Minneapolis is celebrating its third annual Latino Business Week through Oct. 11, with events for business owners, and for community members to come shop at their local Latino-owned stores.
At a kickoff event Monday, city leaders and business owners said it's especially needed after the federal immigration enforcement surge slowed down business this winter.
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 hope this next step in seeking justice will hold someone accountable for what happened to me,” Williams said in a statement Tuesday. “I am just so blessed to be alive.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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, filed the complaint with the help of the MacArthur Justice Center in Washington, D.C. He 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.
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.
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, 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 another 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.
“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 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. Bovino oversaw Border Patrol’s aggressive approach in Chicago and Minneapolis, and repeatedly deployed tear gas against protesters himself.
Minneapolis police officials admitted Monday that overtime has been mismanaged and abused in recent years, leading to record overspending.
Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson said he inherited “frankly, a mess” in finances when he took over in June after former Police Chief Brian O’Hara was ousted for interfering in an investigation into sexual misconduct.
Significant turnover in O’Hara’s executive team left MPD with no finance director, and a chief of staff was the only person left tracking spending, Peterson said. After conversations about reining in spending, Peterson now has three people working on budget issues, including a new director of financial operations, Sujata Kommuru.
Peterson and eight other MPD leaders were closely questioned Monday about spending and overtime by the Minneapolis City Council during a budget meeting.
The number, the dollar value, is very high and I would say, inexcusable,” Assistant Chief of Operations Mark Klukow said when asked how the department spent $33 million in overtime last year, blowing its budget of $6 million.
The conversation: City Council members have blasted the police department for months over last year’s overspending, which continued this year. O’Hara and other MPD representatives have long said the department is so understaffed that officers have to work overtime just to patrol the streets and answer 911 calls.
O’Hara said last year that officers working overtime filled about 40% of shifts.
But Peterson’s leadership team had additional thoughts on the matter.
“There was excessive use of overtime [in] 2025; in my view it wasn’t appropriate, the amount of overtime used,” Klukow said. “There’s an element of mismanagement in there as well.”
To use an analogy, he said, “If overtime were a paint bucket, we gave out too many brushes. There were too many people that had independent ability to paint overtime and use it through the city.”
But now, only Peterson’s executive team can approve overtime, Klukow said, and they go over the numbers weekly.
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HENNEPIN COUNTY, Minn. — Christian Castro, the ICE agent accused of lying about what led up to him shooting into a north Minneapolis home, has been booked in the Hennepin County Jail.
Castro, 52, is facing four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of falsely reporting a crime in connection with the Jan. 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Castro shot Sosa-Celis through the front door of a home on 24th Avenue North after pursuing another man, Alfredo Aljorna, to the residence.
According to the criminal complaint, ICE agents had been pursuing Aljorna, who was driving a Ford Focus. Aljorna ran toward his home after stopping near the residence, with Castro following him on foot.
Sosa-Celis came outside and intervened as Castro struggled with Aljorna. The complaint says Sosa-Celis helped Aljorna get away from Castro, and the two men ran inside the home.
Video reviewed by investigators shows Castro standing several feet from the front door before raising his arms toward the house. Investigators say his movements are consistent with him firing a gun at the door.
Sosa-Celis was hit in the leg.
At the time of the shooting, four adults and two children were inside the home, according to the complaint. The bullet traveled through the front door, across the foyer and through several walls before coming to rest inside a bedroom.
Castro told investigators that he was attacked while trying to detain Aljorna.
According to the complaint, Castro told the FBI that Sosa-Celis struck him with a broom while another man attacked him with a snow shovel. Castro said he was knocked to the ground and feared for his safety.
He told the FBI that he drew his service weapon and fired one shot at the men as they ran toward the home. Castro said he did not know whether anyone had been hit.
But investigators say that account was contradicted by surveillance video, statements from the people inside the home and physical evidence.
Medical records from a hospital examination that night showed Castro had no demonstrable trauma other than an abrasion to his left hand, according to the complaint.
The BCA also recovered a shovel from the front yard, a broom from the front step and another broom inside the home. Investigators found a bullet hole in the front door and determined the bullet was consistent with a 9mm jacketed hollow-point round.
Federal charges against the men were dropped
The allegations against Castro came to light after federal prosecutors initially charged Sosa-Celis and Aljorna with assault based on the account that Castro and another ICE agent provided.
The allegations against Castro came to light after federal prosecutors initially charged Sosa-Celis and Aljorna with assault based on the account that Castro and another ICE agent provided.
Those charges were later dismissed after surveillance video contradicted key parts of the allegations.
The U.S. Attorney's Office moved to dismiss the charges in February, saying newly discovered evidence was materially inconsistent with the allegations in the original complaint. A federal judge dismissed the charges against both men on Feb. 13.
The criminal complaint says Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally residing in Minnesota at the time after receiving Temporary Protected Status from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Minneapolis police leaders did not take City Council questions about $21 million in overspending, frustrating council members seeking answers before budget decisions.
At a Tuesday committee meeting, Minneapolis Police Department leaders did not appear for a scheduled response, which usually involves a presentation, about the department’s 2025 budget overrun. Council members have said understanding how that happened last year is important as they set this year’s budget.
“Is anyone here from the Minneapolis Police Department or the Office of Community Safety to answer questions today?” Minneapolis City Council Member and Committee Chair Aisha Chughtai said, moving to the anticipated agenda item.
The roughly 20 seconds of silence that followed, without a presenter appearing, surprised news crews in the room and at least Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw, as the presentation was set to begin.
The University of Minnesota Police Department says it will remove one of its Flock Safety cameras following outcry from the Cedar-Riverside community.
Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman and State Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, each said they reached out to the university about taking down the newly installed surveillance device at the intersection of Cedar and Riverside avenues after hearing concerns from residents near the West Bank campus.
“They have agreed to remove the camera behind me to ensure that there is a continued trust with our community across the neighborhood here,” Noor said in a video posted to Facebook.
Indígena by Owamni — which opened its doors on June 23 and had a grand opening on July 4 — carries not just the name but also the legacy of its predecessor, Owamni, which closed at the end of April to migrate just a few blocks to the Guthrie Theater, allowing more space, almost double the crew (approximately 70 in Owamni to 140 in Indígena), and more food to serve more people.
In addition to photos of the Pretti memorial, agents also took pictures of what appears to be a poster of Vice President JD Vance in glittery eye makeup.
Throughout the transcripts, agents repeatedly asked whether activists and organizers that the undercover agents met with expressed interest in violence. Across the board, the agents said that they found no evidence of threats or intent to commit violence.
A federal judge will decide whether to hold Donald Trump’s administration in contempt after immigration agents violated court orders barring them from entering places of worship.
In February, Massachusetts District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV blocked a Trump administration policy giving agents permission to make arrests inside places of worship, calling the potential consequences of such an operation “profoundly troubling.”
On Monday, the judge sided with church groups who successfully sued the government and agreed to hold a hearing next month to determine why the Trump administration “should not be held in contempt for violating the preliminary injunction.” The government must respond by August 28.
Court filings revealed that undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers spied on people who attended church meetings and ran license plate numbers of worshippers’ cars, part of a recently unveiled surveillance campaign that sought to crack down on protests after a surge of federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
An undercover ICE agent infiltrated and covertly recorded a class inside the University Baptist Church gymnasium in May, according to recent filings from the Department of Homeland Security. Other agents spent hours outside the church, noting when people entered and exited, and ran registration checks on license plates — including cars parked in a library parking lot next door.
Central Honors Philando returns Sunday, Aug. 23, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Dunning Lot, 1221 Marshall Ave., St. Paul. Held annually on the last Sunday before the Minnesota State Fair, the free community gathering was founded by Philando’s high school classmates in 2016 as a way to celebrate his life and raise money for a scholarship in his memory.
Two alleged gang members retained attorneys and pushed back against lawsuits banning alleged gang members from gathering at the fair, calling them broad and a violation of their constitutional rights.
St. Paul police operate two Flock cameras in the city and the remaining 10 in St. Paul are owned by the Ramsey County sheriff’s office.
Park commissioners said the “placeholder” figure would lead to layoffs, reduced maintenance or closed recreation centers.
A Department of Homeland Security undercover agent lost a concealed recording device on the floor of a Minneapolis church gymnasium that a federal court had barred DHS from investigating.
A new study by the Minnesota Justice Research Center (MNJRC) highlights the success of St. Paul’s gun violence intervention program, Project PEACE.
Run by the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS), the initiative focuses on addressing the root causes of gun violence across local neighborhoods. The group contracted with MNJRC in 2024 to evaluate Project PEACE to define and explore its effectiveness and impact.
The report, titled What Does it Look Like to Keep Us Safe, Alive, and Free?, compiled feedback from 67 interviews, more than 400 community surveys, and four years of Saint Paul Police Department data.
Every summer, Minneapolis residents turn their front porches and yards into makeshift stages for Uptown Porchfest. Now in its fourth year, the festival will bring 85 bands to 37 porches across the neighborhood. Local musicians will perform everything from folk, blues and brass to metal, punk and hip-hop.
Also this weekend: St. Paul’s IndiaFest, maximalist Mexican art and Hend Al-Mansour’s new installation on Palestinian heritage.
As part of their inquiry, the documents show, homeland security officials used an array of invasive tactics during the first half of this year to gather information on many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.
In one instance, officials used administrative subpoenas to obtain more than three years of financial records from the Sunrise Movement, an environmental action group, and a labor union, the Communications Workers of America. That time frame went well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota, which was prompted by the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to the state during the winter.
In another, investigators scrutinized three years’ worth of wire transfers made by the nation’s biggest health care workers union, the Service Employees International Union, in what they referred to as an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing.”
The documents further detailed an expansive covert surveillance operation in which undercover agents spied on protesters and organizers at meetings held online, as well as in libraries, parks and churches, taking down not only what they said, but also their names and sometimes license plate numbers. The undercover agents also infiltrated group chats on Signal, listening as activists discussed coming demonstrations and their political opinions.
So far, none of the organizations targeted by the homeland security inquiry, conducted with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, have faced charges. And yet, as the investigation moved forward, prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the country’s largest federation of labor unions — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers in Minnesota.
The Homeland Security Department did not respond to a message seeking comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota declined to answer questions about the investigative tactics.
By its own account, the institutional left in Minnesota, especially the labor movement, played a central role in bringing out hundreds of thousands of people to march in protest of President Trump’s immigration crackdown in the state. But the demonstrations — and corresponding efforts to monitor the movements of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — were largely undertaken by ordinary residents, most of whom have said they were committed to peaceful resistance.
These are just brief snippets of the longer article.
...Council Member Robin Wonsley questioned whether the technology has actually improved conditions in the communities it’s meant to serve.
“MPD’s own data has shown that they have not effectively reduced gun violence in those communities [while contracting with SoundThinking],” Wonsley said, noting Minneapolis has had among the country’s worst case closure rates for homicides and non-fatal shootings over the past 12 years.
We spent millions of dollars in a decades-long partnership with this company. It’s clear it warrants reinvestigation of whether we could be spending our money elsewhere.”
St. Paul, which doesn’t use ShotSpotter, recently reported 100% case closure on non-fatal shootings after launching a non-fatal shooting task force; when the city considered ShotSpotter in 2019, then-Mayor Melvin Carter rejected it as a “toy.”
Wonsley said Minneapolis’ own non-fatal shooting task force increased case closures by 30% in its first three months.
“The city will say that we need ShotSpotter to accompany our non-fatal task force,” Wonsley said. “St. Paul shows otherwise.”
Other cities that have dropped ShotSpotter cite high false positive and false negative rates. A Star Tribune analysis of Minneapolis’ 2022 911 dispatch data found that in about 70% of 4,100 police responses to ShotSpotter activations, officers found no physical evidence of a shooting...
