Aggressive tactics used on Minneapolis protesters raise concerns about federal officer training

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.

Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.

The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.

“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.

Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.

“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.

“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.

“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”

Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.

“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.

“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”

Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.

“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.

“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.

“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.

"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”

Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.

“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.

“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”

Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.

The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am so, so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a news conference.

The engine firing was flawless, she noted.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his crewmates were glued to the capsule's windows as they left Earth in the rearview mirror, taking in the “phenomenal” views. Their faces were pressed so tightly against the windows that they had to wipe them clean.

“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.

NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.

Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will dash past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will go the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They also may become the fastest during their reentry at flight’s end on April 10.

Glover, Koch and Hansen already have made history as the first Black person, the first woman and the first non-U.S. citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travelers were all white men.

“Trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful," Glover said in a TV interview after beholding the globe from pole to pole. "And from up here you also look like one thing: homo sapiens as all of us no matter where you’re from or what you look like, we’re all one people.”

To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them.

“We are ready to go,” Glover said.

Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth. The capsule is relying on the gravity of Earth and the moon — termed a free-return lunar trajectory — to complete the round-trip figure-eight loop. The engine accelerated their capsule to more than 24,000 mph (38,000 kph) to shove them out of Earth's orbit.

“I’ve got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this," Wiseman said. "Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a herculean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that.”

Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his team were all business while on duty but will likely reflect on the momentousness of it all once they go home.

“I suspect everybody understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment," he told reporters.

The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.

Orion will zoom 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.

While awaiting their orbital departure earlier Thursday, the astronauts savored the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they can make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground.

NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028.

The so-called lunar loo may need some design tweaks, however.

Orion's toilet malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags.

The urine pouches are serving double duty. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser on Thursday. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following liftoff, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem recurred. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than 2 gallons (7 liters) worth before pivoting to the moon.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Artemis II crew, from left, Canadien astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and pilot Victor Glover as they speak with NASA Mission Control via video conference from the moon's orbit Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This image released by NASA on Thursday, April 2, 2026, shows NASA’s Orion spacecraft with Earth in the background. (NASA via AP)

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Earth, left, from NASA's Orion spacecraft as it fired its engines heading toward the moon Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, a view of the Earth from NASA's Orion spacecraft as it orbits above the planet during the Artemis II test flight, on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, an Artemis program patch floating in the International Space Station's cupola, on March 30, 2026. (Jessica Meir/NASA via AP)

Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)