Federal Agents Crash Noise Demo at Hotel, Escort Masked Guests With Luggage Out

Minneapolis, MN – A noise demonstration at the Home2 Suites hotel in Minneapolis’ Prospect Park neighborhood on Jan. 25 was interrupted by federal agents, who filled the street with tear gas and threatened arrests while escorting masked people out the back.

The noise demonstration was in response to rumors that ICE agents were being housed at the hotel, indicated by a flyer that circulated on social media only hours before the event was scheduled to begin.

The protest lasted for three hours before three federal agents arrived, running up the sidewalk with no vehicle in sight. One agent with an unexplained bloody nose distracted a gaggle of press agents with a bizarre spectacle, shooting one pot-banging demonstrator with a less-than-lethal round, while other agents inside the hotel led a line of masked people carrying luggage through the back of the hotel.

The demonstration began at 7 p.m., though only several people showed up initially. By 8 p.m., roughly one hundred people were gathered outside of the hotel, blowing whistles, playing drums and making noise any other way they could think of.

Spray paint quickly began appearing on the first-floor windows as the crowd continued to grow, and protesters began dragging garbage cans and planters into the street to create a barricade on either side of the hotel.

The demonstration took a turn when two men inside the hotel wearing neck gaiters to cover their faces opened the front door to interact with protesters. Voices were indecipherable through the cacophony of noise vibrating the entire block, but wild hand gesturing indicated tension.

One protester lodged his foot in the door and refused to allow them to shut it. When other protesters caught on to this, a crowd began to form around the door. The men tried to make their way back through the vestibule to lock the door on the other side, but the protesters rushed to fill in the space and lodged themselves into that door as well.

Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) Lieutenant Deitan Dubuc was the only law enforcement officer on the scene, arriving roughly 10 minutes after protesters first entered the vestibule. Protesters argued with him for nearly an hour, throwing anything they could get their hands on over the heads of protesters and into the building, including snow, trash and in one case a light fixture somebody ripped off a wall from outside.

Back outside the vestibule, protesters continued to spray paint windows. The window directly to the left of the door was shattered, and garbage was eventually piled up underneath it.

Just before 10 p.m., three hours after the demonstration began, three federal agents with the Bureau of Prisons ran up the sidewalk from the west, carrying firearms. The last agent in line tossed a tear gas canister into the crowd before all three disappeared into the building.

Seconds later, the last agent made his way back out and into the vestibule of the building, shouting “Get back! Get back!” in an attempt to disperse the crowd of press and protesters who gathered to see what was happening. The agent’s nose was visibly red, poking out above his mask.

He clutched his shotgun between his thighs and struggled to pull the pin on a tear gas canister. When he got it off, he tossed it out into the street, pointing his shotgun and threatening protesters who moved in to neutralize it.

He then shifted his attention to the crowd that was still gathered around him. He pointed the shotgun at a man banging a pot in the front of the crowd and shot him with a less-than-lethal round from only a couple meters away.

“Where’s the local PD? That’s my question for the press,” the agent shouted at a gaggle of reporters surrounding the entrance to the hotel. “Where’s the local PD?”

The remark sparked an impromptu press conference, where reporters asked him if he had anything else to say, such as in regard to the protesters who want them out of the city.

“No comment,” he gargled, pulling off his mask to spit blood onto the vestibule floor.

A reporter in the press gaggle asked him what happened to his nose, which by this point was leaking blood like a faucet. He refused to answer. Another person in the crowd claimed to be a paramedic and offered his assistance, which the agent declined.

More federal agents arrived on the scene and filtered through the wall of press and into the hotel. Visible from a window to the left of the entrance, federal agents escorted masked individuals carrying luggage out the back of the building.

Not long after, a series of armored vehicles traveling west down University Avenue pulled up in front of the hotel, deploying tear gas and other crowd control tactics, sending people fleeing in every direction.

Tear gas canisters were launched blocks in either direction, blanketing the area with choking fumes and transforming the swarm of federal agents into misty silhouettes.

A voice over a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), a loudspeaker attached to a Minneapolis Police vehicle outside the hotel announced itself as the MPD and gave the order that everyone in the area was under arrest. From the east, dozens of state troopers marched through the street, detaining everybody in their path, including one Unicorn Riot reporter who was released a short time later after identifying himself as press.

Shortly after their arrival, the federal agents deployed green smoke, a staple of the Department of Homeland Security’s promotional videos, and left the area.

Several protesters eventually made their way back to the sidewalk and resumed the noise demonstration, which continued until shortly after midnight, when MPD officers arrived in an armored vehicle to disperse the small crowd.