Believe Your Eyes

[Celerity]

People are risking their lives to document agents in Minneapolis.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/01/minneapolis-protests-footage/685753/

https://archive.ph/t3iHl



Chances are, you’ve seen Richard Tsong-Taatarii’s photo. Taken Wednesday in Minneapolis, it shows an unidentifiable protester face down on the ground; two Border Patrol agents are on top of him, holding him there, while a third unloads pepper spray into his face from just inches away.



The photo ran on the front page of The Minnesota Star Tribune on Friday and already feels like a defining image of the long ICE incursion in Minneapolis—a powerful illustration of how the agency has acted, in broad daylight, with excessive force and impunity. This is just one example of federal agents terrorizing people in the city. There’s also the photo of a 5-year-old boy being detained outside his home. There’s the video of an agent chasing a teenager through the snow on a residential street as the boy yells “I’m legal” in Spanish. And yesterday, the world saw footage of Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked in the ICU of a Veterans Affairs hospital, as agents pepper-sprayed him, knocked him down, appeared to remove a legally permitted gun from his person, and fired at least 10 bullets into his prone body. (Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has claimed that the agents were the “real victims” and suggested that they were acting in self-defense.)



There are still unknowns in this case, as there are in many of the chaotic moments that have come out of ICE’s recent surge in Minneapolis. But there are basic facts: Pretti was helping a woman when agents swarmed him. He did not have a gun in his hand. In the past 18 days, agents have used excessive force against numerous people in Minneapolis and killed two of them—first Renee Nicole Good, now Pretti. We know about this violence—we can see it ourselves from numerous angles—largely because of video and photographic evidence taken by everyday citizens, many of whom have purposefully set out to make sure that they are recording what is happening for the world to see.

Tsong-Taatarii credits these volunteers, many of whom are trying to protect their neighbors, for his now-famous shot. On Wednesday, Tsong-Taatarii had been following Bovino but realized that was “a wild goose chase,” and was alerted by a group to an escalating situation in South Minneapolis. He drove over and got the photo. When I spoke with him on Friday, he told me that protest observers have set up Signal group chats, which help track agents’ movements across the city. He uses the chats to make sure he can be in the right place at the right time to document what is happening.

snip

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. "protest observers have set up Signal group chats, which help track agents' movements across the city"

Smart

[lastlib]

2. This is terrific. We shouldn't give these goons a moment's peace.

Hound them to the end. Thank you, Minneapolis!

[2naSalit]

3. They will soon be...

Adapting and infiltrating so beware of strangers and group social connections.

[yellow dahlia]

4. WE THE PEOPLE!

We will record history.