A Minneapolis educator filed a legal claim against the federal government on Tuesday, alleging that Border Patrol agents violently attacked him without cause on school property in January.
The complaint from Quentin Williams, a special education assistant at Roosevelt High School, also alleges that federal agents falsely arrested him; wrongfully detained him and denied him his rights; initiated false criminal charges against him; and engaged in a campaign to smear his reputation.
“I think it’s important for the sake of keeping agents off school grounds, and just making sure it doesn’t happen again to anyone,” Williams said of his complaint in an interview Tuesday. “I think that’s the important part — for people to see that you can do something about it when it feels like you can’t.”
In response to a request for comment, the Department of Homeland Security said that there has been a “massive increase in violence and threats against law enforcement,” but did not address Williams’ claims.
The administrative claim is the first step in the Federal Tort Claims Act process. After the claim is filed, the federal government has six months to investigate and respond. If the government does not respond or denies the claim, the claimant can file a federal lawsuit.
Williams, whose students call him Mr. Q, previously told Sahan Journal the way federal agents pinned him down and obstructed his breathing made him think of George Floyd, and if they had stayed on him any longer he thought he might have died.
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“This is one of the first steps in holding the government accountable for what they did to Mr. Q, for what they did at Roosevelt,” said Danielle Berkowsky, an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center representing Williams.
According to the complaint: shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, Border Patrol agents arrived on school property in pursuit of a driver who had allegedly “made contact” with a Border Patrol vehicle. After agents arrested the driver outside the school, more government vehicles showed up and fanned out onto school property, despite school administrators telling them to leave. Agents taunted, pushed, and yelled at staff and community members in the growing crowd around the scene.
“They should have left the moment they arrived,” Berkowsky said, noting agents had already arrested the person they came for. “That person was in the back of a government vehicle. They could have left. But then they decided, you know what, let’s spread out, let’s fan out, let’s terrorize this community too.”
Williams was assisting students with dismissal at the end of the school day, hours after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shot Renee Good two and a half miles away. He was shocked to watch the scene unfold.
According to the complaint, then-Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino was leading agents back to their vehicles when Border Patrol Agent Joshua McBee doubled back and began shoving one of Williams’ colleagues, a white school staffer who had been telling the agents to leave. McBee then began shoving other staff members, including Williams. At this point, the agents who had been on their way out turned back toward the school grounds. Williams put his hands up to show that he was not a danger.
As McBee started to walk away, Border Patrol Agent Christopher Velez ran onto the lawn and pushed a Latino school staffer. In the process, Velez slipped on the snow. He then grabbed the staffer he had pushed and flipped him on the ground. Bovino and another agent started shoving and pulling at Williams.
“Mr. Williams did not fight back,” the complaint states. “He continued to watch the situation in shock.”
Williams tried to help his colleague stand up. Agents allowed his colleague to walk away, but turned their attention to Williams. McBee grabbed Williams by his hair and collar, which later caused some of his locs to fall out.
Williams, who is Black, said he thought the attack on him was racially motivated.
Berkowsky emphasized that the agents not only tackled him, they pulled out his locs, even though photos and video show he was standing with his hands up. “It’s hard to not see the racial motivation behind it, and similar to his colleague that was also tackled among all the other people who were at Roosevelt that day,” she said.
“There was no justification for the agents’ violent conduct,” the complaint reads. “Mr. Williams was not being aggressive or belligerent. He did not fight or push back against the agents. And at no time did agents give Mr. Williams any instructions or commands. Instead, multiple armed agents violently yanked and shoved Mr. Williams by his head, hair, neck, and body, trying to physically force him to the ground.”
Velez tackled Williams, causing his head to hit the ground hard, climbed on top of him, and put his hands around Williams’ neck. Border Patrol Agents Dalton James Smith and Joseph Curran held Williams down at either side while another agent held his feet.
Williams gasped that he could not breathe. Bovino pointed pepper spray inches from his face and threatened, “I’ll spray you!”
Velez pushed down on the back of Williams’ neck, driving his face into the snow, then drove his knee into Williams’ back, making it even more difficult for Wiliams to breathe. Williams was at this point in significant pain. Velez, Smith, and Curran twisted Williams’ arms into handcuffs and led him to a government vehicle. Curran searched Williams’ pockets and did not put a seatbelt on him.
Williams was taken to the Whipple Federal Building, where he was forced to stand outside in the bitter cold without a coat for more than an hour as agents taunted him and took his photograph, which they shared in WhatsApp chats and which later appeared on an X post from the Department of Homeland Security, with a caption that implied that Williams had assaulted law enforcement. At Whipple, Williams was not given food, water or medical attention. He was also not allowed to access a phone or contact a lawyer.
On Jan. 23, the federal government charged Williams with felony assault on the basis of a sworn affidavit by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Richard Berger. Berger’s affidavit swore that he had personal knowledge of the events at Roosevelt High School on Jan. 7, but according to the complaint, he was not there. Berger has since drawn rebuke from a federal judge for claiming personal knowledge of events of which he did not have personal knowledge.
The complaint also accuses the federal government of smearing Williams’ reputation. Before the charges against him were unsealed, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi posted photos of him on social media, along with others, claiming that they were “rioters” charged with “allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement.” The complaint alleges these posts violated several court orders. Social media posts about Williams from official federal government accounts generated racist messages and threats of violence.
“The government seemed pretty shameless in their propaganda campaign,” Berkowsky said.
The federal government downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor on Feb. 4, and on March 24, a judge granted prosecutors’ request to dismiss the case altogether, but the false accusations remain online.
Some of the officers named in Williams’ complaint have been accused of excessive force before. A report from the Illinois Accountability Commission describes an October 2025 incident in Chicago in which Border Patrol agents chased construction workers into the yard of a home and then deployed a significant amount of tear gas on a gathering crowd. McBee and Smith were two of the officers on the scene. Both are also named in a federal lawsuit as defendants in that incident. Bovino oversaw Border Patrol’s aggressive approach in Chicago and Minneapolis, and repeatedly deployed tear gas against protesters himself.
Bovino has since left his federal employment. The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions about whether the other officers remain employed by Border Patrol or have faced disciplinary action.
Berkowsky declined to specify the amount of damages they were seeking, but said that accountability, not money, was the point of the legal action.
She expressed doubt that the government would settle the claim through this stage of the process. If the case is not settled in the next six months, Williams will have the right to file a federal lawsuit — which could involve deposing officers and obtaining more records from the government through a discovery process.
“A lot of the accountability really comes through that information gathering and making those people come back and testify about what they did,” Berkowsky said.
Williams said he hopes his claim sends a message — and that he can fight for accountability on behalf of those who may not be able to.
“For the people that can’t have their voice be heard,” he said, “whatever I can say or do to move the needle a little bit further towards justice for the community in Minneapolis, I think would be huge.”
