The Minnesota National Guard found itself at the center of fresh controversy on Sunday after video emerged showing guardsmen handing out coffee and donuts to anti-ICE protesters in St. Paul, a gesture that struck many as jarringly out of step with the violence and disorder surrounding recent immigration enforcement operations in the Twin Cities.
Footage captured guardsmen wearing bright yellow reflective vests offering refreshments from the back of a vehicle to protesters gathered near federal buildings. One Guard member told WCCO-TV the interaction was intended as a “demonstration of safety and security,” a phrase that quickly drew criticism given the broader context.
Earlier this month, the Minnesota National Guard had announced on X that any deployed troops would wear reflective vests specifically to distinguish themselves from federal agents operating in similar uniforms.
The timing could hardly have been worse. The scene unfolded just one day after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex J. Pretti, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, during a Department of Homeland Security operation in south Minneapolis.
Federal officials initially said Pretti approached agents with a handgun and resisted attempts to disarm him. Almost immediately, bystander video and eyewitness accounts circulating online raised doubts about that account, intensifying public outrage and fueling protests.
Pretti’s death followed closely on the heels of another fatal confrontation. Weeks earlier, ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she allegedly blocked an operation and drove her vehicle toward him. Both incidents have become rallying points for anti-ICE activists, and both occurred amid heightened resistance to federal enforcement in Minnesota.
After Good’s death, Democratic officials including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey publicly encouraged protesters to assemble, actions that later prompted a federal probe into whether state and local leaders impeded law enforcement operations.
Following Pretti’s killing, Walz escalated his rhetoric, calling on President Donald Trump to withdraw what he described as “3,000 untrained agents” from Minnesota “before they kill another American in the street.”
President Trump, for his part, told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that his administration is “reviewing everything” related to the latest shooting.
