ICE Killing of 2nd Minneapolis Resident Provokes Nationwide Outrage and Protests

Interview with Madison McVan, Minnesota Reformer reporter, conducted by Scott Harris

ICE Killings of US citizens

Madison McVan talks about Minnesota residents’ response to Trump’s deployment of a flood of ICE agents to the state; the federal agent killing of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse; the earlier ICE agent killing of Renee Good and the Jan. 23 statewide general strike. She also discusses Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in potentially thousands of active-duty U.S. military to Minnesota.

McVan is a reporter with the Minnesota Reformer, an independent, nonprofit news organization, where she covers the impact of the Trump administration in her state.

SCOTT HARRIS: This is Counterpoint. My name is Scott Harris here on listener-supported WPKN in Bridgeport. Right now, I’m very happy to welcome to our program, Madison McVan. She’s a reporter with the Minnesota Reformer an independent nonprofit news organization where she covers the impact of Trump administration policies on Minnesota’s residents. And there’s been a lot, of course, to cover in this past—more than a month now. Madison, thank you so much for making time during a very chaotic and tragic moment in your state’s history.

MADISON MCVAN: Thanks for having me, Scott.

SCOTT HARRIS: Say a brief word about the Minnesota Reformer that you write for.

MADISON MCVAN: Well, we’re a nonprofit news outlet. We’re part of a network of news outlets called States Newsroom. And the purpose of the Reformer and our sister papers across the country is to fill the gap left behind by lots of newspapers when they took reporters out of state capitals, as local newspapers have had to cut staff and state legislature coverage. So we’re primarily a state government paper, but of course, I cover the federal administration’s impact on our state.

SCOTT HARRIS: Yes, and we’ll get to that in a moment. I can’t help but remember that over these past five years, Minnesota has been witness to incredible violence on a scale few states have suffered. Five years ago, there was the murder of George Floyd. More recently, an assassination of Democratic state legislators and the mass shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. And then of course, now we have these two ICE shootings and what some people certainly categorize as murder of Renee Good and most recently, Alex Pretti. Madison, I wonder if you’d tell us about your coverage of this dangerous situation in Minnesota after the second ICE agent shooting and killing of a citizen, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse working in the Veterans Administration. I can’t understand the logic of the Trump administration, but they are reading from the same script declaring that both Renee Good and Alex Pretti are domestic terrorists, which is contradicted by the facts, the videos and everything else. But just tell us about your coverage, if you would.

MADISON MCVAN: I mean, in both shootings, I responded to the scene as soon as I could get there. I’m pretty looped in with the immigrant rights activist networks here. And in both cases, we saw protests immediately form at the site of the shooting. I think one thing, this is maybe a little off topic, but one thing that’s been bugging me a little bit of misinformation that’s going around. When Alex Pretti was killed, he wasn’t at a protest. He was either in just the neighborhood or maybe he was out on patrol looking for ICE agents, but there were only a few people around when he was killed. But shortly after the shooting, a large crowd gathered and there was lots of tear gas being dispersed by agents and it became pretty quickly chaotic. Similar situation after the killing of Renee Good.

SCOTT HARRIS: Right. And update us, if you would, on the investigation that has been completely taken over as I read it, by Department of Homeland Security. It’s usual in these cases that the FBI would investigate. But of course, in the case of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by ICE agents on Jan. 7; they’ve ended that investigation. They declared her a domestic terrorist and said no investigation will take place. And of course, the state has been blocked from getting the evidence they need to make any case in the future. But what can you tell us about Alex Pretti and the investigation that may go on with the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security investigating itself?

MADISON MCVAN: Right and if I can back up to the killing of Renee Good. I mean, I was there at the scene when the state investigators from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions showed up and swept the crime scene looking for evidence. So the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions here in Minnesota investigates most law enforcement-involved shootings. And so that would cover shootings by federal agents as well. So while they were able to access the scene of Renee Good’s killing the FBI and DHS took the evidence with them and have since blocked BCA from accessing evidence like the car that she was killed in. When it came to the killing of Alex Pretti, they didn’t even let BCA investigators on the scene. So the BCA showed up like they normally do to go check out the scene and gather evidence and the federal agents blocked them. So then they went to a court and got a warrant to access a public street, which is a really unusual move. Came back with the warrant and the federal officials still did not let them access the scene. So the state’s being totally shut out of this. It seems like even some Republicans in Congress are showing some kind of interest in investigating the killing of Alex Pretti, but I’ll kind of believe it when I see it. It seems like the DHS is more interested in investigating itself.
SCOTT HARRIS: One of the most bizarre things that has happened in recent days was a letter sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that demanded several things in exchange for a withdrawal of ICE and DHS agents from the state of Minnesota, among them were the demand for voter data, welfare records and to end sanctuary status in Minnesota. Tell us a bit about this letter and how it’s been responded to by state officials and people that you talk with on the ground there.
MADISON MCVAN: Yeah, I think the main thing to note about that letter is none of those demands are new from the Trump administration. Going back to, I think it was last summer or summer earlier—sorry, my timeline’s all screwed up—but I think it was summer 2025 when the DOJ initially requested Minnesota’s voter rolls because the Trump administration suspected that illegal immigrants were on them.
Of course, we know people who are undocumented cannot vote, not even in Minnesota. And so it’s unclear what they exactly think they’d find on those rolls. The Secretary of State Steve Simon gave a pretty emphatic no to that and that’s being played out in courts right now. We’ve seen similar things play out when it comes to the Trump administration trying to strong arm Minnesota into ending sanctuary policies or tightening up its social services programs like Medicaid or SNAP. But this letter is just a continuation of that, and the officials in Minnesota are holding the line and saying, we’re not handing over this information because we don’t have to.
SCOTT HARRIS: This letter has been interpreted by some on the ground in Minnesota, I’ve read, as an extortion or blackmail letters that say “We’ll continue to keep our ICE agents there brutalizing or maybe killing citizens in Minnesota unless you hand over this information.” It’s pretty much a gangster tactic.
MADISON MCVAN: Right. Well, it seems like a pretext more than anything.

SCOTT HARRIS: Right. And along with that, there was a court case, I’m not sure how much you know about this. I just caught up with it earlier today. There’s a case in court now where Minnesota officials are trying to invoke the state’s sovereignty under the Constitution’s 10th Amendment to demand that the federal government remove those ICE agents. There’s thousands of ICE agents that are now in the state. What can you tell us about this court case?

MADISON MCVAN: Honestly, I can’t tell you a whole lot about it. I think my coworkers have been covering that while I’ve been more on the ground.

SCOTT HARRIS: Right, right. Okay. Another issue that’s just come up today, I know it was reported that there was a call between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and President Trump. Do you know anything about what that call, what was talked about, if anything?

MADISON MCVAN: No, I don’t really know anything beyond what President Trump posted on Truth Social about him kind of seeing it as a win and that he was kind of surprised that him and Gov. Tim Walz were able to find some common ground. But I think if you look at how President Trump has approached his relationships with other leaders, he seems like he can be swayed if someone is persuasive enough or charismatic enough. And so I, Gov. Walz can put on his charm for sure, and I kind of suspect that he stuck to his guns, but we’ll just have to see what comes out of that. I mean, we know that the Border Patrol now is pulling many agents out of Minneapolis. I think Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey just said that. So it seems like Walz at least got something out of that conversation, even if it’s not a total end of Operation Metro Surge.

SCOTT HARRIS: Right. I did want to ask you about another issue. Let me just reintroduce you to our audience. We’re speaking this evening with Madison McVan, a reporter with a Minnesota Reformer, an independent nonprofit news organization on the ground there in Minnesota covering this latest crisis. And Madison, I did want to ask you about the Minnesota National Guard that Gov. Walz had activated. There’s been some commentary about fear of confrontation between federal immigration agents and the state National Guard if they are deployed in the same place for different purposes. What, if anything, can you tell us about that?

MADISON MCVAN: Well, so far the deployment of the National Guard seems to not have been an escalation like many thought it might be. I mean, they basically showed up. The reason that the National Guard was requested by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, was that he was basically just saying, “Look, our police resources are stretched thin because of everything that’s been happening. We just need more support on the ground.” So the National Guard really just came out to the neighborhood where Alex Pretti was killed on Saturday. They instituted a curfew and the National Guard was basically just in charge of making sure everything stayed quiet in the neighborhood in the days following Alex Pretti’s killing by an immigration officer. We also saw National Guard go out to the Whipple Building, which is the headquarters of ICE in Minnesota. And there’s been a standing protest there for a couple of months now. But the National Guard went out and started handing out coffee and hot chocolate and donuts to protesters.

I think that they’re kind of walking this line of trying to be a de-escalating force rather than trying to escalate with either ICE or the protesters. And the last thing I’ll say on the National Guard is the National Guard got called in to help end the protests and riots in Minneapolis following the police murder of George Floyd. So there’s a bit of a tense relationship, to put it lightly, between Minnesota residents and the National Guard. And I think them coming out and handing out coffee and donuts was at the very least, a gesture or a PR move to show like, “Hey, we’re not trying to make this situation any worse.”

SCOTT HARRIS: Madison, I did want to ask you about this violence here. We’ve seen with two people killed in the streets by ICE agents over the last several weeks. Has the threat of violence from ICE been at all a damper on the protest movement? Have people expressed fear that being out in the streets with their whistles and protest signs against ICE agents that are conducting their operations is inherently dangerous? And again, has this really had an impact on the ability of protesters to get out in the street and make their voices heard?

MADISON MCVAN: I would say that it has increased people’s fear, but it has not dampened protests. People are scared, but I think they’re also feeling like they’re backed into a corner and they’re fighting back in ways that I’ve never seen before. It feels like in the Twin Cities at least, which these are deep blue, extremely liberal leftist places and there was kind of the groundwork formed for community organization during 2020 in George Floyd that it’s being brought back up to the surface now. And we’re just seeing widespread organization and participation. And I think one of the things that makes people feel safe is the idea of safety in numbers. Protesters know that ICE can find out who they are. They know the government can track their license plate or look up their name or use AI to scan their faces and find their identities. They all know this. So they’re under no misconception that they can keep their anonymity. They just think if we all keep showing up, then we’re all going to be safe. So we’re seeing that play out in lots of ways in the Twin Cities right now.

SCOTT HARRIS: There are many people who are observers of what’s going on in Minnesota with this ramping up of the ICE raids and the thousands of agents that have been deployed there. And they see this as a test case that if Trump can employ violent repression in Minnesota without accountability, then we could soon see what’s happening in Minnesota, be exported by Trump to all 50 states as someone on the ground there in Minnesota. Do you think that’s a valid point of view in terms of we may be at a pivot point in our country, in our democracy with these tactics, these violent tactics that are being deliberately targeted on Minnesota?

MADISON MCVAN: I would say it certainly feels like a pivot point. I mean, it feels like we’ve reached a new level of violence and state repression here in Minnesota, but I wouldn’t declare this a Trump victory and say that this tactic will work elsewhere because I’m not sure it’s worked in Minnesota. I mean, like I just said, this has inspired so much collaboration and pushback amongst the general public that I just don’t know if they’d have the manpower to do this across the country. Even here, it doesn’t feel like they have the manpower. They’re certainly getting their arrests, they’re still arresting immigrants and two people have died so far. And actually, I don’t think I’ve heard you mention yet, a third man was shot last week. He wasn’t killed, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a win yet.

SCOTT HARRIS: Right, right. Well, I did want to ask you about what are the stories that you’re looking at in the days ahead? What are some of the critical confrontations that may take place or in the other direction, some kind of peaceful resolution of what’s happening there?
MADISON MCVAN: Well, I think we’re keeping very close eyes on what the reduction in federal manpower is going to look like here. My focus has really been on the ground. I’ve been riding along with observers in their cars because that’s the best way to see this interaction between ICE and the opposition, really. So for me, I’m curious what that starts to feel like, whether we can feel on the ground, the reduction in capacity by the state and then whether the tactics shift.
Are we going to see this become more of a covert operation with fewer agents rather than the brutish large scale thing we’ve seen now? And what does that mean for people? I’m always interested in stories about the people who are most impacted in this. Immigrants are in hiding here. We’re seeing people shelter in place. So what happens to those people in February? Are they able to pay their rent? Do we start to see evictions go up? What are people’s families doing when they’re losing parents for deportation? What happens to those children? How are the students’ learning impacted? Because so many parents are keeping their kids home from school. The major school districts are offering online options, but does that start to create more educational disparities? So there’s just all these short- and long-term impacts that we’ll be looking at in addition to all the everyday just chaos that’s happening on the streets.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Madison, thank you so much for spending time with our audience tonight. We’ll look forward to staying in touch with you and have you back to talk about hopefully some better times for the state of Minnesota and its residents. Anything you’d like to leave us with—and certainly please do leave the web address for the Reformer where you’re writing stories that you and your colleagues—and we can check that out. 
MADISON MCVAN: Yeah, I would just say please check out the Minnesota Reformer if you would like to follow our coverage. And then also check out the States Newsroom paper in your state if you have one. We’ve got 38 of ’em and every single one has reporters like me. We’re nonprofit. And I think our colleagues across the country do great work, so support them, too.

SCOTT HARRIS: All right, Madison, thanks for spending time with us in a very chaotic and dangerous time for everybody in Minnesota. Appreciate it.
MADISON MCVAN: Thanks for having me.
SCOTT HARRIS: Take care. Bye-bye. That’s Madison McVan, a reporter with a Minnesota reformer speaking to us tonight from Minnesota Ground Zero of this ICE invasion. Three thousand agents in the state.

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