Diana E. Murphy federal courthouse is shown in Minneapolis Friday, May 17, 2024. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
ST. PAUL, MN (Minnesota Reformer) – The U.S. Department of Justice charged 15 Minnesota anti-ICE protesters with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal agent, shortly after prosecutors dropped multiple similar cases for lack of evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.
Four of the defendants are facing additional charges. Among the allegations: posting inflammatory videos on Instagram calling on anti-ICE protesters to “get your f*cking guns and stop these f*cking people”; following a federal agent from the Whipple Building to Hudson, Wisconsin; kicking and denting a federal vehicle; “brake-checking” and “side-swiping” a federal officer on the road; and knocking an ICE agents’ notes out of his hand.
Daniel Rosen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, and Michael McCarthy, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, announced the charges at a press conference Tuesday.
Rosen declined to say if any federal agents were injured in relation to the events described in the indictment.
The 94-page indictment details defendants’ coordination in blockading the Whipple Federal Building — where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is headquartered in Minnesota — by flipping a trailer and forming human chains across roadways. The conspiracy charges are based on pages of Signal messages in which defendants scheduled meetings, “shield” and “de-arrest” trainings and arranged to bring blockade materials to Whipple.
The defendants are members of a group called “Direct Action Minnesota” or “DAMN,” per the indictment. In Signal messages, many expressed frustration with non-violent tactics — in a Facebook post displayed at the press conference, defendant Cameron Kennedy said “We need to become ungovernable. We need to resist any way we can to materially stop the Nazi occupation.”
Court documents describe defendants following federal vehicles, even after being warned to stop — an action taken by hundreds, if not thousands of Twin Cities residents who participated in community patrols during the height of Operation Metro Surge.
Two defendants, William Morgan and Isaac Sant, separately followed ICE officers from the Whipple Building to Hudson, Wisconsin. Both are charged with interstate stalking.
Morgan is also accused of knocking an agents’ notes out of his hand and kicking a federal vehicle two times, leaving dents. For those alleged actions he is charged with assault on a federal officer and destruction of federal property.
Another defendant, Natasha Rakotz, is charged with assaulting a federal officer for allegedly “brake-checking” and “side-swiping” a federal vehicle while following it.
During the announcement of the charges, the prosecutors showed photos of protesters blocking streets and creating barricades near the Whipple Federal Building.
One defendant, Kyle Wagner, whose Instagram video prosecutors played during a press conference announcing the charges, was already in custody based on previous charges of cyberstalking and threatening federal agents. Twelve other defendants are in custody, officials said, and two remained at large as of Tuesday morning.
The feds have already dismissed more than than one-third of charges related to alleged assaults on federal agents in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge, according to reporting by the Star Tribune.
Last week, the DOJ dropped assault charges against a Cuban man in St. Paul, Juan Carlos Rodriguez Romero, for lack of evidence. On Friday, the DOJ abandoned another assault prosecution against Nasra Ahmed, a U.S. citizen. The judge in Ahmed’s case barred the DOJ from charging her again in order to prevent “prosecutorial harassment.”
In a Signal message cited by the federal prosecutors in the indictment, Sant expressed frustration with the tactics used by the vast majority of rapid response and patrol groups in the Twin Cities.
“When they find a kidnapping in progress, there is not a strong culture of physically resisting…” Sant allegedly wrote. After Renee Good’s murder, Sant and friends called for “planning direct action resistance to ICE.”
“We encountered a ton of pushback from libs in every rapid response group.”
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