Minneapolis Public Schools canceled classes for Thursday and Friday after U.S. Border Patrol agents detained a Roosevelt High School staff member who is a U.S. citizen outside the school on Wednesday.
The staff member, a special education assistant, was taken to the Whipple Federal Building and released Wednesday night, said Natasha Dockter of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators.
Dockter expressed gratitude that the district had cancelled school.
“There are so many ICE and Border Patrol agents in our city that they’re stopping off at a school’s dismissal and causing harm and chaos, and inhibiting our educators from doing their job, which is about creating a place that our students can safely go to school,” she said. “That, to me, is just awful.”
Minneapolis Public Schools said in a statement it was committed to “maintaining a safe and welcoming learning environment for all of our students” and said it had closed schools “out of an abundance of caution.” The district added it was working to support “the individuals directly impacted.”
In a statement, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said a U.S. citizen impeding immigration enforcement operations became the object of a car chase that led to Roosevelt High School.
“At no point was a school, students, or staff targeted, and agents would not have been near this location if not for the dangerous actions of this individual,” the spokesperson said.
While arresting the person in the car, the spokesperson said, “an individual who identified himself as a teacher proceeded to assault a border patrol agent.”
Joelle Stangler, a social studies teacher at Roosevelt, said that the special education assistant was “one of the kindest, most peaceful and caring and beloved members of our staff.”
“I can say with the utmost certainty that his role in that moment would have been keeping students and his fellow staff safe,” she said. “I think that’s going to stick with us as staff for a long time, that on school grounds, during our duty hours, a colleague of ours was detained for doing his job keeping students and staff safe, and our students had to witness violence.”
Border Patrol arrives at Roosevelt High
The incident outside Roosevelt High School came hours after an ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good in her car 3 miles away. Good’s killing, and the heightened presence of ICE and Border Patrol agents in the city, have led to an increase in citizen observers to document ICE activity and to protect families arriving at or leaving school.
Joey Dobson, a neighbor who lives near Roosevelt, responded to a call for observers near Roosevelt at dismissal time. She was standing outside the Baker’s Wife bakery at around 3:30 p.m. when she heard honking coming down 42nd Street. A line of federal law enforcement vehicles appeared to be trailing a dark car, which she later heard had crashed. The line of cars turned north on 28th Avenue, toward Roosevelt High School.
Bilal Elidrissi, 17, a senior at Roosevelt High School, was getting in his car about a block away from school when he heard people blowing whistles and cars honking. He drove over with a friend and arrived at the scene at 3:35. School had dismissed for the day at 3:10, so many students had already left campus.
He noticed “an older black truck that had a window smashed in” near the Border Patrol vehicles. He surmised that the truck was the federal agents’ target.
“We don’t think they came for the school,” he said. “The chase ended at the school.” He observed federal agents shoving community members and heard yelling from school staff. He also spotted U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino.
Dobson’s community watch members had by this point arrived at the school as well. Photos and video from the scene show federal law enforcement agents on the school lawn.
“People were yelling at them, saying, ‘Get out of here. We don’t want you here,’” Dobson said.
Stangler, who was helping students after school in her classroom, emerged from the school when she heard a noise she later identified as whistles. She told her students to contact their parents and let them know they were safe.
“I saw a very chaotic scene,” she said. She estimated more than 100 people were present. “Dozens of staff from our building attempting to position themselves between students and agents, students screaming and sobbing, dozens of people recording, blowing whistles.” The agents, from her perspective, “were continuing to escalate the situation and shouting at students, threatening students.”
Dobson said a federal agent shoved her into an icy puddle. “I was just standing there silently for the most part, with my phone out.” She said that others in the crowd may have been pushing and throwing snow, and that it seemed that Border Patrol was trying to push back on the whole crowd.
Elidrissi witnessed federal agents shoving people into the snow, “being really physical and aggressive.”
“I noticed that ICE was really the root of a lot of the violence,” Elidrissi said. “I think they lingered just to intimidate people and show they have power over the community.”
He then watched as federal agents detained a staffer he recognized from the special education department and put him in the back of a car. He described the staffer as African American and a U.S. citizen.
Dobson and Elidrissi both said another person was detained after agents arrested the school staffer. Dobson said she got that person’s contact information to connect him with legal support and believed that he was also a U.S. citizen.
Stangler’s mind was on her students, and wanting to make sure they were able to exit the scene, fearing federal agents would escalate further — recalling Good’s killing earlier that day. Some students had gone to shelter in the library across the street, others were recording, and many “were just completely broken down and sobbing about what they were seeing in front of their eyes,” Stangler said.
Then Stangler saw the agents fire chemical weapons, while standing on school grounds, on a crowd that included dozens of students. She and many other staff members were hit with the chemicals, which she said felt like pepper spray although they were in the form of a gas.
“Chemical weapons were used on school grounds in the presence of children, and children were directly exposed to these weapons with no dispersal orders, with no requests or warning that these weapons would be used,” Stangler said.
The Department of Homeland Security said that agents used “targeted crowd control.” The spokesperson described the crowd as “rioters” and said they were throwing objects and paint on officers and their vehicles, and continued “hostilities and assaults” after being warned to stop. The agency declined to specify which chemical weapons were used, but denied deploying tear gas.
Signe Boler, a 16-year-old junior at Roosevelt, left school before the incident began. She expressed horror at what had happened.
“A lot of people at my school had pent-up emotions toward federal agents,” she said. “Everybody has been scared of this happening for a good while now.”
She noted that “everybody has been posting about it on social media” and expressed hope that Wednesday’s events could bring the school community closer together.
“As much as this is a terrible, terrible, terrible event, it’s going to be very uniting for people because this is an event where we need to lean on each other, and I think everybody at school recognizes this,” she said.
For Stangler, federal agents’ actions across south Minneapolis on Wednesday showed a dangerous lack of restraint.
“They made it clear that anything they perceive to be getting in the way of their operations can be met with violence, and the presence of children or being on school grounds does not give them pause or dissuade them,” she said. “They’ve made it clear that they’re willing to harm an innocent woman. They’ve made it very clear they’re willing to harm children. And I think there is no safety until they’re gone.”
