice? Yeah. Ice. Ice. All right. What's What's your name?

Ice. What can I call L? All right. I am standing here with L. L. I wanted I wanted to ask you about the message you came here to deliver tonight. The Trump administration has tried to frame these movements as the movement of rioters inherently violent. I I mean I think we can just look around. We don't see any violence happening here tonight.

Set the record straight. What's the What's the message you came to deliver? The message I came here to deliver is that we have a right to exercise our right to protest when we see injustice happening somewhere.

If we know that injustice is happening somewhere, nobody is safe. And it's very important for us to make sure that we understand that if it's us now, it could be you tomorrow. So, make sure to know that. We're seeing fireworks going off behind us here as this crowd continues to march.

So that's your message. My message is if this is happening to us today, this could happen to anybody tomorrow.

When you want to stand up for something, you get labeled as all of these horrible, horrific things. It's our right to say these things. It's our right to protest. It's our right to stand up to injustice.

Right to stand up to injustice. Let's talk about justice. What would justice look like for the Twin Cities? I don't think this community can ever be made completely whole after one of its members was killed by the federal government. But what steps would you like to see taken to try and see some accountability, some justice, uh, some justice be carried out here for the Twin Cities?

Rene's killer needs to be locked up. We need ICE to get out of Minnesota. And we need the entire government to realize that these horrors that are happening is completely unacceptable. Everybody who was taking part and standing by while this is happening needs to be held accountable. They need to be held accountable by any means necessary. They need to be held accountable. They need to go to jail if they need to be locked out, put on trial. What we're seeing right now is a repeat of history. It's unacceptable. a repeat of history. So looking to history as a guide, where do you see this country going right now? And is there a way to avoid that future? We can avoid it or where I see the bus going right now is I feel like we are going in a very dark dark direction like back in the day when many wars were happening when people being persecuted just for who they are being racially profiled. So

for us to move forward, we need for all of us to come together as a community, not right or left, not conservative, liberal, but as one America to understand that this is wrong and that we can reach peace through collective understanding that what's happening is just not a thing.

So Al, the Trump administration just announced that it's going to send a thousand more agents on top of the 2,000 it's already sending here to the Twin Cities area. What's the message that you feel like the Trump administration is sending to you and your neighbors here by sending those more?

He wants us to be afraid, but Minnesota is not afraid. We care about our neighbors.

So, if he wants to send his officer, it's only going to escalate. Minneapolis is a smaller city in comparison to cities like Chicago or New York. Sending 3,000, that's an agitation move. He wants to agitate us. He wants us to to to burn the city down. We're not going to do that. They're not doing that.

We've talked a lot about the Trump administration so far. Republican administration, Republicans control all branches of government right now. Do you feel like the opposition party, the Democrats are doing enough to fight back in this moment?

No. I think that they could be doing more tweets, thoughts, and prayers. That's not going to help. This is not helping us. We need actual real actionable change. We need people to wake up and do something. No more words. No more words. We need action. We need real change, real action.

Action. Are you Would you be willing to support a general strike if it came to that? And

we need a general strike. Absolutely. I would support it because we are again one America. Everybody needs to stand with each other. Again, right or left, it doesn't matter. We need to be unified as a country to understand that what's wrong is wrong. You can't have somebody tell you that what you saw with your own eyes as a video was incorrect. That is cognitive dissonance. You are believing in something when your heart is telling you one thing, but your eyes see something and somebody's telling you something another. Absolutely not. I have to go back to my friend. Thank you so much.

Absolutely. Thank you very much for your time. Another voice that you're hearing here in the crowd. Another one acknowledging that Trump administration wants to make the Twin Cities feel scared and that's the reason for this additional deployment of agents now coming to this city that they are threatening. 1,000 people,000

1,000 agents on top of the 2,000 that had already been slated to be deployed here over the next 2 months on top of the already existing operation metro surge that ICE was already underway at uh carrying out here in the Twin Cities area and has been carrying out since the beginning of December. We've been covering that operation over the last many weeks since it began. We've been on the ground here in the Twin Cities. We brought you the story of a pregnant woman who was dragged. We brought you the scene where John nearly gave himself frostbite, covering two construction workers who were being literally frozen to death by ice as they attempted to take refuge at a construction site from immigration agents who were there to try and arrest them, take them away as part of a broader part of a broader profiling effort that the Trump administration is doing here.

We brought you story after story on the ground here. So when you look and you see this crowd, this story did not start tonight. This story did not start 2 days ago with the murder of Renee Good. This story stretches back weeks. It stretches back years of systemic harm that has been visited on the Twin Cities, on communities, on this entire country because leaders won't put people first. Instead, what they do is they fund at record levels law enforcement, ICE to carry out a deportation agenda, a harm agenda, and seek to divide the American people because that that fractures a power base that you can see how strong it is when a true group of people come together. There are not police officers who are blocking the traffic out in front of us. John, if you just want to flip the camera around for just a moment. It's not like police are clearing the streets for these people to march right now. This is a people

movement out here. These are volunteers in those yellow vests who are out here blocking traffic, ensuring that it is safe for this crowd to move. This is people who are taking back the streets of their city one block at a time. At the scene of the shooting at 34th in Portland on Minneapolis's south side, we saw the establishment for a time of an autonomous grieving zone. John's just wiping down our camera lens here. And this is an extension of that of people taking back their city. justice for justice. And in order to show people what is actually happening here on the ground in Minneapolis to show the popular movement that is building here in this city and across the country right now and I can say across the country cuz we've been reporting from city after city across this country from DC, New York, from LA, from Chicago, from Charlotte, North Carolina, and now from the Twin Cities. this popular

movement that is building against the Trump administration and its immigration agenda and its lack of focus on issues that actually impact people's lives. A lack of focus on the economy and a massive distraction effort that is underway right now from many of the scandals that the Trump administration is currently dealing with

like the Epstein files, like the state of the economy. lifting up these voices and telling these stories is important to us. If it's important to you, help lift this up. Share, like the stream.

It does a lot. It does a lot because these social media companies do not value on the ground shoe leather journalism like what we're doing here. We need to be able to send the message to the algorithm that this is something that people need to see and should be seeing to get a real sense of how popular these movements are.

And if you can take the extra step to support what we're doing here, that extra step would be going to statuscoo.com/join. For $5 a month, you help sustain what John and I are doing here on the ground and our whole team at Status Co is doing

to cover to cover rising fascism and authoritarianism here in the United States. That $5 a month goes to sustain our on the ground reporting efforts. It goes to pay for the places where we need to sleep at the end of the night

after we finished marching with these folks covering these movements for hours before this today. We were outside of the federal building where ICE agents have been staging many of their operations here in the Twin Cities area. We were live out there for hours earlier today. We we were out there for hours today showing how the Trump administration was willy-nilly using force against the people of the Twin Cities area. So, at the drop of a hat, tear gasing that crowd, shooting pepper balls into them, throwing out flashbang grenades.

These were all things that happen today in this city. Supposedly, the Trump administration is trying to make this city safe by tearing families apart, by using tear gas, by using flashbang grenades, and by shooting and killing one of the residents of this city. And you can see the message that these people are here to deliver in response to the Trump administration. But if that reporting is valuable to you, please statuscoo.com/join it. It helps keep John and I here on the ground telling these important stories that we feel so passionately about covering. John, I'm going to uh go and grab another person to to interview.

Okay. No one needs to leave. Power to the people. Power to the people. Power to the No. Power.

Pardon me, sir. Pardon me, man. I'm a I'm a reporter. Would you mind if I interviewed you about the message you came out earlier tonight? Find a minority. What's that?

He's not white. Fair enough. Hey, we can get in the middle like get in the middle of it.

Yeah, I love that. Hey, we can pace. We'll pace. Let them go ahead of us, sir. If you see anybody, take them out. Pardon me, folks. I'm a reporter. I'm interviewing people about the message they wanted to deliver here tonight. No.

All right. Pardon me, folks. I'm a reporter. I'm out here interviewing people about the message they wanted to deliver tonight. I ask you a couple questions.

Who are your status qu what are your names? My name is Zach. What is it? Zack. Zack and Lauren. Zach and Lauren. Got it. My name is JT. This is my cameraman, John. All right. I'm standing here with Zach and Lauren. So, Zack, Lauren, first of all, can I get you guys to just spell your names for me really quick? Z A C H.

L A U R E N. Thank you. What made you feel compelled to be out here tonight? Why was tonight the night you wanted to make your voices heard?

We live in South Minneapolis. This is our community. These are our neighbors. I work with people who are at risk. It was a This was bound to happen in this city. ICE has been here for 38 [ __ ] days. It's was only a matter of time. But that's what brought us out here tonight.

Yeah. And really quick before you answer, Zach, what I want to underline what Lauren said is it was only a matter of time. That is a sentiment that we heard from people in leading up to the shooting. This is not looking back after the fact with 2020 hindsight vision being like, "Oh, well, it was inevitable looking back." No. People at the time, not only here in Minneapolis, but in other cities that we have covered, like Chicago, where two people were shot, one killed by immigration agents in that city, were saying in the weeks leading up to those shootings that they felt like the presence of federal agents in their communities was not making them safer.

It was making them more dangerous, that it was only going to lead to violence because these agents have demonstrated that they are very good at escalating situations, not so good at deescalating them. Zack, why did you want to be out here tonight?

I I would echo the same reasons that Lauren said. I'm I'm also a criminal defense attorney in Wisconsin and a criminal defense attorney in Wisconsin. I have a lot of undocumented clients and I mean I'm I'm just getting to a point where I mean obviously 2020 was different but it's a lot of the same feelings that I have now but I do I feel it just feels like there is a divide in this country that is unhealable almost there there's No, like at legally there is no justification. If anyone who wasn't in a law enforcement position acted in the same way that he acted, it would be the quickest first-degree intentional homicide trial I've seen in a while.

Maybe you get down to second if you get a lucky jury. But if we're being completely honest, every slow motion video shows the exact same thing. It shows that there is no justification for legal force. every regardless of how dog [ __ ] the policies are and we know that they're used for excuses to get law enforcement out of the [ __ ] they do anyways the policies that are already in place do not justify what happened as horrible as they already are written to allow law enforcement to keep abusing our communities regardless it so I'm I'm just getting to a point where it just feels a lot I feel hopeless but hopeful at the same same time hopeless and hopeful as somebody who works in criminal justice. I'm assuming hopeful for justice at some point. I want to ask both of you as someone who works in the justice system as it currently exists and as somebody who lives in this community.

Yeah. I work in community mental health. Exactly. We both work with people who are constantly being targeted by state sanctioned violence and we're expected to proceed as normal. And the fact of the matter is is it's not safe for them to be out here tonight. So someone [ __ ] has to.

I want to ask you both, what would justice for Minneapolis look like? What do you want to see happen? Obviously, this community cannot be made whole because somebody was killed, but what steps would you like to see taken to try and actually make this community feel a little bit of justice? You know, I I've lost a lot of faith in Democratic party in the last 8 years already. And while some statements are encouraging from some individuals, I I will not accept what we saw before. I'm not going to tolerate [ __ ] politicians saying one thing and then just giving up as soon as it's convenient, as soon as they get their votes, as soon as they get their donations. I'm I'm not going to [ __ ] do it. If you're a Democrat and you're not running on abolishing ICE and charging every single officer who unlawfully use force against American or non-American citizens, don't [ __ ] run. Just don't. You're not [ __ ]

welcome. You should not be in this party. You are worthless. You are a sensiting piece of [ __ ] and you are just a [ __ ] terrible person. I have no nothing else to say. That's the only thing that would mildly improve anything is if I [ __ ] gone for forever. I They need to [ __ ] go. It's nothing short of it. Before I bring you in, Before I bring you in here, Lauren, I just want to acknowledge for the camera right now that we are outside of another another hotel here in downtown Minneapolis. So, this crowd is now moving from hotel to hotel to continue on this protest. I just want to make reference for why the crowd had stopped. So Lauren, I want to bring you in as as someone who lives here. What would justice for yourself, for your friends, for your neighbors here in Minneapolis? What do you want to see happen?

The fact that he is still walking around is disgusting. The fact when you say he, you when you say he,

the guy the ICE agent who murdered Renee and the fact of the matter is is that Minneapolis has gotten far too comfortable having ICE in the city. This is not, as I said, they've been here for over a month and we only now is it finally picking up speed and frankly, they need to be actively barring ice from entering the city. Like law enforcement claims to not be cooperating. We've seen them cooperating with ICE. So to me, ICE out of the city is the answer. ICE out of the city. Let's talk about what ICE out of the city might look like. The Trump administration spending billions of dollars right now on immigration enforcement. ICE is more wellunded than a lot of count's militaries.

What could the federal government spend its money on that would actually benefit you, benefit people in your lives? Maybe a better way of answering this question is what are the problems you are currently facing in your lives or your families are facing or your friends are facing that the federal government could address but isn't. All of my clients and even me, I'm far more privileged than any of my clients ever are. I have the resources to support myself. But the I see the same problems every single time. It's housing, it's healthcare, and it's no, it's housing and healthcare. Those two things are never being addressed. We have band-aid solutions being brought up time and time again. Obamacare got extended again for 3 years or will seemingly be. That's not enough. Yes, I don't know where I would be. I probably wouldn't be here without Obamacare. And that was the most band-aid solution

we've had in 50, 60 years since the establishment of Medicare to begin with. Politicians once again need to stop running on these shitty solutions and actually address the root causes of why crime exists, why we have homelessness, and the fact that I shouldn't have to [ __ ] wait a month because I missed a day of a deadline for insurance. Who the [ __ ] thought of that system? Why are we Why? There's no good reason other than profit. That's the only reason. Lauren, what about you?

It takes over multiple years to get housed in this city. If you are in chemical health treatment at this time, there's been constant cuts on housing. We have to fight tooth and nail to get our clients housed. Half the time it doesn't last. We have no system of healthcare in this country for mental health care. We have providers who are overworked and underpaid. We have mental health workers who are actively being pushed to the absolute brink because there are no resources and Minnesota is considered a well-resourced state. I was grew up in the south. There was no resources. It was even worse. But dump a few million and you could probably fix the problem.

But it has to be a systemic change. You can't just throw money at housing and then think it's all going to be fixed. You have to fund the whole system. Normally, we would expect in I think a normal functioning society for leaders to respond to public pressure, but instead the Trump administration is going to send a thousand more agents here to Minneapolis despite the pain that it has inflicted and the movement that we are seeing not only here but now across the country in solidarity with the Twin Cities with this country right now murdering its own people with this country decapitating other governments by kidnapping their head of state.

Does this country do you still see it as a democracy? I mean, I don't to say it really has ever been is kind of a lie in it of itself. I think we're just only slowly seeing it getting worse day by day and we're rather than the slow creeping of gaining rights since the abolishment of slavery and obviously allowing not property owning white men to vote or own anything. We're creeping backwards and we're creeping backwards at a far faster rate than we've ever crept forward. And the amount of resistance that I see is just it it doesn't seem to be enough. And like we shouldn't accept this. This should not be acceptable. I don't think it doesn't matter really your political leaning. Everyone's [ __ ] suffering right now. It really doesn't matter what your cultural beliefs on anything are.

Everything is unaffordable. It's getting worse. Our economy is a gigantic stock bubble in AI that is just waiting to crash. What? Our government has no contingency plan except bailing them out again. Great. What the [ __ ] are we going to do then? We're going to see the same thing happen again with the banking crisis and probably not do [ __ ] [ __ ] about it. The Democrats will tell us to move on again. I I'm tired of the same cycle. I'm just tired. Lauren, we're going to bring you in here. So, do you feel like we still live in a functioning democracy?

I don't think we've ever lived in a functioning democracy. You can't live in a democracy when people are actively being oppressed. You can't live in a democracy when you have whole groups of people who do not have the ability to like live comfortably in this country who've actively been suppressed. No, we've never had a democracy. It's built on stolen land.

Thank you both for your time. Before I let you go, is there anything else you would want to add while you had the platform?

Protesting is not the end of it. And it cannot be the only thing that people do. You need to actually show up to trainings where you learn to protect your rights and the rights of your neighbors. And you need to show up and act as legal observers and tow the line between obstructions. You need to do they no one everyone that most of the people that agree with us already agree with us. There is no convincing these [ __ ] pigs to work with us. That's not a thing. So do more than just showing up and complaining about it. Show up for your [ __ ] neighbors and actually protect them

100%. The only way we move through this is through community care. You can't show up here and then pretend it doesn't exist in your own neighborhood. You have to carry it forward. You need to be checking in on your neighbors. You should know your neighbors, frankly, or like this is beautiful and important and we need to be doing actions like this, but it has to accompany a bigger picture. Are you showing up when the cameras are gone and when the noise is over? That is what will change things.

Thank you both very much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys. All right, two more voices from this crowd. Multiply those two voices by this entire crowd, by the hundreds, by the thousands who are out here lifting up their voices so loud that I don't even know if you can hear me on the mic right now. That's how loud it is. I can barely hear myself think. You're hearing a lot more of these interviews than I am right now because I'm at least putting the microphone up to their mouths. It's closer to them than it is to me or than they are to me rather. And you you begin to understand multiplying their perspective here by the hundreds by the thousands of people who are out here voicing their displeasure with some of the businesses in their own community. the business interests, the corporate interests in their community that are choosing to accept these activists believe ICE agents

inside of their hotels as a place to stay, thereby giving them a place to rest their heads at night to regain energy to go out the next day and continue to inflict pain on their neighbors, neighborhoods communities families friends. ripping apart the fabric of this community. Not only with the killing of Renee Good, which has reverberated across this country, but in the weeks and months before of ICE operations that preceded it. The federal government is claiming that it has already that it has already abducted more than 1,400 people as part of its operation metro surge, the ICE operation that began here in early December.

1,400 people. It is likely nearly as many families who have been affected and are having to pick up the pieces. And the Trump administration loves to claim loves to claim that it is going after criminals. But what we have seen from reporting in city after city up to this point, reporting in reporting in city after city up to this point, is that it is a shockingly small percentage of people that the Trump administration can even claim can even claim have any criminal background whatsoever. From their operations in Charlotte, we saw it as low as a third. In Chicago, a review of several hundred cases of people that immigration enforcement agents had taken.

It would that the percentage of criminals was even smaller than that because who they're targeting are just the lowest hanging fruit. It is just people who are out doing their jobs. People out working in their communities. People who are waiting at the bus stop. People who are doing their laundry coming out of the laundromat getting snatched up because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have the wrong skin color. Because the Supreme Court in this country has allowed has allowed the Trump administration to profile people based on the color of their skin or immigration stops.

Sorry. Would you guys mind if I interview you about that? You want to talk about it right now?

Yes, sir. You want to talk about it? Sure. Yeah. in an out. How do you guys want to be identified this time?

Sorry. Okay. All right. And how do you want to be identified? It's C M Oh my god, I'm so sorry.

C period. M period. J O R I S S E. See, I'm yours. Sorry. I know. It's it's it's a stage name. Let's be frank.

Stage name. Stage name. We'll get And we'll address why you're using a stage name in just a moment. And then Emily, can you say and spell your name, please?

Yep. Emily Phillips. E M I L Y P H I L L I S. My throat is pretty rough after a few days of yelling since the murder.

What's that? A few days of yelling since the murder. So, my throat is pretty rough.

Yeah. I think I think everybody's throat's going to be feeling that way after tonight. So, I'm talking to you. We've interviewed Emily before. She is part of the networks of people here who keep in with Whipple watch who are going out to the Whipple building. It's a federal building where ICE is staging many of its operations and keeping an eye on those facilities, documenting what vehicles are coming and going as a way to notify communities here in the Twin Cities areas that ICE and immigration agents are going out on raids as a way to let those people know to be ready to document whatever atrocities might be committed and also to potentially warn those communities so that vulnerable people can take shelter.

But today, the Whipple building was the scene of another day of protest that was meant with violent force by the Trump administration. I know cuz we were there. We got tear gas. We were flashbanged. Pepper balls shot all around us. Shot directly at many of the protesters for the crime of just standing in the wrong part of the street. that you weren't allowed to exercise your First Amendment rights in certain parts of a public street, but you could in others. I give that long preamble to set Emily up because Emily was at that protest and you experienced something just a couple of hours ago. Can you walk people through what that was?

Yeah, for sure. So, I apologize for my voice being pretty rough. I've been yelling pretty much since Renee was killed. Um, so we were protesting on and off all day there today and they closed down, they brought in barricades for the first time, cement barricades, and they placed them on our side of the street, which is supposed to be public property, and people use it to get the metro. And then they place barricades at gate uh, one of at one of their visitor gates, uh, not their visitor gates, at their federal employee gate. And after that, they while while I was gone on break, they uh barricaded their uh main gate that they use, the ice gate that we usually look at.

And when she says barricades, she means put up more of those concrete barriers and also put up

this one. No, at that one they actually put up like steel barriers and they've got locked them with gun locks.

Oh, okay. They said like, "Oh, there's arms. It's because of arms." And what kind of force were you met with at these protests?

Well, so I went back to what we call gate three. So that is uh the over by the the tennis lot, the entrance there, and that's the what used to be the everybody entrance, but they since the FBI closed it down a few days ago, um it's just all ice, so they can just do whatever they want. So they closed it down to only go through that gate. And um me and Clint went back and we had our megaphones and we start we turned the sirens on on them and we walked across the street where we were again not standing on the curb or anything but we were standing like in the street part. Um and I did walk a little bit into the driveway but not past the public sidewalk really. Um but um we Sorry I'm stiming for a second. Um, all of a sudden the officers all decided that they were going to come out. And I've been calling officers Burken and uh, Eden's out by name because I at one point had a conversation with them about

what would happen if their guns got ters on us. Like what if they got that order? And they laughed and thought it was impossible. And now one of us is dead. So I'm telling them to quit their jobs because they both acted like it was impossible and now one of us is dead and they're protecting the murderer. So, um, they didn't like that. So, they personally rushed me and claimed.

They arrested you? No, they personally rushed us and they tried to. I'll send you the raw footage,

but um, they did put my arms behind my back and tried to, but we both had our umbrellas and, um, Clint ran in and like tried to deflect them from like taking my umbrella cuz they were trying to take our umbrellas. And I was just like, "Give me my stuff and I'll go. Give me my stuff and I'll go." and they they wouldn't give me my they just wouldn't give me my umbrella and so um it ended up with us each tugging on it and I took my megaphone and I hit my umbrella. I'd love to hit the cops but that would be a federal charge so I hit my umbrella my own property. I hit my umbrella and um and then they they kind of we were far enough away that they couldn't really arrest us and they just pepper sprayed both of us and I had goggles on but Clint did not so he took it right to the face. So he can tell you a little bit more about that but it was absolutely nuts. They didn't give us a boundary warning or anything. We've never had a

boundary warning at this gate. Like they've never told us like this is the line you cannot cross or you will be arrested November slate. They've never done that at this gate. So, for them to just rush us and try to take our stuff and almost detain both of us was insane.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll I'll ask him about his experience here in just a moment. But, um, when when you're met with that force, I mean, what's going through your mind in that moment?

For Eden's and Burken, it was personal because I've been yelling at them calling out them by name. So, when they rushed me personally, that wasn't really a surprise. And they were calling me by name, too. They were like, "Emily, we're going to Emily, move. Emily, we're going to arrest you. Emily, move." And so we all know each other. Um, and but they were they were very violent, very quick. They wanted to arrest me. That's what everyone said it looked like. Um, but because of the umbrella incident and everything, I think we got too far away for them to justifiably arrest us cuz we were no longer really on federal property. So, they just pepper sprayed us. But point blank, both of us. And for King got me and Eden's got him. And when you when you step away from that interaction, you have a moment to really appreciate like what happened to you and the the violence that's so freely being carried out by the Trump administration

here in this city. I mean, I shouldn't I shouldn't. So, I was teargassed this morning a couple times. Um, like that's just a day now. We Clinton and I were talking. That's just a day now. We know what tear gas does to our bodies. We know what pepper spray does to our bodies. They almost pepper ballled by my feet, but they decided to pepper spray instead. But they they want to shoot us. They do. They still bring live weapons. They they brought a gun and raised it to one of our marshals the day after the shooting.

It's wild. Yeah. And I want to note just how normalized a lot of this violence is around here. These agents come out with tear gas canisters strapped across their bellies. Many of them each. Many of them are carrying rifles. Many of them are carrying the pepper ball guns. And it's often the first tool that they reach for is that pepper ball gun. And in fact, it's become so normalized to me as a reporter and I should not let this happen. This is a failure on my part. But when when tear gas went off, we were live at the time out there at the protest and I barely commented on the fact that it was going off because it's become such a common sight not only in this city but now in Chicago and in cities across this country because these agents have been outfitted with all of these weapons and a sense of either trained to use them at the drop of a hat or not receiving deescalation training and only being able to escalate the

situations. Thank you, Emily, for taking the time to relate that story. I'm going to talk and I appreciate you and yeah, I'll grab Clint for you. I appreciate you guys so much. It's always a blessing to run.

Thank you. We appreciate that. We appreciate that. Where? Oh, he's right behind you.

All right, CM, I want to bring you in here. Okay, so I want to start where you want you have to be called CM, correct? All right, so first let's just let's just for the folks at home to know why why we're calling you that. Why do you think it's a good idea out here to go by a by a stage name?

Honestly, it's the most pathetic answer. I had this thought if I ever had a public facing persona like this is literally this is how basic this thought is. It'd be CM yours. Just that's it. I don't know why since I was a kid if I had a public persona I'd go by that. I wish it was a better story but it really isn't. So Emily was telling us a little bit who g gave us all the setup for what happened to you today. But when you got the pepper spray, describe to me the moments right before, during, and right after it happened. What's going through your mind to arrest Emily? It's pretty [ __ ] evident. They were coming to [ __ ] your [ __ ] up.

So I saw, you know, they were descending ascending, I'm sorry, on Emily. So I got my ass over there. Kevlar reinforced umbrella and all and they were trying to basically apprehend them. So I got between them without my cly reinforced umbrella. We have these umbrellas for a reason and they know why and they [ __ ] hate us for it. And why we have them is when they try to pepper spray us or pepper ball us the umbrellas since they have ke we take the hit. But they intentionally grabbed Emily's umbrella and I got between them and they trashed that umbrella and then they trashed my umbrella and when they realized they could not apprehend us cuz I was not letting go of the [ __ ] umbrellas. I I'm not let go of the one I'm not letting go the one [ __ ] thing they [ __ ] hate. And when they pushed us away they pepper sprayed us.

The guy who pepper sprayed me his name is Eden. His badge number is 1504. I don't [ __ ] boy. I [ __ ] know. So Sam, I want you to describe to me for folks who have never been pepper sprayed before. What does it feel like? It's [ __ ] brutal. It's very [ __ ] brutal. Let's just say the pain doesn't stop for half an hour and you're sitting there for a good 10 minutes and you're like, are you [ __ ] kidding me? This shit's going to [ __ ] stop. Is it going to [ __ ] stop? And of course it doesn't stop and you're sitting there just you got to rain it out. You get someone, you know, put water in your eyes. Yeah, you got the worst part is you got the blink and you're getting the water in your eyes. It's like it's just adds insult to entry, but blinking gets the water in there more and it's [ __ ] it's [ __ ] miserable. Absolutely visible. I I want to I want to say I want to call out for people here that your experience is not

necessarily unique in the sense of me getting met with force by the Trump administration. Obviously Renee Good was met with deadly force by the Trump administration, but aside from [ __ ] child, but I but I went through child's play. I'm not 6 feet under. Rest in power. Rest in power. But aside from her case, maybe if you can call out just one or two other examples of use of force that you've seen here in the Twin Cities area about the way you've seen the Trump administration deploying force, either pepper spray, tear gas, pepper balls, etc. Have you been to the Whipple in the past few days? We were out there this morning for several hours

and you've seen it. You've seen it firsthand. They are so [ __ ] happy with their pepper spray and their tear gas and their pepper balls. Just they're [ __ ] thugs.

And what are they responding to when the Trump administration when their agents are coming out and pepper spraying pepper?

They don't like that they're losing. They don't like that they're getting getting their asses kicked by Minnesota. They [ __ ] cannot [ __ ] take it. to use excessive force and they think that them they think that since they erase the pressure sorry I'm losing I'm losing the scriptures here I'm exhausted I'm so [ __ ] exhausted so they think if they turn up the heat we're going to back down and we're not so we try more and more excessive [ __ ] and we just responding kind by showing up at more and more numbers and being you know being in solidarity for The apparatus we have built here to counteract ICE. We are [ __ ] kicking their [ __ ] asses and they know it and they're scared and they respond with this childish fuckous [ __ ]

DM, is there anything else you would want to add while you have the platform? I wish I could hear myself think right now. That's so [ __ ] wild.

Have a good one. Thank you, man. Appreciate the time. They're referencing there the kind of ready use of force to be seen from the Trump administration here in the Twin Cities area. You're hearing is a story of tear gas or excuse me of pepper spraying people at point blank range. But John and I were tear gas today. We were tear gas. We were flashbanged. We were standing right there as protesters were pepper balled. It happens. It happens every day to the point that's nearly normalized. And I don't think that it should come as any wonder that this crowd when they see one of their own community members gunned down by a Trump administration agent here on their streets, one of their neighbors, one of their community members killed.

That they are able to empathize with that. that they are able to see themselves in that when it's their communities every day where the Trump administration is going in and ripping these families apart deploying tear gas using other force as needed whenever needed seemingly the drop of the hat. We saw this merited out against peaceful protest today simply because of where they were standing as if that becomes a justification for making people suffer. Being able to call out the truth and lift up people's voices like this is important to you. If it strikes you as a service that is inherently valuable, please start by liking and sharing the stream. Get it out to as many people as possible because I should also social media algorithms. We've been in this game long enough to know that they do not just inherently value journalism and get it out to an audience of thousands or tens of thousands or

millions. It has to come from a people- centered movement on the other side of this camera on the other side of this broadcast of you sitting there to make that conscious choice to lift up the voices that we are trying to give a platform to here. And that's how it gets out to more people and then turns the algorithm into a tool for us to be able to reach more people with the truth of what is happening here on the ground in Minneapolis. I should also probably take a moment here to thank uh all of the folks over at uh the Midas Touch Network for uh sponsoring this stream along with us, giving us the opportunity to to feature our reporting to their audience as well. If you're part of this uh of the Midas Touch Networks audience, welcome in to Status Coup. This is what we do. We go on the ground in these communities, do actual shoe leather journalism, and we don't parachute in for one night, tell a story, and leave.

We stay on the ground for days, for weeks, for months if needed, as we have been doing, as we have been doing with the Trump administration and immigration caught crap down across the country. We brought the reporting about alligator Alcatraz. We were down there in the Florida swamps. The report on that concentration camp that exists in America and has now been really mirrored and the Trump administration is looking to mirror across this country as they ramp up their deportation efforts in response to people- centered movements like this pushing back against them. We were on the ground in New York where the Trump administration was pulling was abducting people as they came out of their court appearances. We were on the ground in Washington DC.

We were on the ground in Washington DC when the Trump administration occupied occupied that city with National Guard soldiers. We were on the ground for the ICE raids in LA. We were on the ground for two months in Chicago as Operation Midway Blitz terrorized and tore apart that city and its surrounding communities. And now we and then I should say we were on the ground in Charlotte. I start to forget all the places we've been. And now we are on the ground here in Minneapolis where again we've been on the ground but aside from a break around for Christmas we've been on the ground since early December documenting everything that led up to the shooting of Renee Good her killing because that story did not start that day or the day after when a lot of national press arrived. It's been building up. People in these communities growing increasingly nervous that the increased pressure the Trump administration was putting here on these

cities would turn these cities into a more dangerous place would only lead to violence. And it did. And now we hear these voices people standing up against that. And we are here to show to show that there are thousands of people undeniably out here right now. Thousands who have come out to make their voices heard and occupy the streets of Minneapolis. And these voices should not, as many corporate media outlets are want to do, be made to seem as though these thousands of voices are in any way equivalent to the voices of just a few powerful people who want to continue to push their propaganda to be able to remain in power.

And it should be time for people's voices to actually be heard and be represented proportionally in media. That is what we seek to do here at Status Coup. And if you support us, aside from liking, sharing the stream, getting subscribed, the other thing you can do is go to statuscoo.com/join for as as little as $5 a month. You go to sustain John and I here on the ground. You help pay for our hotel rooms. You help pay for our food so we can eat a meal at the end of a long day. And we've been out getting tear gas in these communities, marching alongside these protesters, and featuring their voices.

and any support you can offer us is greatly appreciated. We're making our way uh quickly here back towards the front of this crowd where people are feeding on the windows of a building right now. You can hear the pounding thunder of hundreds of hands against the glass here. Again,

these clouds This crowd has been going, these protesters have been going from hotel to hotel to make as much noise as possible at hotels that they believe have allowed ICE agents to stay inside. to come. They are trying to make it so there's no peace for any ICE agents who might still be staying here and send a message to these hotel owners, the corporate owners to stop allowing a place for ICE to rest their heads at night to regain the energy to go back out and terrorize communities here in the Twin Cities area. The goal is to make these places make these companies feel uncomfortable

because without doing so they don't believe that there will be the change that they want to see. And I should note that there's some evidence that this strategy has worked because one of the Hilton locations here in the Twin Cities area did refuse to allow federal agents to stay inside. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security even posted about it on their social media which went semiviral.

I'm just going to let you listen in on all the sound here for just a moment. We're already seeing a lot of people now pulling back from the front of the hotel. One protester was able to open a door and some are going inside. But most of the protesters are walking away and leaving.

It looks like nearly as many press went in to photograph the protesters as protesters themselves went in. But again, you see most of the group here moving away from the uh moving away from the uh uh building. Heat

up here. give a crowd estimate. What's that? Oh, I've given out a few I've given it a few times. I mean, I would say it's in the thousands but John was just asking me if I had a crowd estimate, and I Well, I would say it's in the thousands here. I I haven't been able to get the perspective on the crowd that I think would be needed to give an accurate estimate. In fact, you watching at home probably have a better perspective than I do because John's able to get that camera up so high and is able to show so much of the crowd from where I am here on the ground. channel. Channel

Heat. Heat. Here the protesters beginning a chant of we'll be back. We'll be back. Trying to send a message here to the hotel. 12

trying to send a message to this hotel and perhaps many of the others that they visited tonight that they want to see change, that they want to see these places no longer host and hold ICE agents or else the demonstrations will continue. This is not the first one of these that we have seen here in the Twin Cities area. This is at least the third that I'm aware of. We've been at them. We've been covering them here at Status Scoop.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Northern Lightwoman. Northern Life. Can I say that? Not sure which are the pronunciations. My name is JT. It's nice to meet you.

All right. All right. I am standing here with Northern Lights woman. Can I get you to say that uh how you originally introduced yourself to me?

And I'm going to assume that you are indigenous. What what uh what uh what tribe or nation are you from?

I'm northern Cheyenne in Okola Lakota. Why did you want to be here tonight? To tell everyone, including the state of Minnesota and the United States, that this is Indian land. This is Dakota Makoce. That's what my sign says. Dakota Mako, which means this is Dakota land.

And I don't think it takes a genius to figure out why that would be relevant to to a protest about immigration and everything that's happening in this country right now. But spell it out for me. Why was it important for you to come out here and deliver this message that this is Dakota land? because the United States has come over here and they've forcibly waged war on indigenous people since 1492. And so we've been out here for the past 500 plus years fighting the United States. On my other side, other side I wrote Custer Killers 6251 1876.

The United Tribes of the Northern Cheyenne, the Okala Lacakota, and the Northern Arapjo defeated the United States in battle at the battle of greasy grass. We It was Cheyenne women that drove alls into Kuster's ears because he refused to listen. He refused to respect indigenous people. So we come as a warning to all politicians, to all representatives of the United States. What happens when you don't listen to indigenous women, to Cheyenne women? We will drive alls into your ears until me you listen from beyond the grave into the spirit world. Listen to what we're saying. Dear Tot. This is always will be Dakota land. The state of Minnesota came onto indigenous land and provoked itself and waged war against us. We see it happen with the live three pipeline. We see it happen now with the separation of families. This is a continuation of the the genocide of indigenous people that this is a direct correlation of what the

United States is and has always represented. The protest is moving on. So would you be comfortable talking and walking here so we can keep up here? So I mean I'm certainly feeling the passion feeling the emotion coming off of you. But can you describe for people when the the the emotion, the passion that you are feeling, what's going through your mind, what's going through your heart in this moment as you're watching what's been playing out in this country for centuries and still playing out today. I think of the next seven generations. I think of my babies. I think of my nieces and nephews, my future grandchildren, because this is the land. This is the this is the what they're going to inherit. So it it is my inherent responsibility. This is my spiritual responsibility to be out here standing with my relatives. For those who have to stay home, for those who can't be out here, to be able to speak, we have to be

able to use our intellect, our minds, our voices, our prayers to be able to s stand with one another because separation is what they want. So unity is what we will give them. I have asked a lot of people in this crowd tonight what justice looks like in the wake of Renee Good's killing and I have had to acknowledge that I don't think that there's probably any way you make a community hole for the death of even a single person let alone adding on 500 years of genocide on top of that. But what would justice look like here in this country to your mind? What needs to happen to even begin to make this country to make the people here whole

land back following indigenous leadership and stewardship indigenous people hold almost 80% of the world's biodiversity and that alone should attest to our connection to the land our connection to preserving it to making sure that our children inherit something well inherit something good and that includes the relationships that we hold with one another as people who occupy this land as people who inherited ourselves it is our spiritual responsibility to one another to listen and to show up and to respect each other's existence that Renee good was was uh someone who came out to support in the same way that we are and we cannot let that fear separate us we cannot let that fear stop us into coming out into supporting one another cuz she is just one voice that falls under thousands and thousands thousands of other names of other spirits of other peoples of other families that have been affected by not only this but the 500

years plus years of resistance of violence that we've occurred. So this is just a continuation on

just a continuation. What does what does I mean how do you even follow that? I mean it when you start to talk Thank you guys. uh when uh when you're when you saw what happened to Renee Good, just your initial reactions, what were you feeling? What were you thinking?

I was praying for her family. I was thinking of her partner. I was thinking of her children. I was thinking of all her relatives who will be affected of not only her name, but all of the other murder martyrs that have lost their lives because of this violence. So, like I said, I honor who she was. I honor her family and her children especially because they're going to live with the effects of what that officer did of what that ICE agent did by taking her life in broad day in a community in a residential area a block away from a high school. I mean like to see how close that this violence is to our children and what's affecting them. We think about them in these times

and the response that you've seen from the Trump administration saying that they were only going to ramp up their operations here, send a thousand more agents to follow up on the already cruel policies that they are carrying out here in the Twin Cities and in Minnesota. What what do you think the message that the federal government is attempting to send to the people that it is trying to govern here?

The same message that it's continued on since its inception was force is violence and of taking. So it's just continues continuing on its legacy of lies of stealing. I mean it's theft. I mean it's in the legacy of what the United States is and has always always been. So I think they're upholding very well of what the United States was intended to do.

Northern Lights woman, we covered a lot here in just a few minutes that we've been talking. We've covered 500 years of history. Is there anything else that you would want to add while you have this platform?

Yes. I urge each and every person who's listening to me, who's out here watching, to educate yourself, educate your families, to have those hard conversations, to tap into your inner human emotion, of connection, of empathy, to see what's happening, and to take action. I urge each and every one of you to learn about the doctrine of discovery, and the papal bulls that gave life to it. It is the it is the core foundation of not only the United States but international law as a whole that indigenous people in the United States simply only hold occupancy. And so under these doctrines that were decrees put on by the Catholic Church in the 14 and 1500s which established what colonization is around the world. And so I urge each and every one of you to learn about it, to talk about it, and to educate yourself and your future generations because it's truly that what it's going to take thinking about the

children and educating ourselves and teaching them accordingly. So I say won't be Lata for each and every one of you for listening and I urge you all to stand up and fight back.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. So there you see folks putting this in perspective. I've been talking here about how the shooting of Renee Good was not a story of of you know a few minutes that played out in a social media video clip. It wasn't a story of that day or just a few days that have happened since. It's not so much 8959. Thank you for that. They're highly trained. They're not just Thank you for

interview. You mind if we walk we walk on music? All right. I am here with with with with Luca. Come up just to thank us for our for some of our coverage. Luca, then you started to tell me about some of your personal history. First, I guess before we get into that, can you just spell your name for me really quick?

UK Ka. Thank you very much. Can you start to go through that personal history again and how it relates to how you're feeling tonight?

Yeah, I I have spent over 30 months in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 5 months in Haiti, over 5 months in Uganda. I am a combat veteran. I have a combat medic badge. I have served this country with honor. And what I see and have seen the last few days with my own eyes has made me enraged to the point where I want to do violence. And I won't do that because that's what they want. And like I was saying earlier, HSI is the most trained part of the DHS. They do uh embassy security. They do a lot of investigations for them to come out and protect white nationalists. Insane.

Insane. Luca is making reference to something that we saw out at the Whipple Federal Building where ISIS is staging many of its operations here where the Department of Homeland Security's agents in this case the agency being HSI those agents acting as de facto security for right-wing provocators who were coming out to taunt the peaceful protesters. And we showed through our coverage. We were showing through our coverage. We were showing through our coverage how these how uh how these agents were acting as essentially private security because of the way they were brutalizing the peaceful protesters and yet protecting the right-wing provocators.

And and that seemed to that that resonated with you. Can you explain exactly why

it's insane that they want to categorize Renee Good as a domestic terrorist yet people that spout hate? They want a white America. I listen to this guy spew all this hatred towards anything that's not white. If you look around here, we have all nationalities. The only thing in common that we have is [ __ ] ICE. Get him out. Leave. like and I personally know a couple of ICE agents that are here and they hate it but unfortunately they have bills to pay and that's the choice and the morality they went and I don't agree with it and I know deep down they don't agree with it after the shooting I was down there and I looked at the police and I apologized that they were getting verbally salted because of the fact what the fed what Jonathan Ross did murdered someone just as Easy. I amongst my friends and called the lunatic because I think it was premeditated murder. I feel deep down that guy was

going to shoot someone sooner or later. The fact that he got ran over and dragged 300 yards, but in the report it was 50 yards or something like that. So, he didn't fight her then, neither did the other agents. Every cop law enforcement would tell you, you don't come from a blind side and go in front of a vehicle. He released his own cell phone footage that didn't show him getting hit.

Yeah, it showed him after he killed it showed the impact of his phone hitting his chest. What happened was he shot someone and hey, I hate to admit this.

And in Whoa, whoa. We got police moving in here. We got and we got police who are moving into the crowd here. Looks like they are pushing people back, pushing people back away from an MPD from a Minneapolis Police Department squad car. Looks like just to get looks like to be able to get the squad car out.

Why do you guys always come when it's over? It's [ __ ] over. Members of the crowd here are voicing displeasure that police decided to show up at the very end of the protest.

We'll see that there's a lot of a lot of the protesters are directly following police right now. See see people there throwing snow. You see here many of the police cars that are now lining the street that the protesters were just marching along a short time ago. Looks like officers are just are trying to leave right now. And this is a time to acknowledge the legacy of George Floyd's murder and the e the impact it is having on this community now after the murder of Renee Good. But this is a community that is still very much dealing with the legacy of that impact.

Now the protesters, some of them applauding that the police have left. If you're wondering what that was all about, John and I just exchanged facial expressions essentially expressing the same thing. We don't know why police were suddenly in the middle of the suddenly in the middle of the crowd with a squad car, but now they've left a lot of the crowd now coming back around here around this corner and starting to join back up with the uh with the protesters after they had come back to where they had started at Canopy by Hilton.

Hey, you see the protesters going back to much of what they were doing at the very start of our reporting out here. which is going back to making all of that noise, attempting to put pressure, renewed pressure on these hotels that they believe have been hosting ICE agents. We're making our way down the block here where some of the protesters have now continued their march.

Heat. Heat. You hear the many honking horns. Some people are even holding up signs out the window of their cars. Show support with the protesters. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Now you see the protesters here turning onto Chicago Avenue walk in front of US Bank Stadium. That squad car that you're seeing there with the flashing lights, I believe is a Henipin County Sheriff's uh deputies squad car. So different from the Minneapolis police that we saw earlier. And again, still that honking of support as this protest which had arrived back at where it had begun and ostensibly seem to be just settling in to do more noise out there and now spontaneously continuing its march.

Many of the protesters, you see them spled out there behind us as we continue to walk. still on the march, still with energy, still angry about expressing their anger about the Trump administration's presence in their communities

and of being able to see this on the ground perspective of what is happening in Minneapolis. Quite literally, shoe leather journalism is we are wearing holes in our snow boots. If it's important to you, to be able to show this, go to statusc.com/join for as little as $5 a month. you go to help John and I afford new boots to be able to keep up with these protest movements that will continue to evolve as the weekend continues because more demonstrations are planned in the days ahead. We're expecting a large march and rally tomorrow at 1:00 Central. That's 2:00 Eastern. Adjust for your time zone. You're seeing a lot of the protesters here giving grief to this uh Henipin County Sheriff's uh deputies squad. I'll note that the Henipin County Sheriff's Office might uh might be garnering even more attention from the protesters because of the role that the Henipin County Sheriff's Office that the Henipin County Sheriff's Office

has has played in some of ISIS's operations. It's often been sheriff's deputies It's often been sheriff deputies who have been clearing out protesters who show up to ICE operations, clearing out those protesters or at least clearing a path through them, allowing allowing the ICE agents to

And now you see these protesters who have pushed in pushed in on the squad. What weird are moving back? I think what's a lot of youth

train is coming. Train is coming. Train, don't get hit by a train. a crowd is trying to make room for a a train part of the metro system that runs here through downtown. trying to get to one side or the other of the tracks here as the blue line, which is the same train that runs all the way to the federal uh building here just outside of Minneapolis, makes its way through.

How you guys doing? All right. I do want to note something for no doubt when this protest is labeled by the right-wing media machine as being, you know rioters etc. tomorrow or even tonight already that the protesters do part themselves to allow the passage of public transit

shut down. But it seems like the uh seems like the train has shut down and isn't necessarily going to come forward. And so the protesters are a little confused as to what they should be doing as another train then comes from the other direction. What's your what's your name, man?

My name's Abdi. Abdi? Yeah. And you're out here with a Somali flag. This is Somali flag, brother.

I assume you're out here. Uh I assume you're a member of the Somali community. Yes.

Yeah. What? Why did you feel it was important to come out here with a Somali flag? be very public about, you know, your your heritage. We are here to protect our rights. We are here to protect the eyes, not to kill no one else for our community. We are here to write our right to fight our our rights. Brother and this is Somali flag. Okay.

Can you describe some of the ways that your community has been victimized by by ICE? And if you would be willing to walk with us, are you able? So Abdi, can you describe for folks who aren't here in the Twin Cities area, what are some ways that the Somali community has been victimized by ICE by the Trump administration with the policies that it's carrying out here? Okay. They are they are whenever they see our color that we are black or we are different from the white people eyes are pointing us and eyes are arresting us.

So that's called discrimination. We came this country we thought this country is a better place to live. But now we see Trump is making this country ugly. Okay. America is a strong is a good country but Trump versus Trump is making America ugly and he's killing his own people. That's why we are here now. That's what we are protesting right now. Brother, I don't know. I don't know if you uh I don't know if you have family here. It seemed like you were at least with some friends or family here tonight. But can you just for someone who's not not from the Twin Cities area, isn't familiar with the Somali community describe describe for folks what what are the people like? What do they add? The Trump administration has tried to make tried to make the Somali community look like look like criminals. Set the record straight.

You know, uh let me tell you one thing, okay? If one person commit a crime, it doesn't mean that all community are committed crime. You know what I'm saying? So we agree the government to arrest for those making uh making us look ugly or making uh making crowd or making crime. Let them arrest as a citizen we agree that but what's going these days is they keep saying Somalian Somalian can we say Somalians are bad 100%. Can we say that? No. No we can't say that. If I say to you all Americans are bad, are you going to agree with me,

right? No, I I would say you're painting with a broad brush. If you say some did that, maybe you can believe. But if you say all are bad, that's really bad. So our concern is we are fighting for our rights. We are citizen. We come this country for better life. Okay? We don't come here to get arrest every day. We can't go to work. We can't go nowhere. Thank you.

Thank you for your time, Abby, and talking to us. Was there a was there was there a reason that you felt compelled to be out here tonight or what was the message that you were looking to deliver in coming out here tonight to this demonstration? Uh, you know, uh, Nicole, Nicole, the girl dead couple days ago, she died to to protect us. Okay? She did because of us. She was one of our community. We love her. We pray for her. That's why we here too. We as a Somali community, we come here to participate this protest and to show support to our community. We are one and we are united.

That's the reason I came here tonight. Abdi, when you when you first saw that she had been killed, what were you feeling? What were you thinking just in that moment?

I was feeling that I'm going to be next. That's what I was feeling. And I was feeling that my neighbor going to be next. So we need Trump administration to stop what they doing. We Minneapolis, we are one. Minnesota one. United States one. We hate the crime and we need unity.

Abdi, before I let you go, just two last questions. One, is there anything else you would want to add while you have the platform? I want to add and I want to say to your followers or whoever is watching you, let us work to be unite. Let us stop hate. Let us be one. That's all. And let us stop ICE.

And then the and then the last question for you is just uh can you spell your your name? Can you spell Abby for me?

Abdi. Abdi. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time, man. Appreciate appreciate it. member of the Somali community here in uh here in Minneapolis, a community that was being directly targeted by the Trump administration through racist caricature attacks by the president that ended up being the seemingly the reason that Operation Midway Blitz or excuse me, I'm confusing my different American city crackdowns that have happened in this country over the last 12 months because there have been so many operation metro surge here in the Twin Cities area. That reason starting with Trump's racist assertions about the Somali community and then that carrying right in to Metro Surge carrying right into Nick Shirley's video. He's a right-wing provocator.

made a video that had many, many inaccuracies as it asserted widespread fraud in just Somaliun daycarees as if fraud were a uniquely Somali problem. It is not, by the way. It is also not a uniquely Minnesota problem. But then that video seemingly led to the Trump administration deploying 2,000 more agents here to this city, to these cities in the Twin Cities area. We're uh catching back up to to some of the protesters here that are seemingly is fractured into two groups. There's one group that's backed by Canopy by Hilton. Another group that continued marching. We were trying to catch up to the group that continued marching here.

So, we're cutting down some uh cutting down some side streets as a way to try and catch up as we continue to talk. Uh well, the continuation, those 2,000 agents being put here in Minneapolis that they were said were going to be deployed over the course of a month. It was the first day of Border Patrol's deployment here. The very beginning of that 2000 agent surge when Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent. And then and then the Trump administration responded to this mass mobilization, some of which that you are seeing here tonight that we are bringing you on our camera from our camera and from our microphone.

The Trump administration's response is not to acknowledge that pressure and respond to it by relaxing, by changing course. Instead, it is to double down and send a thousand more agents here into the streets of Minneapolis, of St. Paul, and the surrounding communities.

We've now caught back up with the marchers. We're right on the tail end of them here, but this is a group of several hundred from the overall crowd of several thousand. Fight. Heat. Heat. Right now, we're walking across some very slick ground. So, it's the reason for the silence that you're hearing from me is I'm just focused on not falling. cuz it's cold, icy, and winter here in Minnesota.

want to take a moment again to thank the Midas Touch Network for helping support and lift up our reporting here at Status Coup. If you're from their audience, welcome. Thank you for being with us tonight as we continue to show what these marches are like here on the ground in Minneapolis. If you want to continue to follow what is happening in marches like this, there's another one planned for tomorrow afternoon. 1:00 1:00 p.m. Central time, 2:00 Eastern that we plan as right now to carry live as well. We've also been continuously showing the protests that are happening outside the Whipple Federal Building where ISIS is staging many of its operations. There's been a continued crowd that's been gathering there to protest the Trump administration's presence in their communities. So met with a lot a lot of force by the Trump administration. Tear gas, flashbangs, pepper balls. That's just what was we

saw used today. We've also seen them use pepper spray and other quote unquote non-lethal means on peaceful protesters. And if you want to continue to follow all that coverage as we offer it, get subscribed so that way you're notified as soon as we do go live. You can continue to track these movements as they happen day after day here in Minneapolis. There's been daily marches, demonstrations, anger frustration being levied against the Trump administration in the wake of Renee Nicole Good's killing by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.

You hear all that honking? People in the cars throwing fists of support out the window, offering fist bumps, cheering on these protesters as they march. Woo! Woo! Woo! And these protesters who have been marching are now returning to Canopy by Hilton and the much larger crowd that remained there to demonstrate. I'll know that this protest was slated was scheduled to end at 9:00 central time. It's now 9:40 and I don't see it diminishing. Should give you a sense of the anger here. People are prepared to protest into the night.

If you appreciate us continuing to offer this coverage, again, get subscribed. Go to statuscu.com/join. Anything you can do to sustain us is much appreciated. here. I apologize. I got interrupted there. I'm a reporter. I'm interviewing you about why they wanted to be out here tonight. The message they welcome. Would you mind if I answer your questions? You don't have to. I can't make you, but I promise I keep it easy on you.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. All right, JD Saskcowski for Status Coup and I am here with

Kent Floren. Can you spell that for us? K I T Z E F L O R I N. Why did you want to be out here tonight?

I want to show my support to my immigrant community members and I want ICE out of the city.

You're already getting my next question, which is going to be the message you came to deliver, which is clearly ICE out of your cities.

Ice is not welcome here. Did is your activism tonight was it directly inspired by the the murder of Renee Nicole Good or were you out demonstrating before that? Give us a little bit of sense of where your outrage of the Trump administration began.

Well, I've been outraged for a long time now, but the murder of Berne Good was definitely a problem. But I am also a senior at Roosevelt High School where they attacked um two days ago now and I am just so outraged and so upset and I just needed to be here. Yeah.

You're you're in high school at Roosevelt. Can you describe what happened at Roosevelt for people who maybe hadn't seen the news about it? What did ICE do at at your high school? Um, I showed up at dismissal time waiting for our immigrant and well really just anyone who wasn't white to come out. Um, they were trying to take students. Our teachers are were not okay with that. They were amazing. Our community really came together to protect our students. Um, but two teachers got detained and they ended up shooting off chemical weapons at students and teachers

at at minors, mind you. Chemical weapons at miners. Yes. 14year-olds. Um, and I was not there when it happened, but I saw and I know many of the people that were there, and it was just so upsetting to see. How have your friends, your fellow students, and yourself been absorbing the shock of seeing ICE at your school interrupting, you know, what's supposed to just be a place of learning for you? Um, it's shifted. Um, I've been upset, I've been sad, I've been scared, and I've been angry. Um, I I don't know what going back to school is going to look like right now, and that is really unfortunate. a student a student who doesn't know what going back to school is going to look like because the peace the norms of these cities have been completely upended by ISIS presence here in the Twin Cities leaving students feeling scared about what is to come next at their schools. So as you look at this world that's about to be left to

you. I mean you're going to graduate. I don't know what your plans are after graduation, but as you look to inherit this country, what are your feelings about the country that you stand to inherit?

I think that there should never be a country where school has to be cancelled for the safety of the students from their own government. And I need that to end now. And I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't. What as somebody who is going to be able to uh pick pick your own leaders here, you know, very soon, as somebody who's going to have influence over people of power or people of power trying to court your vote, your support in some way or maybe trying to repress you, what are you looking for in your leaders in this moment? What kind of action do you want to see from them?

I think we need something new. I think that we need leaders who aren't afraid to break the mold. I think that people are trying too hard to please everyone and I think that politics should be much more about morals. Um I I just think that we need something new, somebody that's going to break the mold and um show that they really care about the people. I don't even think it's necessarily fair for me or anyone to ask this of you or to really put this on you, but the Trump administration is. Dave said that they're going to deploy a thousand more agents on top of the 2,000 they were already planning to deploy here in the coming weeks. When you hear that, what's your what's your reaction? How does it make you feel about the prospect of continuing to call the Twin Cities home as you know the Trump administration is really putting its leaning its weight full force of the federal government leaning against the Twin Cities in the

state of Minnesota? My heart hurts. We at Twin Cities, the people that live here, all of the immigrants, everyone in this community, we are not the violent criminals that everyone that the well that the Trump administration is saying that we are. We love each other and we're here for each other and ICE is scared of that. The Trump administration is scared of a community that is strong and they're trying to tear us apart and we're not going to let that happen. Trump administration has a lot of resources it can throw here at the Twin Cities, but I think the Twin Cities is showing tonight the amount of energy it has to resist the Trump administration, fight back.

As you stand here right now, how much energy do you feel like you have? How long can you continue to push back against this administration?

I think that there's something to be said for that this community has gone through things like this before. Um the George Floyd and his murder in 2020 was traumatizing for the community and I think that we just had seeing all of the things that are happening right now. It's hard for people not to have such such a reaction that gives them the energy to come out here. And I think that it's really important if you're feeling sad or if you're feeling upset and you're feeling hopeless to shift that into energy as much as you can and to come out and speak your word.

Want to let you get back to the protest, but is there anything else you would want to add while you have the platform?

Just be there for each other. Um, be strong community. Check on your friends and your family and your neighbors.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. Be there for each other. That's the message being delivered from the youth from the youth here in the Twin Cities area. Be there for each other. Be kind. check on one another and and

we've been streaming a lot longer than we intended. Like we said, we thought that this this march was or it not even necessarily a march, it was just going to be a noise demonstration at a single hotel. But this this pull this out like that. Wait, good. We thought that this demonstration was only going to be 2 hours at a single hotel turned into a march. And that march has gone way past now the two hours. We're going we're starting hour three. here out in the Twin Cities as people are continuing to demonstrate, continuing to make their voices heard, continuing to make noise.

And that noise, let's not let the central message be forgotten here. The whole point of these demonstration was to send a clear message to hotels here in the Twin Cities area, letting those corporate interests know that these people do not want those hotels to cater to ICE agents and other federal immigration agents. They want they want to cons they want service to be refused to those agents as one Hilton location here in the Twin Cities area did did refuse it. And of course, the ultimate goal here of not offering them a place to stay, not offering the agents a place to stay, and thereby getting ICE and other immigration enforcement agents and getting other immigration agents out of out of their communities entirely.

And as we enter hour three of this demonstration, to all of you watching, as you're looking right now just at Canopy by Hilton, this is the hotel where the demonstration started. We're just doing some uh technical things here to be able to support the camera and try and keep the stream going as long as we can. We got to service our equipment from time to time here to be able to continue to broadcast live. All right, we'll get back out there. But the best thing you can do to support us is go to statuscu.com/join. $5 a month goes to support this literal on the ground, boots on the ground journalism that we are doing here in the Twin Cities area and have been doing for weeks and weeks at this point.

Short of that, subscribing so that you see us as we go live and report future stories. Short of that, liking and sharing this stream, getting it out to as many people as as possible to be able to show the perspective of what it's like here on the ground in the Twin Cities area right now. And I mean, you can just see the festive atmosphere. I'm seeing people juggling, playing instruments. We've heard the theme of community come up many times in the interviews that we've been doing. The idea of forging community, forging bonds and a people- centered movement as a way to push back against the Trump administration.

A lot of these people also telling us that they don't like the leadership that they're seeing coming out of the opposition party in this country. The Democrats wanting to see a more robust stand taken against the Trump administration. That words are not enough. They want action. They want leadership.

And if those leaders won't lead, then they're going to build the movements themselves. Looking here in a doorway into the hotel where some of the demonstrators have focused some of their attention. Heat. Heat.

Letting you listen in here on the crowd just to give my own voice a rest. Oh, heat heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, I love you. You want to move away from the sound?

Where do you want to go? Just a few more steps back. school. I can't keep yelling over the crowd.

I noticed you were losing your voice earlier. I I shudder to think what tomorrow's going to be like for my voice.

This looks weird with this orange cord. Let me hide this thing. Oh, no. You're fine.

I was trying to I was trying to uh invent a little uh on the fly rig so I could hang up my cowbell and, you know, get a little bit more uh a little bit more cowbell. That's what every

That's what every protest needs. So, I am standing here with with Adam. Adam, can I just have you uh start by spelling your name for me, please?

Sure can. And my uh Sorry, I poked you. Uh my name is Adam Mammud, and that is a D A M A H M U D. Adam, why did you want to be out here tonight? There's there are days and days of demonstrations against the Trump administration that have been planned, that are planned in the future. You wanted to be here at this one. Why tonight? It's a continuation of many. I've been out for many of the planned protests, the no kings, obviously stretching back to George Floyd. As you can tell, there's so much energy in this city. Um, you know, you've been covering it for years, right? And I think we all just, at least I feel like I speak for many people in this city. There's a level of decency that Minneapolis Minne, you know, folks from Minneapolis as well as just Minnesota carry. And that really I believe spans beyond left and right city and urban. There's a down home, you know, rooted humanity that I believe

we've carried for a very long time. But I believe that it's disrupted. It's been totally disrupted over the last 10 plus years by the Trump regime. I mean, as our friend Adam Mockler likes to point out, Trump got his uh start in politics by, you know, berating Barack Obama's name, saying that he wasn't from this country. And lest we forget his initial foray into the presidential political arena, he was calling for violence. He was inciting violence. So I I truly believe that, you know, this is above the individual life officers that are still out here. The one yesterday or excuse me, 2 days ago highly needs to be held uh held to account. But you know, beyond that, this is about the direct call to action to the top that Americans will not stand for this with I before we go too deep on any one topic, I want to center the reason that so many people are out here tonight and that is the murder of Renee Nicole Good. When you

first saw that, as someone who lives around here, calls the Twin Cities your home, what was what was your what was your reaction? What were you feeling? Yeah. Born and raised in Minneapolis. Um, and I'm a son of a proud son of an immigrant. Uh, and biracial. Biracial. My mom is white Scandinavian from Minnesota. My dad is from Pakistan. And you know, I've felt the oppression from not just the thread around ICE and you know, the most recent uh infiltration or the extended one you've been covering, but frankly the kind of the rhetoric and tone again carrying back 10 years. Um, seeing that happen to a white young beautiful mother uh and part and wife uh and you know partner of someone else.

My heart just broke cuz again I had previously been thinking of how I wanted to be out here to represent the marginalized communities. And of course she is she is part of a very key marginalized group. Don't get me wrong uh from an LGBTQ perspective. But I think perhaps this is a a call to arms to certain people and I think you've even covered them in the last couple days that maybe were Trump supporters, maybe have leaned a certain way for a while, but they realize this is bigger than, you know, left right. As I said earlier, there's this we've crossed a line where there's no longer human dignity, no longer uh humanity. Um my heart broke. It was the direct answer.

Sorry to be to be long-winded. My heart broke when I saw that happen and I thought that could have been me. But the reality is it could have been any of us. That's the that's the shortcut. The Trump administration if this were a normal I think a normal society, a way that we would expect a government to respond to the will of its people. You would expect after that murder, you would expect that the Trump administration would change how it is reacting. how it is deploying its forces here. And when I say change, I mean reduce, try and deescalate. But instead, we've only seen the Trump administration try to put more agents here on the ground. So, they're going to send a thousand more agents. What is the message that is being sent to the people of Minneapolis here tonight?

Whoa. And I want to note, sorry, it seems like some of the protesters have gotten a door open to the hospital and are moving inside. And I Yeah,

that's Don't go inside. We're We're going to stay out. Very illegal and not be here in any

protesters moving inside the canopy by Hilton here. Seeing a divide in the crowd here. Some who are staying out, some who are going in. Trying to yell to the guy with the megaphone to get them to come out cuz that's definitely not what we want. My I what was it that you came here to say like what did what were the messages that you wanted to deliver to these to this hotel? I actually didn't come here I I Okay. So yeah absolutely that anywhere possible we should stand up and not allow ice uh in premises whether that be small business etc. We should show any legal not like this, but any legal way possible to show our resistance and not and show them that we're unwelcome here. And I'll note that a lot of the it seems like a lot of the protesters are actually gathering up near the door and trying to pressure some of the the protesters to come out right now. And we've seen uh I've seen a a stream of some of them come out.

So, the crowd's attempting to uh attempting to enact some pressure in that direction as well. To answer your earlier question, to answer your earlier question, what's the message that the the administration is sending by deploying yet another thousand ICE agents here? It's complete fear and intimidation. And unfortunately, they want to see this rhetoric where all of us are on edge. I'm I'm trying to be here to tell people to take a breath, don't take the bait, find legal ways to push back. We will get justice for for Renee. Um that is that is something I believe is possible if we all commit to the right way about going going about it.

And what do you want to see from your leaders here? And when I say your leaders, I mean I don't think there's any love for Donald Trump in this crowd tonight. But what about leaders of the opposition party, the Democratic Party?

Are you seeing enough action from them? If not, what do you want to see? I I'd like to start where you live, which is local. I'm insanely proud of Mayor Fry and um and Governor Walls because I believe that their response to this has been spot on. Um calling out one to not preempt investigations, but two to call for humanity and a moment of um togetherness in the wake of a tragedy. And that's what we need from the leadership that to your point at the top in Washington as well. On the Democratic side, I think that you hear a lot of the right messaging and seeing a lot of the right unity. Um, I think we need to see more more focus and we push forward to the midterms to take power. We know that's an important next step.

Continuing to keep the legal voice of the people loud but not crossing any lines that they want us to cross. That's where we we need to be thinking locally. So, we saw release of more video from Renee Good's murder by Alpha News today in a way that seemed kind of kind of a plan by the right-wing because we had JD Vance almost immediately amplifying it. Seemed like a coordinated effort across the right-wing media ecosystem to amplify this video. But that video end is taken by the agent by Jonathan Ross who shoots and after he shoots and kills Renee Good says and I apologize for the language but says [ __ ] [ __ ] What do you think the I mean what is the takeaway for you there for the regard that ICE has for human life for its mission to supposedly serve and protect us law enforcement the American people.

I think that maybe even the reaction you saw on my face is how I felt, right? In just utter shock and disbelief. My strong I'm I'm not a lawyer. I'm not, you know, I'm not in law enforcement. I don't know every standard operating procedure, but nothing looks normal about that. And from every voice of reason, from any of those spheres that I've spoken to, they've concurred. Have you ever seen another officer of our military of our police have a cell phone in their left hand and in their right hand a gun and shoot somebody. I don't think we've ever seen that before. And maybe I'm wrong, but it it seems to me like that's a new level of low of where screams and chaos um and uh and a lot of political hate and vitriol have created a firestorm as I referred to it on Fox 9 News yesterday. And and I think that um the agent, we know that he previously was in a very similar situation. And what do we know

about agents and law enforcement and military? They can have, like many of us, trauma and PTSD. And perhaps his reaction was triggered based on that. Again, I'm not here to judge. That's for law enforcement and the judicial system to properly litigate. But but boy, to your point, those choice words after one has discharged their weapon into somebody's face three times certainly says a lot. Absolutely. And just to underline the point you're making about the combination of screens and guns. What we have seen in city after city here is that the Department of Homeland Security is using the cruelty that it is carrying out in all these cities, in all these places. is using it as an opportunity to produce endless seeming propaganda about their mission here to feed red meat to their base of support as a way to show look how cruel we can be. And that seemingly may have been the reason that Jonathan Ross is holding his

phone out taking a video is that these agents, many of them, we see walk around with cameras as they out doing these missions to be able to produce this propaganda and the propaganda production going hand in hand with the suffering. And no clearer display or no clearer place was that on display than with Rene. I'd love to just chime into that and say that is why it's so important that independent media like you guys are out here doing what you're doing. Thank you all. Thank you Midas Tuck. Thank all you guys, Adam Mockler, all the people on the left. Um and you know I I won't say just the left the places that across the alley people are speaking the truth right now. It is absolut and and sharing the truth. It's what's needed. And again I'll say it again. We all need to take a breath together and try to figure out a way that we can turn down this hate and come together. The one thing that we all

know that we are is human. We are all human. Any anything else you would want to add while you have the platform?

Um, yeah. I think the message is directly to the top. It's this is not hate. What you're seeing here is an act of love for community. This is people coming together in wake of tragedy, calling out for what is unjust and unamerican. And you need to think about that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for coming up. Absolutely. You got it. I drove down here essentially just to find you guys. So, You guys are killing it. Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah.

That message, that message, one of building community, one of building community is a way to try and resist the Trump administration. It's a common theme that we've heard out here tonight that despite how a lot of this is going to be portrayed in the right-wing media sphere is that this was meant to be a peoplepowered movement that was coming together out here tonight as a way to show resistance to the Trump administration immigration crackdown and the violence that it was perpetrating here on the streets of Minneapolis.

give you just a lay of the land again. John, if you would be so kind, just a survey. Yeah, you do. See the hundreds still out here. No, I'm okay. Thank you very much. You see the hundreds, the hundreds of people still out here, out to demonstrate, banging on drums, banging on dumpsters, banging on instruments, banging on walls, anything to make their voices heard, make their discontent known.

You're seeing people from this raised platform holding up the flags of Mexico and Somalia, nationalities that are being directly targeted by the Trump administration, by ICE, by the Department of Homeland Security based purely on the color of their skin. Racist notions. Racist notions about what they contribute to American society. rather than trying to lift up a vision of America that is a melting pot, a community

Heat. Heat. John and I are squeezing out squeezing out the last bits of battery that we have left on our equipment that allows us to be live here. We still have a little bit. We'll be able to continue broadcasting here for at least a few more minutes. But in that time,

I in that time I just want to note that that we will be live again tomorrow covering another march and rally here in the Twin Cities area. That'll be at 1:00 Central time, 2:00 Eastern. Get subscribed if you're not, so you'll be able to see our live reports from the ground of that movement. As people continue to make their voices heard here by any means necessary, including banging on a pair of dumpsters that they have now wheeled over closer to the hotel to generate as much noise as possible.

And while we still have the battery, there are a few things I should also do. While we still have the battery, there are a few things we should also do. And that is we should one more time thank Mightest Touch for helping support our journalism through the partnership that we have. We can't begin to express the gratitude that we have for having great partners to work with in this industry. Reporters across the country and here in Minneapolis that offer a support network to us to help us report out these stories as they happen.

The other thing I should also do is remind you that we got to pay the bills. We pride ourselves on status quo on being completely independent media. Giving you a look here inside this Hilton where some of the demonstrators are, but we do have to pay the bills here at Sask. We are completely independent. Wire squad is here. Wire squad. John's just telling me from looking around that the riot squad is here.

Yeah, that riot police are apparently here. They're inside the hotel and we're following some of the protesters moving around to the front. Moving around to the front of the building now. Oh, right there. Seeing these protesters moving down,

moving down the street. We're moving with them here. See the riot police here and a full riot guard with the batons. These are state troopers. Minnesota state troopers, I will note. Seen some of the protesters come down here to stand directly opposite law enforcement.

Giving you a look down here. this line of law enforcement. They're standing Some of the some of the demonstrators are are dancing. Don't for this is what they're trying to do. This is what they're trying to do. They're motans too.

Heard one man there from the crowd saying don't do it. They're motans too. I think I think the implication being that the anger that the city is feeling is really meant to be directed against the Trump administration and outside force.

Seeing the state troopers moving back. Moving back down the block, but now forming a new line here. These are people. This is a crowd that came out to demonstrate against

demonstrate against the Trump administration and the pain it is inflicting. They are motans too. This is part of their plan. They're trying to turn it into these are peace officers. They have a real meaning. They're part of our community. I am not on ISIS side, but these are men. Don't do don't do it.

Crowd that came together to demonstrate against the pain that is being inflicted on the Trump administration. And now facing down Minnesota's state police. You don't want to be on here on

Don't do it. Let people know if so look out. All right. So, our equipment that we're using to go live here. Oh, as the as the state police again back up down the street just a little bit, just a few steps. Want to let you know here that as we're operating on just the last little bit of battery that our equipment that allows us to go live here has

do. If if if our live signal cuts out here, we'll continue to stay here on the scene to report. We'll be recording everything we see. So watch status coup in the event that that happens. Watch our YouTube channel. Get subscribed so you can see the reports that we would put up as soon as possible of what of what the resolution is here at this scene. We'll continue to stream for as long as we can, as long as our equipment will allow.

I'll note that this crowd is thinned out quite a bit. Many moving down to the other the other end of the block where we see some more flashing lights. We need to hurt our neighbors. Protect our neighbors from being kidnapped. I'm fighting for you. [ __ ] out of here.

I'm fighting for your [ __ ] right. Nobody over there. I'm Simon Simon. You guys are always RPD RP.

If you've been with us this whole time as we're in hour four now of our broadcast, I want to thank you for being with us as we show what it's really like on the streets of Minneapolis. Yeah, we're going to go down to the other end of the block just to see what's happening down there. We see the lights. We've seen some of the crowd move that way. We want to check that out as well. But if you've been with us here for, you know, 3 and 1/2 hours now, I want to thank you for being with us this whole time as we show what is happening here on the ground in Minneapolis as the pressure from the Trump administration only ramps up after a member of this community was killed by an ICE agent. only a couple of days ago.

And now this community wearing its emotion on its sleeve, the demonstration out here today and trying to express as clearly as they can that trying to express as clearly as they can that they do not want the Trump administration here, trying to fight back in whatever means they can. And this is the state of the country where you've got

where you've got riot police out meeting demonstrators in the streets when neither the state government nor the local government nor the local people themselves are are saying that they support the federal government. are saying quite the opposite that they do not support the federal government.

And yet it is these same same people against same local and state governments here that are

left to argue each other since the Trump administration has so thoroughly armed itself and its presence is one that is actively attempted to be disguised. Its agents wear masks, its vehicles unmarked as they patrol through the city's streets here.

They're about to cattle. They're about to four. We're down to our last 4% of battery here, folks. As I said, that's just for the equipment that allows us to be live. We'll continue to record here on the ground everything that happens. So, if you lose us, get subscribed to Status Coup so you can follow all of our continuing coverage from here on the ground. And after we get a chance to recharge our gear, we will be live again tomorrow during demonstrations planned at 1:00 Central time, 2:00 Eastern. a march and rally here in the Twins.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "LIVE PROTESTS AT ICE HOTEL After Murder of Renee Nicole Good | LIVE From Minneapolis"?

JT Saskcowski (Host), John Fina (Guest), Sierra (Guest), Kata (Guest), Adam Mammud (Guest).

What is "LIVE PROTESTS AT ICE HOTEL After Murder of Renee Nicole Good | LIVE From Minneapolis" about?

Protests erupted in Minneapolis following the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent, igniting outrage against the Trump administration and demanding the withdrawal of ICE from communities. Activists gathered outside the Canopy by Hilton, a hotel alleged to host ICE agents, to voice their demands for accountability and an end to the violence associated with immigration enforcement.

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Twin Cities, ICE, Canopy by Hilton, St. Paul, Operation Metro Surge, JT. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "LIVE PROTESTS AT ICE HOTEL After Murder of Renee Nicole Good | LIVE From Minneapolis"?

The episode runs 3 h 12 min; the transcript is about 24,676 words in 304 timestamped sections.

More from MeidasTouch

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.