Minnesota is reeling once again after another disturbing clip emerged from the same St. Paul protest where demonstrators were tear-gassed last week. This time, the footage appears to show a masked individual posing as an ICE agent aiming a weapon at unarmed protesters, switching off the safety, before being casually ushered away by police without arrest.
In a state already shaken by heavy-handed chemical agent use at a peaceful demonstration, this new clip has left residents asking why police weren’t immidiately detaining the individual.
As you can see above, a masked man wearing an American flag as a face covering raises a long weapon toward the protest line. His thumb moves, his grip adjusts, and his finger shifts onto the trigger. Multiple commenters pointed out that the motion appears consistent with switching off the safety.
“Not just pointing. He specifically took off the safety as he pointed. He was about to fire.”
Instead of detaining him, or even pinning him to the ground as they did to protesters, officers move into frame and gently redirect him out of the crowd. Moments later, the focus of police force returns to the demonstrators, not the masked man aiming a weapon.
Observers did not miss the apparent double standard. Some pointed to the obvious racial dynamic; others saw the incident as part of a long-standing culture of selective enforcement.
“In addition to being white, he was wearing an American flag as a mask. So clearly he is a patriot and therefore a good guy with a gun.”
Another user asked:
“Can you do that legally in the US? Wow.”
In many states, impersonating a federal officer, brandishing a weapon at civilians, or taking a firing stance toward a crowd can result in multiple felonies. Yet the officers on scene treated the man less like a suspect and more like a disruptive bystander, complicating the situation.
Whether the impersonator was aligned with ICE, connected to another group, or acting entirely alone remains unclear. What is clear is that he pointed a weapon at unarmed civilians and walked away untouched, while protesters faced chemical force and physical aggression (see the related article below).
Until authorities explain how an armed impersonator was allowed to vanish into the crowd without detainment, that question will linger. So will the sense that, in Minnesota’s protest landscape, the rules don’t apply equally to everyone.
