Minneapolis police chief blasts ICE after agent seen dragging pregnant woman through street

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement after video surfaced showing an ICE agent dragging a pregnant woman through a snow-packed street and kneeling on her back during an attempted arrest in south Minneapolis on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025.

Witnesses can be heard shouting for the woman to be released as she is pulled toward a vehicle. The footage, filmed by Lauryn Spencer during what she described as her lunch break, shows the agent kneeling on the woman’s back before dragging her by one wrist and across the snow. The woman was later released by the agents, according to officials familiar with the incident.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference that local officers were initially summoned by a federal agent who claimed officers were needed. He said that when police arrived there was no violence against federal officers and that other law enforcement agencies may have employed questionable methods. “Once it was determined that the scene was safe and there was no violence occurring, our officers disengaged from the scene,” O’Hara said. He added that the department has trained officers in de-escalation for years, but emphasized that the conduct depicted in the video was deeply troubling and raised concerns about accountability from federal partners. In a statement he to Reuters, he called the footage “profoundly disturbing” and said the incident reflected an “egregious disregard for human dignity.”

Spencer said she began recording after hearing whistles and honking in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, a Somali-American area where ICE agents were conducting operations. She described being shoved back by an agent when she asked the woman being dragged for her name and said she and other onlookers were sprayed with chemical irritants. “They were being very aggressive from the beginning, like there was never a time where they attempted to use diplomacy,” she told The Associated Press. “I didn’t see anybody throw any hard items. The snowballs were definitely being thrown, but we didn’t start throwing snowballs until they started dragging her around by her wrist.” The government’s account differed, with Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin saying federal agents were targeting a vehicle when protesters allegedly threw rocks, chunks of ice, and assaulted officers.

McLaughlin said two people were charged with assaulting federal officers and remain in custody, and she asserted the agents sustained injuries, including cuts. She added that the arrest targeted the woman seen in the video because she had rushed an ICE vehicle and attempted to vandalize it, but the operation was abandoned once the crowd swarmed the agents. Footage also showed investigators detaining a male driver and shattering a window during the encounter, before detaining the pregnant woman in question. The episode led to further confrontations between protesters and officers, including the use of chemical agents and a taser during the standoff.

The incident unfolded in a neighborhood just a few miles from the area where George Floyd was killed in 2020 by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, whose murder and subsequent conviction spurred national protests and calls for police reform. Hodan Hassan, a former Minnesota state legislator, told the AP that ICE tactics appeared to have grown harsher as the operation in the region continued, though she cautioned that early phase tactics were less aggressive than those observed in the week that followed.

Tensions in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area have intensified as federal authorities press ahead with an immigration crackdown described by some officials as part of a broader mass-deportation effort. The Associated Press contributed to this report.