Journalist attacked while filming anti-ICE road block 'check point' in Minneapolis

Journalists were attacked by anti-ICE agitators in Minneapolis on Monday while attempting to film their actions in a neighborhood. The agitators were seen shoving the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Jorge Ventura into a vehicle.

Ventura said he was reporting on a roadblock that had been set up in South Minneapolis by the agitators, at which they were checking the license plates of cars and drivers’ identification. As he was filming, agitators began to confront him, telling him he could not film and attempting to steal Ventura’s phone. One of the agitators was heard saying "you gotta get out of here" and "go away." Agitators were seen pushing Ventura as he returned to the vehicle, culminating in one of the agitators shoving him into the car, saying "get in the f*cking car." The agitators also attacked photojournalist Erik Herrera, who was accompanying Ventura.

Ventura said the agitators were also harassing his Uber driver, who is from Somalia. He said that the Uber driver’s license plate had been flagged by the agitators’ database as being an ICE vehicle.

One agitator with a walkie-talkie spoke with the Uber driver, telling him, "It looks like, in our system, your plates came up as an ICE plate. That doesn’t seem like that’s the case, I just wanted to come through and see what was up and talk to you, see how you’re doing."

When Ventura attempted to ask the agitator about the database being used by the group, the agitator said, "The thing is, ICE, they’re, you know, they’re renting a lot of cars, but yeah, you know, we’ll take this off the list." The agitator claimed that "a lot of the neighbors support what we’re doing," and that local law enforcement has not said anything to them about the blockade.

The actions come as the city has experienced weeks of unrest as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown continues. Two agitators, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were fatally shot by immigration agents in the city in January, further stoking unrest among anti-ICE agitators, who have networks of Signal chats set up to track ICE agents' movements throughout the city.