Above photo: An explosion lights up the night as federal forces use flash-bang munitions and other so-called “less lethal” weapons during protests in Minneapolis on January 14, 2026. Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images.
Officers threw flash-bangs and tear gas in the family car.
“I got six kids in the car,” said the children’s father. “My 6-month-old can’t even breathe.”
The father of three children who were hospitalized in Minneapolis on Wednesday night accused federal agents of launching flash-bang munitions and tear gas into their family van after they were caught up in protests against the Trump administration’s deadly immigration crackdown.
“Officers threw flash bangs and tear gas in my car. I got six kids in the car,” Shawn Jackson told KMSP. “My 6-month-old can’t even breathe.”
The explosions were strong enough to trigger the car’s airbags.
“They were innocent bystanders driving through what should have been a peaceful protest when things took a turn,” Destiny Jackson, the children’s mother, explained.
Destiny Jackson said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “began to start throwing tear gas bombs everywhere.”
“We were trying so hard to get out the way but didn’t want to harm anybody with our car in the process,” Jackson added. “One of the bombs rolled under our truck, and within seconds our truck lifted up off the ground, and the airbags deployed, the car doors locked themselves, and the car began to fill with the powerful tear gas. We fought hard to get the doors open and get all of the kids out. Bystanders had to help.”
Shawn Jackson’s kids were taken by first responders to the hospital from the scene. He said he was trying to leave his relative’s house when a flash bang detonated his airbags and tear gas filled his car pic.twitter.com/clGdMl8sYu
— Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) January 15, 2026
Shawn Jackson told KMSP while holding up his child’s car seat: “This was flipped over. My car filled with tear gas; I’m trying to pull my kids from the car.”
Destiny Jackson said she performed CPR on the infant after the baby stopped breathing and lost consciousness.
Three of the children—the 6-month-old infant and two others, ages 7 and 11 years—were taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment.
“My kids were innocent, I was innocent, my husband was innocent, this shouldn’t have happened,” Destiny Jackson told KMSP. “We were just trying to go home.”
Jackson said that neither she nor her husband have ever protested before—but now they feel they have good reason to do so.
“I’m mad as hell,” Shawn Jackson said during an interview with Sky News. “But now there’s gonna be hell on wheels. They’re definitely gonna have to pay for this.”
“This just shows how they don’t care,” Jackson said of the federal agents. “I was arguing with the officers to call the ambulance for five minutes… He knew there were [children] in the car; he didn’t even try and help.”
Also on Wednesday in Minneapolis, a federal officer shot and wounded a man who the US Department of Homeland Security said was an undocumented Venezuelan pulled over during a “targeted traffic stop.” DHS said the man fled after exiting his vehicle, that a fight ensued when an officer caught him, and that the agent shot the man in the leg after a pair of bystanders came to the targeted individual’s aid and attacked the officer.
Protests have been mounting in the Twin Cities following last week’s killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross and the Trump administration’s subsequent effort to portray the victim as a domestic terrorist.
Demonstrators are also condemning what many opponents call the invasion and occupation of Minneapolis and other cities, as well as the Trump administration’s wider campaign targeting undocumented immigrants for roundup, detention, and deportation.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said that “armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live.”
State and local officials in Minnesota have implored the Trump administration to end its operation in the state. Meanwhile, Trump threatened Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act—which hasn’t been used since the Los Angeles uprising in 1992—to deploy troops to quell Twin Cities protests.
The ACLU, the ACLU of Minnesota, and a trio of law firms on Thursday filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of people “whose constitutional rights were violated” by federal operatives in the state.
“The people of Minnesota are courageously standing up to the reign of terror unleashed by the Trump administration,” plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Fram said in a statement.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Community (MIRAC).
On Wednesday, January 14 at about 7:00pm, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Community (MIRAC) received reports of an ICE shooting at 6th St & 24th Ave in North Minneapolis. Reports confirm a community member was shot in the leg by ICE thugs. He is alive, but was taken away by ambulance. As the events unfolded, ICE officers also denied medical care to a pregnant woman present inside the home.
The Minneapolis Police Department taped off the scene. However, when observers, elected leaders and press turned out, they began to depart and were fully cleared from the area around 8:40pm. Dozens more ICE agents arrived on the scene.
ICE terrorized the community by deploying flash bangs, tear gas, and pepper balls. ICE agents shot fireworks at protesters in a clear effort to distort media reports and defame community members who showed up to decry their brutality. Surveillance drones and choppers circled the area.
State Troopers were eventually deployed to the scene and MPD officers returned in riot gear by 10:00pm. An unknown number of protesters have been arrested.
Minneapolis Chief of Police Brian O’Hara and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey used a press conference to try to blame protesters for ICE violence. This is shameful. Anything short of total condemnation of ICE makes MPD complicit in this attack on our community. MIRAC will continue to demand stronger protections and a real sanctuary city.
MIRAC condemns state violence and terror. We reject statements by local officials attempting to denounce protests as unlawful. We must be clear: there is violence and there is resistance to violence. They must not be equated. If elected officials want to help – get violent agents out of our city and out of our state.
MIRAC condemns ICE as an agency of liars. Every time they open their mouth, they are caught in another lie. Their fabricated version of events must never be accepted. We must call out and denounce their intentional misinformation.
MIRAC stands in full solidarity with the community that was attacked this evening by ICE! ICE out of Minnesota now!
