“Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it’s videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
The Trump administration believes you don’t have the right to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in public. This stance is both factually wrong and an attempt to chill free speech by conflating it with violence.
At a July 2025 press conference in Tampa, Florida, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said, “Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it’s videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations, encouraging other people to come and to throw things, rocks, bottles.”
In September 2025, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online” a form of doxing. She added, “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
These aren’t idle threats. The Trump administration strong-armed Apple into removing an app from its mobile store that tracked ICE activity and threatened criminal investigations into its creators.
The most aggressive application of this policy has come in Chicago under “Operation Midway Blitz,” where ICE officers have relentlessly targeted protesters, reporters, and clergy engaged in protected First Amendment activity.
In October, a group of journalists and protesters filed a lawsuit alleging “a pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press and civilians.”
In court filings, the plaintiffs stated that federal officials’ own testimony illustrated their point. For example, when ICE field director Russell Hott was asked if he agreed “that it’s unconstitutional to arrest people for being opposed to Midway Blitz,” he answered “No.”
“Similarly, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Greg] Bovino testified that he has instructed his officers to arrest protesters who make hyperbolic comments in the heat of political demonstrations, even though such statements—which do not constitute true threats—are protected speech,” the motion argued. (Hott and Bovino’s depositions were filed under seal, and those comments were later redacted in a corrected filing by the lawsuit plaintiffs, but not before others took screenshots of them.)
Based on voluminous evidence that feds in Chicago ignored her previous orders to curb their use of force, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction against DHS in early November 2025, saying the government’s conduct “shocked the conscience.”
Ellis found much of the officials’ testimony not credible. Bovino, for instance, testified that he never used force against a protester he was filmed tackling, and in another instance, Ellis said, he lied about being hit with a rock before firing tear gas at demonstrators. Nor did evidence support the government’s claims that federal officers issued warnings before firing less-than-lethal projectiles at those protesters.
“Describing rapid response networks and neighborhood moms as professional agitators shows just how out of touch these agents are, and how extreme their views are,” said Ellis.
The Trump administration responded by calling Ellis an “activist judge,” but it is squarely wrong when it comes to recording and protesting the police. Cato Institute senior fellow Walter Olson points out that, “While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the sevenfederalcircuitsthathavedoneso…all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.”
Likewise, federal circuits have upheld the right to use vulgar language to oppose police without fear of retaliation, and to warn others of nearby police checkpoints or speed traps.
As Olson writes, the administration’s “attempt to alter reality by establishing new legal facts on the ground” ultimately serves as a green light for informal repression. “If the agents come to believe that they have blanket immunity [for] whatever they do, or that citizens have no right to record them, they are more likely to take aggressive informal action, such as grabbing phones or taking news reporters into custody on charges of obstruction (perhaps later quietly dropped).”
It’s not hard to find examples of this rotten agency culture in practice. In late October 2025, ICE officers broke out the window of a U.S. citizen’s car and detained her for seven hours after she followed and photographed their unmarked vehicles. DHS accused her of reckless driving, attempting to block in officers with her car, and resisting arrest—all claims that she and her lawyer deny. Prosecutors did not charge the woman with a crime.
Recording government agents is one of the few tools citizens have to hold state power accountable. Any attempt to redefine observation as “violence” is not only unconstitutional—it’s authoritarian gaslighting. When a government fears cameras more than crimes, it isn’t protecting the rule of law. It’s protecting itself.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline “You Have the Right To Record ICE.”
People in Minneapolis yell at federal agents on Sunday, January 11th, 2026, just days after the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
(Photo: Screengrab via footage by FordFischer/News2Share)
“Protesters… are furious, and tensions are exploding,” said one independent journalist. “This is escalation, not policing.”
Amidst peaceful demonstrations and shows of empathy and solidarity in Minneapolis and other US cities following the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent last week, videos appearing online over the weekend also show increasing levels of outrage directed at immigration officers who community members say they no longer want to see terrorizing their streets.
While Trump has reportedly ordered more officers to Minneapolis in the wake of Good’s killing—even as local and state officials have called for the end of operations in order to tamp down tensions in the city—the clips circulating online reveal mounting frustration by neighbors no longer willing to tolerate the situation.
On Sunday, journalist and documentarian Ford Fischer posted video from Minneapolis he described as ICE agents being “followed by dozens of activists on foot and in vehicles” in the city.
While agents are seen holding bear spray and warning people to stay back, the procession of civilians following them heckled the officers and made it clear they are not wanted in the city.
“You are murderers!” yells one man at the officers. Several others can be heard screaming, “Go home!” and “Fuck you!”
Just now: ICE followed by dozens of activists on foot and in vehicles in Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/vFXmZIr0TA
In another video, posted by FreedomNews.TV, federal agents are seen pulling two people from a vehicle on a residential street and placing them under arrest before being confronted by neighbors and onlookers telling them to “Get out of our fucking state!”; “Get the fuck out!”; and “Get a real job!”
https://twitter.com/i/status/2010407076669915565
“Protesters in the area are furious, and tensions are exploding,” said independent journalist Brian Allen in response to the video. “This is escalation, not policing.”
The latest scenes appear to indicate growing anger by the public towards President Donald Trump’s authoritarian deployment of federal agents to cities nationwide over the last year. With Good’s killing, the growing tensions are palpable.
NOW: Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino hounded by activists and shoppers protesting his presence as he and a federal agent caravan leave a Target in St Paul, Minnesota for a restroom break. pic.twitter.com/Ti21rQbuyd
While many state and local lawmakers and other officials calling for calm and peaceful protest in response, many—including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also believe that Trump and members of his administration are intentionally trying to provoke the civilian population in order to justify an ever harsher repressive response.
In comments on Saturday, as Common Dreamsreported, Omar warned that the ultimate goal is “to agitate people enough where they are able to invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.”
While the individual episodes documented above reveal the very real anger that many are feeling as masked federal agents target people in their communities, the overall protests against the policies that led to Good’s killing—which took place in hundreds of cities over the weekend—have been resoundingly peaceful.
🚨 JUST IN: Families, including parents with children, are present at PEACEFUL protests in Minneapolis, underscoring that these are community demonstrations, NOT riots.
If federal agents escalate force against crowds that include families, that will be a choice by the state, not… pic.twitter.com/SKoHKleGFb
“A peaceful night in Minneapolis,” the city posted to its social media accounts following Saturday night’s demonstrations. “As more demonstrations are planned today, we appreciate and thank the community for using its collective voice in harmony and love.”
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Identifying the shooter in Minneapolis, The Intercept found a photo captioned “Jon Ross in Iraq” posted by a man noted in public records as his father.
A portrait of Renee Nicole Good is pasted to a light pole near the site of her shooting in Minneapolis on Jan. 8, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Maturen/Getty Images
The Intercept has identified the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot and killed an observer in a residential neighborhood of Minneapolis on Wednesday as Jonathan Ross, a deportation officer based out of the agency’s field office in St. Paul.
Ross, 43, fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good during a confrontation between protesters and federal agents — ICE and Border Patrol — in the Central neighborhood just after 9:30 a.m.
According to court documents from an unrelated case, Ross has been with the agency since at least 2016. In June, he was injured in a traffic incident while apprehending Roberto Carlos Munoz-Guatemala, an undocumented man later convicted of dragging Ross with his car.
The Minnesota Star Tribune was the first to publicly identify Ross. In a brief article naming Ross, the local Fox affiliate quoted a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirming that the agent involved in the shooting was the same agent dragged by Munoz-Guatemala in June. The New York Post ran a story referencing Ross’s dragging incident, but did not name him.
Video footage from the Munoz-Guatemala incident shows a beige Chevy Tahoe, the same SUV make and model that was on scene, parked close to Good’s dark red SUV before the shooting.
A side-by-side image comparison shows, left, a still from a January 7, 2026, video of an ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Nicole Good and, right, an undated photo from a Facebook page belonging to Jonathan Ross’s father that is captioned “Jon in Iraq.” Screenshots: The Intercept
A photo on the Facebook page of a man identified in public records as Ross’s father shows a man carrying an assault weapon captioned “Jon Ross in Iraq.” The man pictured in the photo and others closely resembles images of the agent at the scene of Wednesday’s shooting. Ross previously lived in Texas near Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base on the outskirts of El Paso that spans parts of Texas and New Mexico.
Public records for a property linked to Ross indicate he secured a loan through a program for veterans.
A man who picked up a phone number linked in public records to Ross’s father hung up the phone when asked about his son Thursday.
No one answered at an address listed for Ross outside Minneapolis, and no vehicles were present at the home.
The Department of Homeland Security, its field office in St. Paul, and ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment. DHS justified the shooting on Wednesday by claiming that the agent feared for his life, saying Good was engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism.”
“This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference. “The ICE officer, fearing for his life and the other officers around him and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots; he used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues.” President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social that video from the scene showed the agent being run over.
The Intercept obtained footage of the shooting on Wednesday, however, which contradicts the government’s narrative. The video shows an officer telling Good, “Get out of the fucking car,” before Ross shoots into her car three times, then walks away apparently uninjured.
In a phone interview with The Intercept on Thursday morning from the site of the shooting, Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for the immigrant rights group Unidos Minnesota, said locals were eager to learn the identity of the shooter.
“The community is really wanting answers,” said Argueta, adding that he hoped authorities would investigate and prosecute the person responsible. “The Board of Criminal Apprehension, which is the state-level investigator, will need certain evidence to be released and provided by the FBI.”
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Accountability could prove difficult to come by. Minnesota officials told multiple outlets that they are unable to access evidence and that the FBI is refusing to work with them on the investigation into the fatal shooting.
A spokesperson for the city of Minneapolis called the decision to exclude local law enforcement “deeply disappointing” in a statement sent to The Intercept. “We are concerned that the investigation is proceeding without state partners, and we are calling for a clear and transparent process that includes state investigating agencies,” said spokesperson Jess Olmstead.
Local leaders, meanwhile, have called “bullshit” on the self-defense argument from the Trump administration and urged ICE to leave Minneapolis. “The Trump admin will tell you ICE is here for safety,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey during a CNN interview. “That is a lie. They are creating chaos and danger while tearing families apart.”
In one video from the scene of Good’s killing, a woman can be heard saying, “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do,” adding, “They shot her in the head.”
Another video shows ICE agents blocking a physician from assisting Good on the scene. “I’m a physician,” says the doctor. “I don’t care,” responds one of the agents, before another officer tells him that they have emergency services coming and medics on the scene.
The shooting occurred after the Department of Homeland Security initiated a massive surge in federal agents to the Twin Cities after a heavily criticized, misleading video targeting Somali Americans, created by a far-right influencer with ties to the GOP, went viral.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called for a “comprehensive investigation” into the shooting. “This is not law enforcement. It is state violence,” Omar wrote in a statement. “It is simply indefensible, and ICE must be held accountable. That must include a full, comprehensive investigation and legal action against the agency.”
Correction: January 9, 2025
This story previously misstated which officer told Good “Get out of the fucking car.” According to video from the scene it was a separate agent, not Ross.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks to reporters during a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 27, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Five Republican senators joined Democrats to advance legislation that would block President Donald Trump from launching future attacks on Venezuela without congressional approval, handing the president a symbolic rebuke hours after he said the U.S. could oversee the country’s affairs for years.
While the vote will have no immediate impact on the U.S. forces assembled in the Caribbean, it sends a stark message to Trump that even some Republicans are displeased with his open-ended plans for Venezuela.
The president immediately lashed out at the Republicans who voted for the measure, stating that they should “never be elected to office again.”
A U.S. attack on Venezuela on Saturday left dozens of people dead, American service members injured, and President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in U.S. custody.
All Democrats voted to advance the war powers resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also voted in favor, bringing the final vote to 52-47. Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana did not vote.
The procedural vote moves the bill forward for consideration. It will require an additional vote to pass.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Democrats pointed to Trump’s comments in a New York Times interview that seemed to point to a potentially yearslong entanglement in Venezuela.
“Donald Trump is ready for an endless war in Venezuela, and Lord knows where else,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “The American people are not. The American people want us to focus on the number one issue they face: the rising costs that they can’t afford, the things they need, the affordability crisis.”
Republican leaders, meanwhile, tried to cast the resolution as an attempt by Democrats to damage the president politically. Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, argued that the resolution would be meaningless because there are no active hostilities with Venezuela.
“The purpose of this resolution is to slap the president in the face. It will do nothing it purports to do, because it can’t stop something that isn’t going on right now,” Risch said. “Unlike the former president, President Trump demonstrated he is a man of action. He was decisive and did what he promised the American people he would do, and that is to keep them safe.”
Trump quickly blasted the Republicans who voted for the measure in a statement on social media, saying they should be “ashamed” of joining with Democrats “in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America.”
He also noted that the procedural vote sets up another floor debate next week on whether to give final approval to the measure.
Collins, Young, and Hawley flipped their votes after previously opposing similar resolutions that would have prevented Trump from acting against Venezuela.
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Collins faces what is likely to be a tough reelection challenge later this year. Young is not up for reelection until 2028, and Hawley until 2030.
“I believe invoking the War Powers Act at this moment is necessary, given the President’s comments about the possibility of ‘boots on the ground’ and a sustained engagement ‘running’ Venezuela, with which I do not agree,” Collins said in a statement.
Young, a Marine veteran, teamed up with Kaine last month to formally repeal the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq that had remained on the books since the 2003 U.S. invasion of that country.
Hawley was something more of a surprise. In a statement on social media, he said, “my read of the Constitution is that if the President feels the need to put boots on the ground there in the future, Congress would need to vote on it.”
Kaine, the lead Democratic sponsor, had leaned heavily on the constitutional role for Congress in declaring war to convince Republicans.
Kaine also made a significant concession to wavering Republicans on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, stating that the execution of an open arrest warrant for Maduro may have been valid by itself.
“This is bigger than an arrest warrant. More than 200 enemies have been killed. U.S. troops have been injured. Two are still hospitalized. And now we understand after the hearing yesterday, and what has been made public, this will go on for a long period of time,” Kaine said. “This is not an attack on the arrest warrant, but it is merely a statement that going forward U.S. troops should not be used in hostilities in Venezuela without the vote of Congress as the Constitution requires.”
The strike and capture of Maduro were broadly popular with Republicans in early polls, although a plurality of Americans disapproved of the operation.
If ultimately passed by the Senate, Kaine’s resolution would also need to pass the House of Representatives and survive a likely veto from Trump in order to become effective. Its slim margin of victory in the Senate means that it would not be able to clear the two-thirds share needed for victory at present.
One advocacy group said that even if the measure ultimately falls short, it could restrain the White House. In his first term, Trump backed off on providing some support for Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen in the face of a war powers resolution.
“Today’s vote itself has real value,” said Cavan Kharrazian, a senior policy adviser at the left-leaning nonprofit Demand Progress. “It puts Congress on record, including a growing number of Republicans who are no longer willing to simply rubber-stamp the administration’s unauthorized military adventurism or half-baked plans to ‘run’ sovereign nations. That strong political signal can help temper further escalation in Venezuela as this process moves forward.”
Separately, a bipartisan group of House members announced Thursday that they are reintroducing a war powers resolution in the lower chamber. The House voted 213-211 last month against a similar war powers resolution.
Sponsors in the House said at a press conference that they hoped to grow GOP support from the three Republican representatives who voted for the last measure.
“Without naming any individuals, I’ve had multiple conversations with veterans of our last two forever wars in the Republican Party who are specifically troubled,” said Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., a combat veteran of Iraq. “We can debate the initial action — I think it was unconstitutional and incorrect — but the concern about extending this into another forever war is where I think there’s real opportunity, especially for those that have been on the receiving end of really shitty foreign policy in the last two forever wars.”
The protests this weekend were part of nationwide wave of resistance following the capture of the Venezuelan president and an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good.
Berkeley resident Tobey Weibe, 92, protests against Chevron following the U.S. intervention in Venezuela Jan. 3 by President Trump, who captured Nicolas Maduro. Weibe’s sign, “Imperialist America is humanity’s number one enemy,” was used by her late husband to protest the war in Iraq in 2003. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkeleyside
People in Berkeley waved signs at drivers from a highway overpass and set up outside a Chevron gas station this weekend to protest the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer and the Trump administration’s military actions in Venezuela.
Chevron’s Richmond refinery was the site of another protest aimed at the corporate giant.
Chevron is the only U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela and poised to benefit from the U.S. intervention. Earlier this month the Trump administration carried out a military operation in Venezuela on Jan. 3 to capture president Nicolás Maduro that Venezuelan officials say left more than 100 dead. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, and President Donald Trump has said part of the reason for the operation is increase American access to the country’s oil fields.
Several hundred people gathered at Chevron’s Richmond refinery Saturday, where police had blocked the roads off from traffic. Credit: Maurice Tierney for Richmondside
The protests were among the hundreds planned for towns and cities across the country over the weekend.
Signs read “No War” and “ICE murdered Renee Good,” a reference to the Minneapolis woman who was shot in the head by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday as she slowly turned her car away from agents carrying out an operation related to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The protest was organized by the group Visibility Brigade “in response to the onslaught of US government chaos being enacted upon residents.”
Intervening in Venezuela ‘ignores what Americans need,’ protesters say
On the corner of University Avenue and Sixth Street Sunday afternoon, amid the smell of gasoline and the steady stream of weekend traffic, stood 92-year-old Tobey Wiebe.
In her hands, she carried a piece of history: a protest sign her late husband once held in 2003 during demonstrations against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Its message: “Imperialist America is humanity’s number one enemy” — felt no less urgent to Wiebe more than two decades later.
“I’m here because I want to keep my sanity,” said Wiebe, a Berkeley resident of 56 years. “Trump is breaking all the rules and saying, ‘Catch me if you can.’”
Wiebe was one of roughly 100 demonstrators who occupied all four corners of the busy intersection near the Interstate 80 on-ramp, outside the Chevron station at 833 University Ave. The protest was organized by a chapter of the group Showing Up for Racial Justice.
Some protesters sewed political messaging into their clothing. By Sara Martin for Berkeleyside
For nearly two hours, the protest was met with a steady chorus of supportive honks as drivers passed by. The local residents present condemned the U.S. government’s escalating involvement in Venezuela and what they see as the outsized influence of corporate interests on American foreign policy.
While the White House has framed the operation the military strike in Caracas in which Maduro was captured as a blow against “narcoterrorism,” protesters in Berkeley expressed deep skepticism about both its motives and consequences.
Valerie Knepper, who attended the rally with her husband and several friends, said recent U.S. actions have hardened her views on American intervention abroad.
“I used to think U.S. involvement was all about oil,” Knepper said. “But I’ve realized it’s about world domination. The U.S. wants to control everyone.”
John Lavine and Sharron Siskin hold signs at the intersection of University Avenue and Sixth Street on Sunday afternoon, protesting opposition to the Trump administration’s recent military strikes in Caracas and ICE operations domestically. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkleyside
For Knepper and others, concerns about foreign policy were inseparable from anxieties closer to home. The administration’s aggressive tactics abroad, she said, have fueled fears about the erosion of democratic norms domestically.
With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, Knepper said she worries the results may not be “legitimately recognized” by Republicans in Congress if they do not favor the administration.
Nearby, friends Carla Soracco and Donna Fong stood side by side on the sidewalk, gripping handmade signs as traffic rushed past. For Soracco, the morality of the strike was straightforward.
Donna Fong (left) and Carla Soroacco (right) argued that federal funds slated for overseas oil infrastructure would be better utilized for domestic needs like food insecurity and homelessness. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkeleyside
“If Trump did that to Putin to try him on war crimes, I could support it, because we know that he attacked another country,” Soracco said, referencing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “But it’s not really our business to tell other people how to run their lives or their countries.”
The Trump administration has already begun meeting with oil executives about plans to invest billions in rebuilding the country’s oil infrastructure. President Trump has suggested such efforts would make Venezuela “open for business.”
Protesters gather at all four corners of University Avenue and Sixth Street in Berkeley on Sunday. Credit: Sara Martin for Berkeleyside
Fong argued that those resources represent a betrayal of the administration’s “America First” promises.
“The billions of dollars the U.S. is talking about pouring into oil infrastructure in Venezuela should be spent on people here,” Fong said, pointing to local crises such as affordability, homelessness and food insecurity. Instead, she said, the administration is “creating international problems while ignoring what Americans actually need.”
Richmond mayor calls Chevron a ‘monster’ at protest over refinery’s Venezuelan presence
Several hundred people gathered Saturday at Chevron’s Richmond refinery to peacefully protest the company’s presence in Venezuela. The protest was organized by a coalition of various Bay Area environmental groups networks, and speakers included Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez and former city council member Melvin Willis.
“We know what we’re fighting for: Stop pollution, stop the war, we won’t buy Chevron anymore,” sang Bonnie Lockhart and her posse of choralists, a group of singer-activists called Occupella. “Get out! Chevron, get out!”
Ilonka Zlatar of the Oil and Gas Action Network said the protest was organized in response to the Jan. 3 U.S. action in Venezuela. Credit: Maurice Tierney for Richmondside
Police had blocked off the roads in front of Gate 14, making access difficult, yet protestors arrived in droves on foot, walking from neighborhoods about 10 minutes away. The crowd stood with banners outside of Chevron’s headquarters, which were barricaded and had boarded over its sign so the logo wasn’t visible, as guest speakers took turns at the mic.
The crowd then marched down Richmond Parkway to the refinery side before later dispersing. No arrests were made and nothing appeared to be damaged.
The protest was announced late last week in response to developing global events, said Ilonka Zlatar, organizer for the Oil and Gas Action Network
Chevron has been in Venezuela (and Richmond) for more than 100 years and is “the oil company that’s most poised to profit and benefit from the actions that the United States has taken against Venezuela recently,” Zlatar said.
“We are opposed to the idea that our government should be used as a weapon for the profit of corporations.”
Martinez gave a short speech that he said he thought of “in his bathtub” that morning, calling Chevron, Richmond’s largest taxpayer, “a monster.”
“Whenever we need what is justly ours, we need to battle them, because we refuse to beg them,” Martinez said. “We will not beg Chevron to get what is rightfully ours.
“The health, the environment, the water, the air, it’s ours,” Martinez said. “If we allow Chevron to pollute them without repayment for the harm they cause us, we’re not doing our job.”
The protesters outside the refinery. Credit: Maurice Tierney for Richmondside
Chevron Richmond said in a written statement: “Chevron respects the rights of individuals to express their viewpoints peacefully and lawfully. Our workforce of nearly 3,000 people remains focused on safely and reliably providing the essential energy that keeps the Bay Area moving.”
Martinez was part of a Richmond City Council contingent that in 2024 won a settlement from Chevron in exchange for dropping a proposed oil refinery tax measure from the ballot.
Most of the protesters appeared to be from the Bay Area but one woman said she had come from Sacramento. Most heard about the protest on social media, through word-of-mouth, and from Mobilize.us, an online platform that promotes activist events.
Luna Angulo of Richmond, co-founder of the “kayaktivist” group Rich City Rays, attended to protest Chevron’s refinery pollution as well as to “reconnect the waterways with BIPOC youth,” she said.
Other local grassroot organizations involved in the protest were the Richmond Progress Alliance (RPA), the Asian Pacific Environment Network, Richmond for Palestine, Bay Resistance and the Democratic Socialists of America.
The Associated Press, Sebastien Bridonneau, Zoe Harwood, Ashley McBride and Zac Farber contributed reporting to this story.
1896: Central Park on Market Street in San Francisco, the city’s first big ballpark, was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. This angle is looking down Eighth Street.Courtesy Open SF History
A ballpark on Eighth and Market streets in San Francisco?
It was already a well-used landmark on Feb. 11, 1906, when a record baseball crowd of 25,000 funneled slowly into Central Park for a charity all-star game, making the city’s main thoroughfare look like Oracle Park before a postseason game.
“Such a crowd it was!” the Chronicle reported the next day. “There has never been such a one at any ball game held in San Francisco. For two hours they streamed into the grounds, until it seemed as though baseball would be impossible.”
A month later, the stadium and entire block were gone — incinerated by the April 18, 1906, earthquake and fire. Baseball moved to the Mission District, then Hunters Point, then China Basin. And Market Street moved on. A federal court building and two theaters take up most of the Central Park footprint now. There’s barely room for a game of catch.
Now most of the remaining businesses inside the massive seven-story property are either preparing to vacate or being sued to leave.
I walk through the mall frequently, eating weekly at one of the last food court survivors until it closed, then strolling the mostly empty hall just to marvel at the cavernous quiet. But as dismal as the scene has grown, I’ve never felt depressed. The future of this block on Market between Fifth and Fourth streets is arguably the biggest quagmire in the fight to resurrect a downtown still reeling from the pandemic office space exodus. Yet all I see is possibility.
There’s no pundit I trust more than history. And when I walk this city block, I don’t see extinction. My only worry is that we get so deep into the doom-and-gloom mindset, that we squander an opportunity to reveal what’s next.
Central Park, one of the city’s first great Market Street developments, opened on Thanksgiving Day 1884. The “Oaklands” beat a team of East Coast all-stars 11-2 in a five inning game. There were also races, a rope-climbing contest and a hot air balloon.
The venue, downtown’s largest seated gathering space by a factor of 10, quickly became the MVP of Market. It was the first home of the San Francisco Seals professional baseball team. And it was a flexible space; orator and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan in 1897 appeared in front of a crowd of 40,000 that gathered on the field, stands and building supports.
The earthquake ended that. While the block was used to serve hot meals to the homeless, a new ballpark was quickly built in the Mission District.
But Market Street was not barren for long. Streetcars returned within weeks, and the American Theatre, an under-construction 1,400-seat venue at Market and Montgomery, was welcoming guests to opera by early 1907. “Built of steel and reinforced concrete,” a Chronicle advertisement read. “Safe and absolutely fireproof.”
By the time the cinema age arrived on Market Street in 1915, when the Alcazar screened D.W. Griffith’s epic “The Birth of a Nation,” the block’s reinvention was taking shape. A half dozen Market Street movie theaters opened within four blocks of Central Park, including the State Theater (1920), Warfield and Golden Gate (1922), Orpheum (1926) and the grand Fox Theatre (1929). Neon signs went up, and crowds followed. By the 1940s, downtown’s cinema age was at its peak.
The rise of smaller neighborhood theaters in the second half of the century put most of the Market Street cinemas out of business. (The last closed in 2001 or 2013, depending on whether we’re counting pornography houses.)
But a new era arrived: Music promoter Bill Graham and theater producer Carole Shorenstein Hays turned some of the old theaters into live music and theater venues, while the empty Emporium building at Fifth and Market was resurrected as a mall anchored by Nordstrom and Bloomingdales.
The surprise success of the former broke an invisible line between the classes, and proved the city’s best art, commerce and recreation could thrive South of Market. Nordstrom walked so the Metreon, Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Gardens and Salesforce Park could run.
And now, we think it’s all finished? Why? Because the rules of retail and office work have changed? Because no one wants to go to a windowless indoor mall in one of the most beautiful cities in the world?
Or is this just another Central Park? A big disaster, followed by fresh opportunity.
The mall should never return. City leaders should veto any kind of Hellfire Club setup that excludes a large percentage of Bay Area residents because of cost or exclusivity. From there, history gives us permission to dream big.
The land is still ultra-accessible to BART and Muni, just waiting to bring crowds to whatever great idea wins the day. It’s surrounded by parks, museums, new housing plans, historic buildings and potential.
Mostly, I have faith. San Francisco has been through this before. The best ideas are usually the ones that come by surprise. And the only wrong answer is “there’s no hope.”
Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s culture critic and co-founder of Total SF. The Bay Area native, a former Chronicle paperboy, has worked at The Chronicle since 2000. He covers Bay Area culture, co-hosts the Total SF podcast and writes the archive-based Our SF local history column. Hartlaub and columnist Heather Knight co-created the Total SF podcast and event series, engaging with locals to explore and find new ways to celebrate San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) listens to testimony from Minnesota lawmakers about fraud investigations in their home state during a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on January 7, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Republicans shamefully voted it down—demonstrating once again that they have never cared about law and order or keeping our communities safe,” said the congresswoman.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley told her fellow members of the US House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that a motion she was introducing during a hearing was “pretty straightforward”: The committee, she said, should conduct oversight regarding a federal agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a woman in Minneapolis who was killed in her car earlier in the day.
But the motion failed, with every Republican on the panel voting against it.
Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced the motion during a hearing regarding a fraud scandal in the state, hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot Good, who was in the driver’s seat of her car as multiple officers approached her. Good was acting as a legal observer, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), monitoring ICE actions following the Trump administration’s surge of federal agents into Minnesota, in part to target members of the Somali community.
Footage of the shooting shows an officer trying to open the car door and the driver turning the wheel before starting to drive forward. An agent who had approached the driver-side bumper draws his gun and shoots the driver multiple times.
Despite what is shown in the widely available video, President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Vice President JD Vance were quick to place blame on Good. Trump said she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over” the ICE agent, while Noem said Good had committed an “act of domestic terrorism.”
Pressley called on the congressional committee to investigate the case.
“Since this committee is responsible for oversight of federal law enforcement, we must investigate,” she said. “This subpoena will get to the truth, and it should have bipartisan support.”
BREAKING: ICE killed a Minnesota woman in broad daylight & there must be accountability.
But when I moved to subpoena all records & footage related to this murder, Republicans voted it down.
They've never cared about law & order or keeping our communities safe.
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) January 8, 2026
Pressley condemned her GOP colleagues for blocking the effort to get to the bottom of what happened in Minneapolis, which has also been described by multiple eyewitnesses who dispute the Trump administration’s narrative.
“DHS’ claim that an agent shot in self-defense is a bold-faced lie and the video footage is damning,” said Pressley. “But after I moved to subpoena all records and footage related to this killing, Republicans shamefully voted it down—demonstrating once again that they have never cared about law and order or keeping our communities safe.
“What happened today is a despicable consequence of Donald Trump’s campaign of terror, fear, and demonization of vulnerable communities and we cannot allow it to be normalized in America,” said Pressley. “I demand a thorough and independent investigation into this tragedy so the victim, her loved ones, and the public get the accountability and transparency they deserve. It’s time for the Trump administration to end its cruel, unlawful mass deportation agenda once and for all.”
The ACLU on Wednesday noted that Good was killed as Congress negotiates the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for the coming year, months after lawmakers voted to add “an unprecedented $170 billion to the Trump administration’s already massive budget for immigration enforcement.”
“For months, the Trump administration has been deploying reckless, heavily armed agents into our communities and encouraging them to commit horrifying abuses with impunity, and, today, we are seeing the devastating and predictable consequences,” said Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs at ACLU. “Congress must rein ICE in before what happened in Minneapolis today happens somewhere else tomorrow. That means, at a minimum, opposing a Homeland Security budget that supports the growing lawlessness of this agency.”
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Protesters hold photos of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis, outside the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles on January 8, 2026.
(Photo by Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“They have literally started killing us—enough is enough,” said one campaigner.
Progressive advocacy groups are set to lead nationwide rallies this weekend to protest Wednesday’s killing of Renee Good by an immigration officer in Minneapolis and the Trump administration’s wider deadly mass deportation campaign.
Groups including 50501 Movement, Indivisible, the Disappeared in America campaign, MoveOn, the ACLU, Voto Latino, and United We Dream are planning demonstrations across the country to protest the killing of Good and what Indivisible called the “broader pattern of unchecked violence and abuse carried out by federal immigration enforcement agencies against members of our communities.”
More details about the events, including a growing list of demonstrations and rallies, is available here.
According to organizers, the goal of the weekend demonstrations will be to:
Honor and humanize the lives taken by ICE
Demand accountability, transparency, and an immediate investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Good
Expose the broader pattern of ICE violence, including deaths in detention
Call for ICE to leave our communities
Build public pressure on elected officials and federal agencies
Create space for grief, solidarity, and collective action
Strengthen local connections and neighborhood response system
Good, a US citizen, was shot multiple times by veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officer Jonathan Ross on Wednesday while driving in south Minneapolis. Bystander video shows Good slowly maneuvering a Honda Pilot SUV in an apparent effort to drive away from officers when Ross draws his pistol and fires at her head.
President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration quickly spread lies about Good, with the president saying she “ran over” Ross and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others accusing the 37-year-old mother of three—one of whose children is now orphaned—of “domestic terrorism.”
“After ICE executed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis and federal agents shot two more people in Portland, the 50501 Movement is demanding the immediate abolition of ICE,” 50501 said in a statement Friday. “Renee Nicole Good and the Portland victims are just the most recent victims of ICE’s reign of terror. ICE has brutalized communities for decades, but its violence under the Trump regime has accelerated.”
“Marginalized communities have taken the brunt of their force; in 2025, at least 32 people died in ICE custody,” 50501 added. “This past September, ICE shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a father and cook from Mexico who was living in Chicago. In that same city, a Border Patrol agent celebrated after repeatedly shooting and injuring Marimar Martinez. The American people have had enough.”
The ACLU said in a statement that “an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother, shooting her three times in the head through her car window. This is a reckless, horrific shooting that should have never happened.”
“Renee’s killing came just one day after the Trump administration stormed Minnesota communities with an unprecedented 2,000 federal agents. Children are afraid to go to school and Minnesota families are reeling from fear and a sense of chaos,” the group continued. “For months, the Trump administration has been deploying heavily armed federal agents into our communities. They are smashing car windows, dragging people from their cars, zip-tying children, and physically harming our neighbors—citizens and noncitizens alike.”
“We can’t wait around while ICE harms more people,” the ACLU added. “Congress MUST demand an end to these reckless immigration raids, and oppose any bill that would add to ICE’s already massive budget.”
United We Dream said that Good’s “brutal killing is a horrifying reminder of the threat armed forces pose to our collective safety, especially at a time when local, state, and federal officials have consistently called on the federal government to invest in the resources working families truly need—healthcare, housing, access to food—instead of indiscriminate terror in our communities.”
“In 2025 alone, 32 people died in immigration detention,” the group added. “Billions poured into immigration raids for the sake of ripping apart communities in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis does nothing but lead to irreparable damage, violence, and death. We demand an immediate end to this cruelty and for elected leaders at every level to speak out in defense of immigrant communities and our shared safety.”
MoveOn argued that “the Trump administration is not making anybody safe—they are creating chaos and destroying lives.”
“You don’t raid peaceful cities, schools, libraries, and churches unless your goal is to terrorize communities and silence dissent,” the group added. “MoveOn is outraged and devastated that the unnecessary, reckless, and escalatory deployment of ICE is causing even more senseless killings. Trump’s ICE agents need to follow the advice of local officials and leave Minnesota immediately.”
Represent Maine, an “ICE out for Good” national coalition partner, said in a promotion for a Saturday noon rally in Augusta that “ICE’s campaign of terror is out of control and leading to the murder of our people.”
“Entire communities are being traumatized,” the group continued. “Immigrants, refugees, and American citizens are being targeted. This is not normal border enforcement: This is state violence.”
“We will gather to remember those who have been killed, kidnapped, and disappeared by ICE, and the families and communities devastated in their wake,” Represent Maine added. “We demand ICE out of Maine NOW!”
Dan Harmon of 50501 Minnesota said Friday, “They have literally started killing us—enough is enough.”
“We are a peaceful and community-oriented state that will not allow the violent ICE secret police to continue kidnapping our neighbors and killing our friends,” he said. “Immediately after the shooting, hundreds of Minnesotans gathered to respond on site, just as we did in 2020 after officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.”
“ICE must be removed from Minnesota and permanently abolished,” Harmon added.
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US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hold a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 8, 2026.
(Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“I just don’t understand how we provide votes for a bill that funds the extent of the depravity,” said Sen. Chris Murphy.
The killing of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis this week came as Republicans in Congress were planning to bring a homeland security spending bill to the House floor, deciding on whether the agency that’s surged thousands of armed agents into communities across the country should have increased funding—and progressive lawmakers are demanding that the Democrats use the upcoming government funding deadline to hopefully reduce the department’s ability to wreak further havoc.
“I just don’t understand how we provide votes for a bill that funds the extent of the depravity,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) toldCNN Thursday. “I know we can’t fix everything in the appropriations bill but we should be looking at ways we can put some commonsense limitations on their ability to bring violence to our cities.”
But the top Democratic leaders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) both appeared to have little interest in discussing how their party can use the appropriations process as leverage to rein in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies that have taken part in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.
Both Schumer and Jeffries sharply criticized Wednesday’s shooting and the Trump administration’s insistence that, contrary to mounting video evidence, the ICE agent who shot Good was acting in self-defense.
But Jeffries said Thursday that he was focused on passing other appropriations bills that were ultimately approved by the House.
“We’ll figure out the accountability mechanisms at the appropriate time,” Jeffries told reporters.
With Congress facing a January 30 deadline for approving government spending packages—and with public disapproval of ICE at an all-time high—several lawmakers have said this week that right now is the “appropriate time” to rein in the agency in any way the Democrats can.
“Statements and letters are not enough, and the appropriations process and the [continuing resolution] expiring January 31 is our opportunity,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) toldAxios.
Schumer also refused to say whether the Democrats would use the appropriations process as leverage to cut funding to ICE, whose budget is set to balloon to $170 billion following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. Republicans will need Democratic support to pass a spending bill in the Senate, where 60 votes are required.
The Senate leader said only that he has “lots of problems with ICE” when asked whether he would support abolishing the agency—a proposal whose support has gone by 20 percentage points among voters in just one year, according to a recent survey. Both leaders also would not commit to slashing the homeland security budget should the Democrats win back majorities in Congress this year.
“It’s hard to be an opposition party when you refuse to oppose the blatantly illegal and immoral things being done by the opposition,” said Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health.
Sharing a clip of Jeffries’ remarks to reporters about the agency’s funding, historian Moshik Temkin said that “people need to understand that at its core ICE is a bipartisan project, increasingly funded and normalized over multiple Democratic administrations and congressional majorities, and a few of them (not this guy) are starting to realize how foolish, weak, and misguided they were.”
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are among the progressive lawmakers calling on the Democrats to demand reduced funding for ICE—even if it means another government shutdown months after the longest one in US history late last year, which began when the Democrats refused to join the GOP in passing a spending bill that would have allowed Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire. Ultimately, some Senate Democrats caved, and the subsidies lapsed.
“We can’t just keep authorizing money for these illegal killers,” Jayapal told Axios. “That’s what they are, this rogue force.”
Ocasio-Cortez told the Independent that Democrats should “absolutely” push to cut funding.
“This Congress, this Republican Congress, while they cut a trillion dollars to Americans’ healthcare, and they exploded the ICE budget to $170 billion making it one of the largest paramilitary forces in the United States with zero accountability as they shoot US citizens in the head—absolutely,” she said.
On the podcast The Majority Report, Emma Vigeland and Sam Seder called on progressive Democrats to demand Schumer’s ouster in light of his refusal to take action to rein in ICE as its violence in American communities escalates.
“Change the news cycle and show that you’ll be an opposition party,” said Vigeland. “Call for his ouster.”
Seder added that Schumer “has the ability to wage a fight to prevent the funding of DHS. He has the ability to do that and he doesn’t want it. He’s running away from any leverage he has, deliberately.”
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