Jan. 21 (UPI) — Federal law enforcement can use force while enforcing federal immigration laws in Minnesota amid a roundup of those who illegally are in the country, a federal appeals court ruled.
A panel with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Wednesday issued a one-sentence ruling staying a lower court’s injunction against the use of force or crowd dispersal munitions, such as tear gas and pepper spray, against protesters who are not engaged in violence, according to The New York Times.
U.S. District Court of Minnesota Judge Katherine Menendez on Friday imposed the restrictions and another preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and others from making traffic stops of people who are not “forcibly obstructing or interfering” with federal officers.
The Trump administration appealed the ruling, arguing that it amounted to a “broad injunction regulating [Department of Homeland Security] officers’ operations” and “harms DHS officers’ ability to protect themselves and the public in very dangerous circumstances.”
Wednesday’s appellate court ruling only applies to the use of force and does not regard the merits of the federal government’s appeal, which is yet to be decided.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of protesters and after Renee Good was shot and killed while hitting an ICE officer with her vehicle on the morning of Jan. 7.
Good was trying to flee the scene after ICE officers tried to detain her for using her SUV to block ICE vehicles in a Minneapolis neighborhood.
On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of protesters walked out of school and off the job to march in downtown Los Angeles nd decry President Trump’s actions during his first year back in office.
The “Free America Walkout” at Los Angeles City Hall was among dozens of rallies taking place across Southern California and the nation. The event was coordinated by the Women’s March and intended to demonstrate opposition to violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, the increased presence of military personnel in cities, Trump’s harmful immigration policies toward families and escalating attacks on transgender rights.
Hundreds of protesters marched along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Among the slogans on their signs: “Democracy doesn’t fear protest, dictators do” and “We choose freedom over fascism.” Meanwhile, similar marches took place in Burbank, Long Beach and Santa Monica. Scores of students at Garfield and Roosevelt high schools in East L.A. ditched class to join the downtown rally.
“I just don’t know if he’s [Trump] actually done anything that is positive,” downtown protester Mario Noguera told ABC7 News. “Everything’s been about depleting everything: resources, rights. I just don’t feel like we’re getting anywhere.”
The walkout took place on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, an event he commemorated with a nearly two-hour news conference in which he called his first year in office “an amazing period of time” where his administration accomplished more than any other in history.
“We have a book that I’m not going to read to you, but these are the accomplishments of what we’ve produced, page after page after page of individual things,” Trump said, holding up a thick stack of papers. “I could sit here, read it for a week, and we wouldn’t be finished.”
The Free America Walkout began at 2 p.m. in cities across the U.S. and was designed to differ from mass weekend actions such as the No Kings protests by deliberately taking place during the workday.
Organizers said that whereas protests demonstrate collective anger, walkouts demonstrate collective power.
“A walkout interrupts business as usual,” organizers stated. “It makes visible how much our labor, participation, and cooperation are taken for granted — and what happens when we withdraw them together.”
In downtown L.A., protesters condemned the effects of ICE raids locally as well as in Minneapolis, where a federal agent recently shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a wife and mother.
Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, criticized the stream of local anti-Trump protests Tuesday.
“Their boring, predictable tantrums are now part of the L.A. landscape, much like the dilapidated RVs and dangerous encampments that their policies result in,” Hoge told the Los Angeles Daily News. “We are interested in good governance and public safety, and wish our Democrat friends would join us in advocating for both.”
Anti-ICE protesters clashed with counter demonstrators in Minneapolis during a pro-ICE rally organised by anti-Islam ‘influencer’ and Jan 6 rioter Jake Lang. Protesters confronted Lang and threw objects at him, prompting him to flee the event.
After repeated clashes and a fatal shooting, the injunction bars federal agents from detaining or retaliating against peaceful protesters.
Published On 17 Jan 202617 Jan 2026
Share
A federal judge in Minnesota has ordered the United States’ immigration agents deployed to the state to curb some of the tactics they have used against observers and protesters of their enforcement actions.
Tensions over the deployment have mounted in Minnesota since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three, Renee Nicole Good, behind the wheel of her car earlier this month.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Good was taking part in one of numerous neighborhood patrols organised by local activists to track and monitor ICE activities.
On Friday, US District Judge Kate Menendez’s court injunction barred federal agents from retaliating against individuals engaged in peaceful, unobstructive protest activity.
Officers were explicitly prohibited from arresting or detaining people protesting peacefully or engaged in orderly observations, if there was no reasonable suspicion that they had committed a crime or were interfering with law enforcement.
The ruling also bans federal agents from using pepper spray, tear gas or other crowd-control munitions against peaceful demonstrators or bystanders observing and recording the immigration enforcement operations.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was given 72 hours to bring its operation in Minneapolis into compliance.
The court ruling hands a victory to activists in Minneapolis, the state’s most populous city, two weeks after the Trump administration announced the deployment of 2,000 immigration agents to the area.
Their numbers have since grown to nearly 3,000, dwarfing the ranks of the local police. The DHS calls it the largest operation of its kind in the country’s history.
Crowds of protesters across Minneapolis have clashed with the immigration officers, opposing their efforts to target undocumented migrants, with some officers responding with violence.
Amid the escalating dispute between Trump and local state and city leaders, the president threatened on Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing him to deploy the military to police the protests.
“If I needed it, I would use it. I don’t think there is any reason right now to use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the move.
The Insurrection Act allows a president to sidestep the 19th-century Posse Comitatus Act, which removes the military from regular civil law enforcement, to suppress “armed rebellion” or “domestic violence” and deploy soldiers on US soil “as he considers necessary”.
MINNEAPOLIS — Federal officers in the Minneapolis area participating in the largest recent U.S. immigration enforcement operation can’t detain or tear-gas peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities, including when these people are observing the agents, a judge in Minnesota ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez’s ruling addresses a case filed in December on behalf of six Minnesota activists. They are among the thousands who have been observing the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers enforcing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area since last month.
Federal agents and demonstrators repeatedly have clashed since the crackdown began. The confrontations escalated after an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in the head on Jan. 7 as she drove away, a killing captured on video. Agents have arrested or briefly detained many people in the Twin Cities crackdown.
The activists in the case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, which says government officers are violating the constitutional rights of Twin Cities residents.
After the ruling, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement saying her agency was taking “appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”
She said people assaulted officers, vandalized their vehicles and federal property, and attempted to impede officers from doing their work.
“We remind the public that rioting is dangerous — obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime and assaulting law enforcement is a felony,” McLaughlin said.
The ACLU didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Friday night.
The ruling prohibits the officers from detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles when there is no reasonable suspicion they are obstructing or interfering with the officers. Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the ruling said.
Menendez said the agents would not be allowed to arrest people without probable cause or reasonable suspicion the person has committed a crime or was obstructing or interfering with the activities of officers.
Menendez also is presiding over a lawsuit filed Monday by the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seeking to suspend the federal enforcement crackdown, and some of the legal issues are similar. She declined at a hearing Wednesday to grant the state’s request for an immediate temporary restraining order in that case.
“What we need most of all right now is a pause. The temperature needs to be lowered,” state Assistant Atty. Gen. Brian Carter told her.
Menendez said the issues raised by the state and cities in that case are “enormously important.” But she said it raises high-level constitutional and other legal issues, and for some of those issues there are few on-point precedents. So she ordered both sides to file more briefs next week.
McAvoy and Karnowski write for the Associated Press and reported from Honolulu and Minneapolis, respectively. AP writer Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
There are new indications that the U.S. may be edging closer to a new round of attacks or other actions against Iran. In a social media message addressed to Iranian protesters, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he has cut off any further negotiations with government officials there, urged the massive nationwide demonstrations to continue, and implied future U.S. intervention. The comments made by Trump, who has previously vowed to take action against Iran if the crackdown on protesters grew too bloody, came as reports have emerged that as many as 20,000 people have been killed by the regime.
You can catch up with our previous coverage of the unfolding eventshere.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!,” Trump proclaimed on his Truth Social platform in response to the increasingly bloody crackdown. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Trump ended his posting with “MIGA!!!,” or Make Iran Great Again, a play on his famous campaign slogan. He provided no further details. The White House referred us to Truth Social when we asked for more information. U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, declined to comment on whether there has been any new tasking or change in force posture ordered by the White House.
The president’s latest statement on the anti-government protests raging since Dec. 28 came as his national security principals met to discuss the situation, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump did not attend, she added.
In an Air Force One gaggle a few moments ago, Press Sec Karoline Leavitt said that POTUS did *not* attend the national security briefing meeting, though Rubio and other principals were there
Described it as a routine/regularly scheduled meeting in comments to reporters
The U.S. leader’s options for a response “include ordering military strikes on regime sites or launching cyberattacks, approving new sanctions and boosting anti-regime accounts online,” The Wall Street Journal suggested. Trump took the first step, ordering that any nation doing business with Iran would be hit with a 25% tariff.
“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America. This Order is final and conclusive….” – PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP pic.twitter.com/UQ1ylPezs9
The social media posting also comes a day after the White House said that while Trump preferred a diplomatic solution to the crisis, he is “unafraid to use the lethal force and might of the United States military. Iranian officials, Trump noted on Sunday, had called him seeking negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programs.
Press Sec Leavitt on Iran: “The greatest leverage the regime had just several months ago was their nuclear program, which President Trump and the United States military totally obliterated… What President Trump will do next only he knows.” pic.twitter.com/SaqGhnQFyL
As we discussed yesterday, and it still holds true today, we have seen no indications of major U.S. military movements that would typically be seen prior to a major offensive or defensive military operation in the region.
Behind the scenes, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff met with exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to discuss the situation, Axios reported. Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled Iran ahead of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has helped spark the uprising from afar.
?????Scoop: White House envoy Steve Witkoff met secretly over the weekend with the exiled former crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, to discuss the protests raging in Iran, according to a senior U.S. official. My story on @axioshttps://t.co/ZSCzEVwjgf
For its part, Israel is getting close to deciding whether it should attack Iran, a senior IDF official told us. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. Israel, which fought a 12-day war against Iran in June, remains concerned about the large supply of short-range ballistic and cruise missiles that Tehran did not use during that conflict.
“There is persistent concern regarding potential Iranian retaliation, alongside indications of Israeli preventive activity related to Iran,” the official told us. “All of this is taking place under an exceptionally high level of secrecy, making the full picture difficult to assess. What can be said with confidence is that IDF aircraft and all relevant operational elements are at the highest level of readiness, awaiting a political decision. In my assessment, the moment of decision is closer than ever.”
A senior IDF official tells us Israel’s military has moved to the highest state of readiness in recent days amid the turmoil in Iran. (IAF) IAF
Any action Israel may decide to take “would be carried out exclusively in full coordination with the Trump administration and CENTCOM,” the official added. “The military coordination mechanisms between Israel and the United States are exceptionally strong and continuous, particularly given the presence of senior CENTCOM leadership and coordination elements in Israel. This ensures close operational alignment and real-time information sharing.”
Officially, the IDF is downplaying its potential role in the ongoing unrest.
“In recent days, many rumors have spread against the backdrop of the situation in Iran,” IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin posted on X Monday. “As was clarified previously, the IDF is prepared for defense and on alert for surprise scenarios if required. The protests in Iran are an internal matter. We continue to conduct ongoing situation assessments and will update on any changes if and when they occur. I emphasize – do not lend a hand to rumors.”
ביממות האחרונות נפוצו שמועות רבות על רקע המצב באיראן. כפי שהובהר בעבר, צה״ל ערוך בהגנה ונמצא בכוננות לתרחישי הפתעה במידה ויידרש. המחאות באיראן הן עניין פנימי.
אנחנו ממשיכים לקיים הערכות מצב שוטפות ונדע לעדכן בכל שינוי אם ויהיה. אני מדגיש – אל תתנו יד לשמועות
— דובר צה״ל אפי דפרין – Effie Defrin (@IDFSpokesperson) January 12, 2026
As Washington and Jerusalem mull over whether to strike, more horrific videos and images of the bloody response to the demonstrations are pouring in.
One video purports to show demonstrators coming under fire in Mashhad.
Other videos show huge throngs of people on the streets in Tehran.
The Independent Persian says they’ve been sent this footage reported to show protests in Tehran tonight.
Text on the footage says: “Massive crowd of protesters in Tehran on the sixteenth day (today) of the National Revolution.”
The number of those killed so far varies from about 2,000, according to Iranian government figures, to at least more than 12,000, according to CBS News.
“With phone lines opening back up for calls from inside the Islamic Republic, two sources, including one inside Iran, told CBS News on Tuesday that at least 12,000, and possibly as many as 20,000 people have been killed,” the network stated.
The War Zone cannot independently verify these figures.
A source inside Iran who was able to call out told CBS News on Tuesday that activist groups working to compile a full death toll from the protests, based on reports from medical officials across the country, believed the toll was at least 12,000, and possibly as high as 20,000.…
Iran International, an opposition media outlet, claims that the killings have been carried out in an organized manner by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij paramilitary forces it commands.
“Based on information received, those killed were mainly shot by forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij. This killing was fully organized, not the result of “sporadic” and “unplanned” clashes.” https://t.co/6oDbllwPp2
During his speech at the Detroit Economic Club, Trump repeated comments he made earlier to reporters that while he is getting a wide range of figures on the number of people killed, “one is a lot.”
Reporter: How many protesters have been killed in Iran?
Trump: Nobody has been able to give me an accurate number. Everything is a lot. One is a lot. We will probably find out in the next 24 hours. I think it is a lot. pic.twitter.com/fvVVVbZWrK
Information about events inside Iran is flowing even though officials there have cut off internet and phone service, including trying to jam Starlink receivers, as we noted yesterday.
⚠️ Update: #Iran has now been offline for 120 hours.
Despite some phone calls now connecting, there is no secure way to communicate and the general public remain cut off from the outside world.
What footage makes it through shows extensive use of force against civilians ? pic.twitter.com/GLPtVx6yrX
On Tuesday, the regime posted a video claiming to show dozens of Starlink receivers it has confiscated. Iran has also been hunting down Starlink operators, according to The Wall Street Journal. Possession of these systems is illegal in Iran. We reached out to Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, which operates Starlink, for more details.
⚡️BREAKING
Iran has just announced the seizure of a huge shipment of Starlink
Since June 2025, possession of Starlink in Iran has been subject to espionage laws pic.twitter.com/zDgHz8Kxgv
The crackdown on protests is garnering growing international condemnation.
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the organization will propose new sanctions against Iran.
“The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” she exclaimed on X. “I unequivocally condemn the excessive use of force and continued restriction of freedom. The European Union has already listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety under its human rights sanctions regime. …further sanctions on those responsible for the repression will be swiftly proposed. We stand with the people of Iran who are bravely marching for their liberty.”
The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying. I unequivocally condemn the excessive use of force and continued restriction of freedom.
The European Union has already listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety under its human rights sanctions regime.…
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday said the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to be finished as mass protests continue across the country.
“If a regime can only keep itself in power by force, then it’s effectively at the end. I believe we are now seeing the final days and weeks of this regime,” Merz said during a visit to India.
Germany’s Merz Says Iran’s Leadership Is In Its ‘Last Days & Weeks’ | N18G | CNBC TV18
A young protester gripped at the collar of his shirt, a desperate attempt to keep his airway clear as a Department of Homeland Security agent dragged him into a federal building in Santa Ana Friday, according to a statement he released to a social justice organization.
The protester, a 21-year-old who asked to only be identified as K, had been hit by a nonlethal round fired by an agent only feet away. He saw his blood pooling beneath him – “dark and thick,” and wider than his head.
K pleaded with agents to call an ambulance, he said in the statement. Instead, the agents taunted him, “laughing at the fact that I would never get to see out of my left eye again,” he said.
Rue El Amar, a friend of K’s, read the statement on his behalf during a press conference Tuesday, held by Dare to Struggle, a social justice organization that K is involved with, in front of the Santa Ana city jail.
Demonstrators had gathered in front of federal offices in Santa Ana Friday to protest the fatal shooting in Minnesota of Renee Good. K was injured and another protester, Skye Jones, was taken into custody.
Video footage of the incident shows three agents approaching the group before one agent tries to take a young person into custody, prompting at least three demonstrators to try to intervene.
The video then shows at least one agent firing nonlethal rounds at the crowd, before aiming and shooting a protester in the face. K drops to the ground after being shot, holding his face as the crowd retreats.
K remained in the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon, as they await a police report that can identify what type of metal was in the rounds used. His doctors are concerned about neurotoxins from the bullet, he said.
Rue El Amar holds a sign during a press conference about a young protester who was left blind in one eye after a Department of Homeland Security agent fired a less-lethal round at demonstrators.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“I pleaded with him, call an ambulance,” El Amar read. “I thought I was going to bleed out on the floor of the federal building with the DHS officer holding my head down to the ground like a trophy.”
K is now completely blind in his left eye, his tear duct was destroyed and the “flaps of my eye are barely holding on,” he said. Doctors found pieces of plastic and glass in his skull as well as metal in his stomach lining, and “pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel from my eye,” he said.
A piece of metal is lodged only millimeters from his carotid artery, which could have killed him. Doctors were unable to remove some of the shrapnel from his skull and he “will have to live with metal pieces there for the rest of my life,” he said.
“I focused on the voices of the people, the voices of my friends and comrades, I believe that’s what kept me alive, hearing them continue the fight despite how aggressive our oppressors were,” K said.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security, previously told The Times that a “mob of 60 rioters threw rocks, bottles and fireworks at law enforcement officers outside of the federal building.”
A spokesperson for the Santa Ana Police Department said the only violence they were aware of that night were demonstrators tossing orange cones at the agents.
Connor Atwood, a member of Dare to Struggle who was present during the incident, said he didn’t witness bottles or rocks being thrown toward agents. Some firecrackers were set off near the sidewalk but away from the building entrance, he said.
Jones, who also spoke during the press conference, was arrested during the incident and held for nearly three days until being released yesterday, they said during the press conference. Jones said they weren’t told the charges against them until the morning of their release.
Jones said they hope Friday’s incident makes people “open their eyes” to the violence committed by immigration against against “innocent civilians who are just trying to protect their neighbors and friends,” they said.
“When confronting those who enforce ICE terror, they will snatch us out of a crowd. They will shoot us point blank with pepper ball bullets, and they will throw us to the ground,” Jones said. “Repression is inevitable when demanding justice, so we must not cower at it.”
Staff Writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS — Days of demonstrations against immigration agents left Minnesota tense on Tuesday, a day after federal authorities used tear gas to break up crowds of whistle-blowing activists and state and local leaders sued to fight the enforcement surge that led to the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman.
Confrontations between federal agents and protesters stretched throughout the day and across multiple cities on Monday. Agents fired tear gas in Minneapolis as a crowd gathered around immigration officers questioning a man, while to the northwest in St. Cloud hundreds of people protested outside a strip of Somali-run businesses after ICE officers arrived.
Later that night, confrontations erupted between protesters and officers guarding the federal building being used as a base for the Twin Cities crackdown.
With the Department of Homeland Security pledging to send more than 2,000 immigration officers into Minnesota in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement has called its largest enforcement operation ever, the state, joined by Minneapolis and St. Paul, sued the Trump administration Monday to try to halt or limit the surge.
The lawsuit says the Department of Homeland Security operation violates the First Amendment and other constitutional protections and accuses the Republican Trump administration of violating free speech rights by focusing on a progressive state that favors Democrats and welcomes immigrants.
“This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and it must stop,” state Attorney General Keith Ellison said at a news conference.
Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December.
Dozens of protests or vigils have taken place across the U.S. to honor Renee Good since the 37-year-old mother of three was shot in the head by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.
In response to Monday’s lawsuit, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin accused Minnesota officials of ignoring public safety.
“President Trump’s job is to protect the American people and enforce the law — no matter who your mayor, governor, or state attorney general is,” McLaughlin said.
The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the immigration agent who shot Good, saying she and her vehicle presented a threat. But that explanation has been widely panned by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and others based on videos of the confrontation.
The government also faces a new lawsuit over a similar immigration crackdown in Illinois. More than 4,300 people were arrested last year in “Operation Midway Blitz” as masked agents swept the Chicago area. The lawsuit by the city and state says the campaign had a chilling effect, making residents afraid to leave home.
The lawsuit seeks restrictions on certain tactics, among other remedies. McLaughlin called it “baseless.”
Meanwhile, in Portland, Ore., federal authorities filed charges against a Venezuelan national who was one of two people shot there by U.S. Border Patrol on Thursday. The U.S. Justice Department said the man used his pickup truck to strike a Border Patrol vehicle and escape the scene with a woman.
They were shot and eventually arrested. Their wounds were not life-threatening. The FBI said there was no video of the incident, unlike the Good shooting.
Santana, Vancleave and Karnowski write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, S.D.; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.
Los Angeles police say they are looking into “assault with a deadly weapon” charges after someone drove a truck through a crowd of people demonstrating in support of protesters in Iran. A banner on the side of the vehicle said “No Shah” and “Don’t repeat 1953” in apparent reference to that year’s US-backed coup.
International Crisis Group analyst Ali Vaez says some protesters believe Iran needs structural changes to resolve the economic crisis in the sanctions-hit country. Authorities, meanwhile, say they are defending the ‘national interest’.
Protesters in Iran defied a government crackdown on Saturday night, taking to the streets despite reports suggesting hundreds of people have been killed or wounded by security forces in the past three days.
Videos verified by the BBC and eyewitness accounts appeared to show the government was ramping up its response.
Iran’s attorney general said anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God” – an offence that carries the death penalty.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to hit Iran “very hard” if they “start killing people”. Iran’s parliament speaker warned that if the US attacks Iran, Israel and all US military and shipping bases in the region would be legitimate targets.
The protests were sparked by soaring inflation, and have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across every province in Iran. Now protesters are calling for an end to the clerical rule of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei has dismissed demonstrators as a “bunch of vandals” seeking to “please” Trump.
Trump on Saturday said the US “stands ready to help” as Iran “is looking at FREEDOM”.
As protests intensify, the number of deaths and injuries continues to rise. BBC sources and US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) have reported more than 100 people, including security personnel, killed.
Staff at several hospitals told the BBC they have been overwhelmed with the injured and dead, with BBC Persian verifying 70 bodies brought to one hospital in Rasht city on Friday night and a health worker reporting around 38 people dying at a Tehran hospital.
Iran’s police chief said on state TV that the level of confrontation with protesters had been stepped up, with arrests on Saturday night of what he called “key figures”. He blamed a “significant proportion of fatalities” on “trained and directed individuals”, not security forces, but did not give specific details.
More than 2,500 people have been arrested since protests began on 28 December, according to a human rights group.
The BBC and most other international news organisations are unable to report from inside Iran,and the Iranian government has imposed an internet shutdown since Thursday,making obtaining and verifying information difficult.
Nonetheless, some video footage has emerged, and the BBC has spoken to people on the ground.
Several videos, confirmed as recent by BBC Verify, show clashes between protesters and security forces in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.
Masked protesters are seen taking cover behind bins and bonfires, while a row of security forces is seen in the distance. A vehicle that appears to be a bus is engulfed in flames.
Multiple gunshots and what sounds like banging on pots and pans can be heard.
A figure standing on a nearby footbridge appears to fire multiple gunshots in several directions as a couple of people take cover behind a fence on the side of the boulevard.
In Tehran, a verified video from Saturday night shows protesters also taking over the streets in the Gisha district.
Other verified videos from the capital show a large group of protesters and the sound of banging on pots in Punak Square, and a crowd of protesters marching on a road and calling for the end of the clerical establishment in the Heravi district.
Internet access in Iran is largely limited to a domestic intranet, with restricted links to the outside world. But during the current round of protests, authorities have, for the first time, not only shut down access to the worldwide internet but also severely restricted the domestic intranet.
An expert told BBC Persian the shutdown is more severe than during the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in 2022.
Alireza Manafi, an internet researcher, said the only likely way to connect to the outside world was via Starlink satellite internet, but warned users to exercise caution, as such connections could potentially be traced by the government.
On Saturday, Trump wrote on social media: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
He did not elaborate, but US media reported that Trump had been briefed on options for military strikes in the country. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported the briefings had taken place, with WSJ describing them as “preliminary discussions”. An unnamed official told the WSJ there was no “imminent threat” to Iran.
Last year, the US conducted airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
As dawn broke on Sunday in Iran, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah (king), who lives in the US and whose return protesters have been calling for, posted a video to X.
Its caption said: “Your compatriots around the world are proudly shouting your voice… In particular, President Trump, as the leader of the free world, has carefully observed your indescribable bravery and has announced that he is ready to help you.”
He added: “I know that I will soon be by your side.”
He claimed the Islamic Republic was facing a “severe shortage of mercenaries” and that “many armed and security forces have left their workplaces or disobeyed orders to suppress the people”. The BBC could not verify these claims.
Pahlavi encouraged people to continue protesting on Sunday evening, but to stay in groups or with crowds and not “endanger your lives”.
Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces had intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said those speaking out against Khamenei’s government should not face “the threat of violence or reprisals”.
At least 78 protesters and 38 security personnel have been killed in the past two weeks, HRANA reported.
BBC Persian has confirmed the identities of 26 people killed, including six children.
A hospital worker in Tehran described “very horrible scenes”, saying there were so many wounded that staff did not have time to perform CPR, and that morgues did not have enough room to store the bodies.
They said many people died “as soon as they reached the emergency beds… direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well. Many of them didn’t even make it to the hospital.”
The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.
More than 550 people were killed and 20,000 detained by security forces over several months, according to human rights groups.
Additional reporting by Soroush Pakzad and Roja Assadi
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota leaders urged protesters to remain peaceful Saturday as people gathered nationwide to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis and the shooting of two protesters in Portland, Ore.
On Friday night, a protest outside a Minneapolis hotel that attracted about 1,000 people escalated as demonstrators threw ice, snow and rocks at officers, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference Saturday. One officer suffered minor injuries after being struck with a piece of ice, O’Hara said. Twenty-nine people were cited and released, he said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stressed that while most protests have been peaceful, those who cause damage to property or put others in danger will be arrested. He faulted “agitators that are trying to rile up large crowds.”
“This is what Donald Trump wants,” Frey said. “He wants us to take the bait.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz echoed the call for peaceful demonstrations.
“Trump sent thousands of armed federal officers into our state, and it took just one day for them to kill someone,” Walz posted on social media. “Now he wants nothing more than to see chaos distract from that horrific action. Don’t give him what he wants.”
The demonstrations in cities and towns across the country come as the Department of Homeland Security pushes forward in the Twin Cities with what it calls its largest immigration enforcement operation yet. Trump’s administration has said both shootings were acts of self-defense against drivers who “weaponized” their vehicles to attack officers. Video of the Minneapolis shooting appeared to contradict the administration’s assertions.
Steven Eubanks, 51, said he felt compelled to get out of his comfort zone and attend a protest in Durham, N.C., on Saturday because of what he called the “horrifying” killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
“We can’t allow it,” Eubanks said. “We have to stand up.”
Indivisible, a social movement organization that formed to resist the Trump administration, said hundreds of protests were scheduled in Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida and other states. Many were dubbed “ICE Out for Good,” using the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Indivisible and its local chapters organized protests in all 50 states last year.
In Minneapolis, a coalition of migrant rights groups called for a demonstration at Powderhorn Park, a large green space about half a mile from the residential neighborhood where the 37-year-old Good was shot Wednesday. They said the rally and march would celebrate her life and call for an “end to deadly terror on our streets.”
Protests held in the neighborhood have been largely peaceful, in contrast to the violence that hit Minneapolis in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police in 2020. Near the airport, some confrontations erupted Thursday and Friday between smaller groups of protesters and officers guarding the federal building used as a base for the Twin Cities crackdown.
O’Hara said city police officers have responded to calls about cars abandoned because their drivers have been apprehended by immigration enforcement. In one case, a dog was left in the vehicle.
He said that immigration enforcement activities are happening “all over the city” and that 911 callers have been alerting authorities to ICE activity, arrests and abandoned vehicles.
Three congresswomen from Minnesota who attempted to tour the ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building on Saturday morning were initially allowed to enter but then told they had to leave about 10 minutes later.
Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig accused ICE agents of obstructing members of Congress from fulfilling their duty to oversee operations there.
“They do not care that they are violating federal law,” Craig said after being turned away.
A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing policies that limit congressional visits to immigration facilities. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by 12 members of Congress who sued in Washington, D.C., to challenge ICE’s amended visitor policies after they were denied entry to detention facilities.
The Trump administration has deployed thousands of federal officers to Minnesota under a sweeping new crackdown tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. More than 2,000 officers were taking part.
Some officers moved in after abruptly pulling out of Louisiana, where they were part of an operation in and around New Orleans that started last month and was expected to last until February.
Santana writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Allen Breed in Durham, N.C., and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.
The Iranian army says it would safeguard strategic infrastructure and public property as it urged the Iranians to thwart “the enemy’s plots”, after United States President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders over the escalating antigovernment protests.
In a statement published by semi-official news sites, the military on Saturday accused Israel and “hostile terrorist groups” of seeking to “undermine the country’s public security”, as Tehran stepped up efforts to quell the country’s biggest protests in years over the cost of living, which have left dozens dead.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
“The Army, under the command of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, together with other armed forces, in addition to monitoring enemy movements in the region, will resolutely protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property,” the military said.
Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – which operates separately from the army – also warned on Saturday that safeguarding the 1979 revolution’s achievements and the country’s security was a “red line”, state TV reported.
Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio once again expressed Washington’s support for the people of Iran after Iranian authorities blacked out the internet, as they sought to curb deadly protests.
“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio posted on X.
The post came hours after Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders, saying, “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”
Trump said it looked like Iran’s leaders were “in big trouble” and repeated an earlier threat of military attacks if peaceful protesters were killed. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” he said.
Protests have taken place across Iran since January 3, in a movement prompted by anger over the rising cost of living, with growing calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which removed the pro-Western shah ruler.
The unrest continued overnight on Saturday, with state media blaming “rioters” for setting a municipal building on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, the Reuters news agency reported.
Press TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan, Reuters said. Videos published by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed large numbers of people taking part in new protests in the eastern city of Mashhad and Tabriz in the north.
In his first comments on the escalating protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called the demonstrators “vandals” and “saboteurs”.
In a speech broadcast on Press TV, Khamenei said Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in apparent reference to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.
Khamenei predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.
“Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people; it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on a visit to Lebanon on Friday, accused the US and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, which a US State Department spokesperson called “delusional”.
‘Different approaches’
Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the protests have been growing in the capital, Tehran, and other cities.
“[The protests] started sporadically, but over the past two-three days, we have been witnessing more and more protests, specifically in the capital,” he said, adding that the demonstrations “flared up into violence in many streets” in Tehran on Thursday.
He said the state is trying to control the situation “with different approaches” such as tightening security measures and introducing a new subsidy scheme for citizens.
The protests are the biggest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protest movement prompted by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress rules for women.
A “nationwide internet blackout” implemented by the Iranian authorities as protesters took to the streets has now been in place for 36 hours, monitor NetBlocks said on Saturday.
“After another night of protests met with repression, metrics show the nationwide internet blackout remains in place at 36 hours,” it said in a post on X.
Rights group Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” aims to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.
Also on Saturday, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests, with the aim of taking and then holding city centres.
“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Reza Pahlavi said in a video message on social media, urging more protests on Saturday and Sunday and adding he was also “preparing to return to my homeland” in a day he believed was “very near”.
Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, raising a previous toll of 45 issued the day before, said at least 51 protesters, including nine children, have been killed by security forces, and hundreds more injured.
In a joint statement on Friday, the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada and the European Union issued a strong condemnation and called on Iran to “immediately end the use of excessive and lethal force by its security forces”.
“Too many lives – over 40 to date – have already been lost,” it said.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
On the 13th day of increasingly tense protests against Iran’s leadership, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene on behalf of the anti-government demonstrators. His comments came a short while after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei finally addressed the unrest with a defiant tone, blaming Trump for sparking the protests and suggesting that crackdowns will become more severe. Meanwhile, an Iranian prosecutor is threatening protestors with death. More on that later in this story.
Amid all the rhetoric, the ferocity of the unrest has reportedly compelled the U.S. intelligence community to rethink its initial assessment of the situation, recognizing that it is more serious than initially thought. Meanwhile, observers say the death toll has increased as millions of Iranians again took to the streets across the nation. Protestors are blaming a regime crackdown, while Iranian security forces say they have been the subject of attacks by unruly mobs.
Video emerging on social media shows large crowds continuing demonstrations throughout the country, with some showing damaged buildings in the aftermath of previous protests. However, getting a full picture of what is unfolding remains a challenge given the ongoing shutdown of internet and phone service in Iran.
Despite the violence committed by the Iranian regime and the internet outage across the country the people in Iran are unfazed and continue to fight. Tehran tonight. pic.twitter.com/QyfFvGhclU
Pahlavi, whosefatally ill father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled Iran ahead of the 1979 Islamic revolution, is now living in exile in the U.S. He called upon Trump to back up tough words with actions. As we have pointed out before, the American leader has said the Khamenei regime is “going to have to pay hell” if it starts killing protestors in large numbers.
“Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action,” Pahlavi extolled on X. “Last night you saw the millions of brave Iranians in the streets facing down live bullets. Today, they are facing not just bullets but a total communications blackout. No Internet. No landlines. Ali Khamenei, fearing the end of his criminal regime at the hands of the people and with the help of your powerful promise to support the protesters, has threatened the people on the streets with a brutal crackdown.”
“I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers. Last night they did that,” Pahlavi continued. “Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime’s thugs at bay. But time is of the essence. The people will be on the streets again in an hour. I am asking you to help. You have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word. Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran.”
Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action. Last night you saw the millions of brave Iranians in the streets facing down live bullets. Today, they are facing not just bullets but a total communications blackout. No Internet. No…
Asked for a response from the Trump administration, the White House referred us to the president’s remarks yesterday, which can be seen in the following video.
#Trump says: “I have let [#Iran‘s leaders] know that if they start killing people … we’re going to hit them very hard. … [T]hey know and they’ve been told very strongly … that if they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell”. pic.twitter.com/Uppnejnuvt
In his speech before supporters in Qom province, Khamenei took aim at Trump and other outside “hirelings” for fanning the flames.
Trump “made an irrelevant and provocative statement declaring that, should the government of Iran take certain actions, he would move against it,” Khamenei complained. “Such remarks have emboldened rioters and elements hostile to the nation. Were he truly capable of governing his own country, he would attend to its numerous internal crises.”
The Iranian leader then intimated that those continuing to protest will be met with a harsh response.
“Certain people accept and act according to his wishes, engaging in acts of sabotage and arson merely to please” Trump, Khamenei continued. “It must be clearly understood that the Islamic Republic was established through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of honorable individuals, and those who opposed it have failed. The Islamic Republic will not be overthrown. Do not serve foreign powers, whoever you may be, if you become an agent of foreigners and act on their behalf, the Iranian nation will disown you, and the Islamic establishment will likewise reject you as for that arrogant man who sits in judgment over the entire world.”
Full Speech: Khamenei’s 1st Reaction Amid Iran Protests, Trump Regime Change Threat, Israel War Plan
Tehran’s prosecutor took an even harsher stance, threatening protestors with death.
“We will show no leniency toward instigators of unrest,” said Ali Salehi. “They will be charged with Fasad fil ard (‘spreading mischief on earth’), which carries the death penalty.”
BREAKING:
Tehran’s chief prosecutor said the Islamic regime will execute anti-regime protesters
“We will show no leniency toward instigators of unrest. They will be charged with Fasad fil ard (‘spreading mischief on earth’), which carries the death penalty,” said Ali Salehi. pic.twitter.com/mSjUAeLlFC
So far, “at least 51 protesters, including nine children under the age of 18, have been killed and hundreds more injured in the first 13 days of the new round of nationwide protests in Iran,” the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO) reported on Friday. “IHRNGO has also received reports of dozens more protesters being killed in Tehran, Mashhad, Karaj (Fardis) and Hamedan. These reports are currently being verified and not included in the present figures.”
A video shows multiple bodies on hospital floor in Tehran as the Islamic Republic continues its campaign of repression during an internet and telephone blackout. pic.twitter.com/HLTyhrFFzq
There are claims that Iran’s Basij security forces opened fire on protestors in Tehran.
Eyewitness report from Tehran:
“ Last night in central Tehran, around 8–9 p.m., riot police were dispersing people with tear gas and pellet guns. But when we moved past Enghelab, toward Sharif University and Behboudi, there were no officers there; the riot units had all pulled… https://t.co/i2hi9ApA4e
— ثنا ابراهیمی | Sana Ebrahimi (@__Injaneb96) January 9, 2026
Meanwhile, Iran’s state media has released a video it claims shows protestors shooting security forces in Kermanshah. Iranian officials said security personnel were killed in Tehran as well.
“After unrest in various cities and locations, the capital was also affected by the brutal attacks of armed terrorism,” the official Iranian Tasnim news agency claimed. “Last night, armed terrorists martyred several personnel of the Greater Tehran Police Intelligence with direct Kalashnikov gunfire.”
Meanwhile, Iranian intelligence is urging residents to turn in those engaging in demonstrations.
As the protests rage on, the idea that they pose a serious challenge to the Khamenei regime is gaining increasing traction in U.S. intelligence circles, Axios reported on Friday.
“Early this week, U.S. intelligence assessed that the protests lacked sufficient energy to challenge the stability of the regime,” U.S. officials told Axios. “But that view is being reassessed in light of recent events.”
Mike Waltz, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said, “America stands with the Iranian people in their quest for basic dignity and freedom.”
The Iranian regime is once again BRUTALIZING its own people instead of listening to them.
Though Khamenei has vowed not to back down to protestors, a British Member of Parliament suggested some Iranian leaders may be preparing to leave the country.
“We’re also seeing Russian cargo aircraft coming and landing in Tehran, presumably carrying weapons and ammunition, and we’re hearing reports of large amounts of gold leaving Iran,” Tom Tugendhat told parliament. He then asked whether the government could update lawmakers on reports that “suggest that the regime itself is preparing for life after the fall.”
The War Zone cannot independently verify Tugendhat’s claim.
In the UK House of Commons, Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative MP and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, asked Hamish Falconer, the Labour MP for and Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, to respond to reports that Russian cargo aircraft have recently landed in Iran… pic.twitter.com/XkKjRUiAI9
Yesterday, we noted that the protests are raging as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered new plans to attack Iran over concerns about its nuclear weapons ambitions and the rebuilding of the country’s military capabilities. The Israeli leader’s statement came days before Trump’s latest threat to take action against Iran.
Though no military movements by either Jerusalem or Washington appear imminent, these threats, as we reported yesterday, raise the question of whether either would risk an attack that could potentially galvanize the population behind the Ayatollah. A senior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) official told us that these concerns are baked into any attack plans.
“If Israel were to strike Iran as an exploitation of an opportunity, namely a moment of Iranian weakness, such a move would, in my view, take place only with full coordination, cooperation, and backing from President Trump,” said the official, offering an unclassified assessment of the situation. “Israel, as I understand it, would not act independently in such a scenario.”
US President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) would likely act in concert for any attack on Iran, a senior IDF official tells us. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) JIM WATSON
“Should Trump decide that the time is right and that it aligns with his own interests to confront Iran, he would likely give a green light for an Israeli strike,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. “There is a relatively high likelihood that Trump could pursue such a course, particularly in light of Khamenei’s repeated public disparagement of him, Trump’s explicit warnings to the Iranian leadership against harming protesting civilians, and the fact that the Iranian regime has now begun violently suppressing and killing protesters.”
Regardless of what actions will be taken in the future, the official concurred with Khamenei that outside influences have already been at work during these protests.
“It is reasonable to assume that covert operatives, alongside recruited and motivated Iranian citizens, are helping to organize, lead, and sustain the protests and the broader struggle against this totalitarian system,” he posited.
Update: 4:30 PM Eastern –
During a meeting with oil industry officials Friday afternoon, Trump repeated his stance that he could attack Iran if the crackdowns on protesters get out of hand.
“Iran is in big trouble,” Trump said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully. I’ve made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts. So we don’t want that to happen.”
Trump – “Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible… We’re watching… I made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved.” pic.twitter.com/GoA5zWEAkN
One site of the ongoing protests has been geolocated to Tehran.
Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian anti-regime demonstrators have practically taken over Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city. The regime’s security forces have retreated to just a few government buildings and don’t move from there.
BREAKING:
The Iranian anti-regime protesters have practically taken over Iran’s 2nd-largest city Mashhad.
The regime’s security forces have retreated to just a few government buildings and don’t move from there. pic.twitter.com/DEiEvr0kYc
MINNEAPOLIS — Another round of protests were planned for Friday in Minneapolis over the killing of a local woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown on a major city, a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Ore.
Hundreds of people protesting the Wednesday shooting of Renee Good marched in freezing rain Thursday night down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets.” The day began with a charged protest outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
On Friday, city workers removed makeshift barricades of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets around the scene where the ICE officer shot Good as she tried to drive away. City officials said they would allow a makeshift shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three to remain.
The shooting in Portland, Ore., took place outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. A man and woman were shot inside a vehicle, and their conditions were not immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to move from the street to the sidewalk, to allow traffic to flow.
Just as it did following Good’s shooting, the Department of Homeland Security defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn’t immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good’s was.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.
Vice President JD Vance said the shooting was justified and Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was a “victim of left-wing ideology.”
“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it is a tragedy of her own making,” Vance said, noting that the officer who killed her was injured while making an arrest last June.
But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying video recordings show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”
An immigration crackdown quickly turns deadly
The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the Twin Cities immigration crackdown, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.
It provoked an immediate response in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of people turning up to the scene to vent their outrage at the ICE officers and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.
Good’s death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests took place or were expected this week in many large U.S. cities.
Who will investigate?
The Minnesota agency that investigates officer-involved shootings said Thursday that it was informed that the FBI and U.S. Justice Department would not work with the it, effectively ending any role for the state to determine if crimes were committed. Noem said the state has no jurisdiction.
“Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands,” said Drew Evans, head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz demanded that the state be allowed to take part, repeatedly emphasizing that it would be “very difficult for Minnesotans” to accept that an investigation excluding the state could be fair.
Deadly encounter seen from multiple angles
Several bystanders captured video of Good’s killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.
The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.
Officer identified in records
The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.
Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.
Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.
Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.
Santana, Sullivan and Dell’Orto write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Okla.; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
Iranian authorities are enforcing an internet blackout after protests escalated in Tehran. It’s been two weeks since demonstrations flared up in protest at harsh economic conditions. They’ve spread to more than 100 towns and cities and taken on a political tone.
MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis was on edge Thursday following the fatal shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer taking part in the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown, with protesters venting their outrage, the governor urging restraint and schools canceling classes as a precaution.
State and local officials demanded ICE leave Minnesota after the unidentified ICE officer shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good in the head Wednesday morning. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said agents won’t be going anywhere.
The Department of Homeland Security has deployed more than 2,000 officers to the area in what it says is its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. Noem said more than 1,500 people have already been arrested.
Dozens of protesters gathered early Thursday outside of a federal building on the edge of Minneapolis that is serving as a major base for the immigration crackdown. They shouted “No More ICE,” “Go Home Nazis,” “Quit Your Job,” and “Justice Now!” as Border Patrol officers pushed them back from the gate and fired smoke grenades.
“We should be horrified,” protester Shanta Hejmadi said. “We should be saddened that our government is waging war on our citizens. We should get out and say no. What else can we do?”
Bystanders captured video of Macklin Good’s killing in a residential neighborhood south of downtown, and hundreds of people turned up for a Wednesday night vigil to mourn her and urge the public to resist the immigration crackdown. Some then chanted as they marched through the city, but there was no violence.
“I would love for ICE to leave our city and for more community members to come to see it happens,” said Sander Kolodziej, a painter who came to the vigil to support the community.
The videos of the shooting show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with ICE agents earlier. After the shooting the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.
In another recording made afterward, a woman who identifies Macklin Good as her spouse is seen crying near the vehicle. The woman, who is not identified, says the couple recently arrived in Minnesota and that they had a child.
Noem called the incident an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers, saying the driver “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”
President Trump made similar accusations on social media and defended ICE’s work.
Noem alleged that the woman was part of a “mob of agitators” and said the officer followed his training. She said the FBI would investigate.
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Noem’s version of events “garbage.”
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense,” Frey said. “Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit.”
He also criticized the federal deployment and said the agents should leave.
The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. Wednesday’s is at least the fifth death linked to the crackdowns.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced the operation’s launch Tuesday, at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents.
A crowd of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting to vent their anger at local and federal officers.
In a scene that hearkened back to crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago, people chanted “ICE out of Minnesota” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.
Gov. Tim Walz said he was prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He expressed outrage over the shooting but called on people to keep protests peaceful.
“They want a show,” Walz said. “We can’t give it to them.”
There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot Macklin Good.
Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.
Sullivan and Dell’Orto write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Steve Karnowski, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas, Michael Biesecker In Washington, Jim Mustian in New York and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
Army chief hits out at foreign ‘rhetoric’ targeting Iran, threatens decisive action to ‘cut off hand of any aggressor’.
Published On 7 Jan 20267 Jan 2026
Share
Iran’s top judge warned protesters who have taken to the streets during a spiralling economic crisis there will be “no leniency for those who help the enemy against the Islamic Republic”, accusing the US and Israel of sowing chaos.
“Following announcements by Israel and the US president, there is no excuse for those coming to the streets for riots and unrest,” said Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei on Wednesday in comments on the deadly protests carried by Fars news agency.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Amid growing unrest, Iran is under international pressure after US President Donald Trump threatened last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue”.
His threat – accompanied by an assertion that the US is “locked and loaded and ready to go” – came seven months after Israeli and US forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites in a 12-day war.
Additionally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the protesters on Sunday, telling ministers, “It is quite possible that we are at a moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.”
Following Ejei’s warning, Iran’s army chief threatened preemptive military action over the “rhetoric” targeting Iran.
Speaking to military academy students, Major-General Amir Hatami – who took over as commander-in-chief of Iran’s army after a slew of top military commanders were killed in Israel’s 12-day war – said the country would “cut off the hand of any aggressor”.
“I can say with confidence that today the readiness of Iran’s armed forces is far greater than before the war. If the enemy commits an error, it will face a more decisive response,” said Hatami.
‘Longstanding anger’
The nationwide demonstrations, which have seen dozens of people killed so far, ignited at the end of last month when shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar shuttered their businesses in anger over the collapse of Iran’s rial currency, against a backdrop of deepening economic woes driven by mismanagement and punishing Western sanctions.
The Iranian state has not announced casualty figures. HRANA, a network of human rights activists, reported a death toll of at least 36 people as well as the arrest of at least 2,076 people. Al Jazeera has been unable to verify any figures.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised not to “yield to the enemy” following Trump’s comments, which acquired added significance after the US military raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend.
Seeking to halt the anger, Iran’s government began on Wednesday paying the equivalent of $7 a month to subsidise rising costs for dinner-table essentials such as rice, meat and pasta – a measure widely deemed to be a meagre response.
“More than a week of protests in Iran reflects not only worsening economic conditions, but longstanding anger at government repression and regime policies that have led to Iran’s global isolation,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank said.
US President Donald Trump has warned Iran’s authorities against killing peaceful protesters, saying Washington “will come to their rescue”.
In a brief post on social media, he wrote: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” but gave no further details.
A senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded by saying Trump should “be careful” if he intervened, warning of potential chaos across the Middle East.
At least eight people are reported to have been killed in Iran after almost a week of mass protests sparked by worsening economic conditions.
In Friday’s post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”
In his post, the US president did not specify what action Washington could take against the Iranian authorities.
American officials later argued that the strikes had significantly set back the prospect of Tehran building a nuclear weapon – a claim disputed by Iran.
Shortly after Trump’s latest social media post, Khamenei adviser Ali Larijani issued a warning of his own.
“Trump should know that US interference in this internal matter would mean destabilising the entire region and destroying America’s interests,” he wrote.
But for some of the protesters, intervention from the US would be welcome.
“They [security forces] are afraid and they shake to the bones when Mr Trump says something or Mr (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu says something,” a young woman protesting in Tehran told the BBC’s Newshour programme.
Preferring to stay anonymous for her own safety, she said protesters had been asking for US support for years, because the security forces “believe that if Mr Trump says something, he will do [it]”, and they “know if anything happens, they would have to take the consequences”.
Footage filed by Reuters shows protests in Iran’s Lorestan province outside a police station
On Thursday, six people in Iran were reported to have been killed on a fifth day of protests.
Two people died in clashes between protesters and security forces in the south-western city of Lordegan, according to the semi-official Fars news agency and the human rights group Hengaw, which said they were protesters, naming them as Ahmad Jalil and Sajjad Valamanesh.
Three people were killed in Azna and another in Kouhdasht, all in the west of the country, Fars reports. It did not specify whether they were demonstrators or members of the security forces.
One death was reported in Fuladshahr, central Iran, and another casualty in Marvdasht, in the south.
BBC has not been able to independently verify the deaths.
Footage posted on social media showed cars set on fire during running battles between protesters and security forces.
BBC Persian has verified videos showing Thursday’s protests in Lordegan, Tehran and Marvdasht.
Iranian officials earlier said a young member of the country’s securities forces had been killed on Wednesday in the western city of Kouhdasht. But protesters said the man was, instead, from their ranks and had been shot dead by the security forces.
On Friday, clashes were reported during the man’s burial ceremony attended by thousand of mourners. Uniformed members of the security forces had tried to carry his coffin – but the crowds wrested it from them and chased them away.
The protests began on Sunday in Tehran among shopkeepers angered by another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar on the open market.
By Tuesday, university students were involved and protests had spread to several cities, with people chanting against the country’s clerical rulers.
Many protesters have since been calling for the end of Khamenei’s rule. Some have said they want a return to the monarchy.
“We don’t have any kind of liberty here,” the protester who spoke to the BBC said. “We fight every day – we face the most brutal things every day. We want to end it [the regime], even with the price of our lives, we don’t have anything.”
The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman accused by morality police of not wearing her veil properly, but they have not been on the same scale.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has said he will listen to the “legitimate demands” of the protesters.
But the country’s Prosecutor-General, Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, warned that any attempt to create instability would be met with a “decisive response”.
Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.
