The participants in the January 25 noise demonstration had taken notes on what had worked in the streets. The clashes that established Alex Pretti square on January 24 were characterized by the rapid proliferation of barricades. On the night of January 25, by the time I could see what was happening at the Home2 Suites on University Avenue, trash cans, wood pallets, and mattresses had been pulled into the street, blocking off University Avenue on both sides of the hotel. The protesters made plenty of noise. At least one window was smashed, while the rest were decorated with messages including "Fuck ICE, ICE Out!" and "Killers stay here."
image 2: an image taken at night of a wide street barricaded with dumpsters and wooden pallets. a group of protestors stand outside the aforementioned hotel.
For the first time, ICE agents staying in the hotel walked into the lobby in plainclothes with their faces masked in order to watch the uproar. This incensed the crowd, many of whom charged up to the doors and windows to scream at the occupiers, pound on the glass, and shine strobe lights in their eyes. When one fed attempted to blow off the crowd by visibly watching basketball highlights on his phone, a protester shouted "You're watching ads, you broke bitch! Kill yourself!" The federal agent returned to his room shortly thereafter.
image 4: taken outside a broken window peering into a room where a few masked individuals in dark clothing are standing on the stairs near an elevator. on the window glass in red paint, โICE OUTโ is written. underneath this in smaller capital letters, โkill yo selfโ is written in black, the words written backward so that it would be legible to those inside. on the window pane to the right, more red paint was written where the break occurred.
After about an hour and a half, agentsโor perhaps they were hotel securityโopened the front door momentarily to yell at those outside. People crowded in front of the doors and yanked them open, as the agents and security inside scrambled to retreat. Both the outer and inner sliding doors of the lobby were forced open and people crowded into the vestibule. Chanting "Fuck ICE!", the crowd forced the doors to unhook and swing open completely, facing off against an agent and some hotel security. By this point, most of the windows had been painted. A lone Minneapolis police officer forced his way through the crowd to join the agents.
For about an hour, he was the only law enforcement there, repeatedly pelted in the face with snow and screamed at by the crowd. There was a small row of people in the front at the vestibule, a larger row of streamers and press filming and taking photos, and then the rest of the crowd behind them. People threw snowballs and trash over the heads of the press. Some young women drummed on a trash can by the entrance; their friends danced together while other protestors grabbed the contents of the can to throw inside. The agent and security attempted to barricade the entrance with vending machines, which repeatedly fell back on them. The lobby filled with trash. Eventually, a window shattered, and people took videos of masked and helmeted ICE agents leaving out the back door with their luggage.
While this was happening, people went into the parking lot and checked all of the license plates against the massive database of known ICE plates that Minnesotans have been collecting for months. The plates of two known ICE cars were announced through a megaphone, and by the end of the night, the cars had been smashed and painted.
image 7: a closer photograph taken of a large window at the front of the lobby and near the entrance. on the glass in red paint, โFascist Pigsโ and โICE GTFOโ is written in all caps.
After the police and feds left, the protesters went right back to the front of the hotel and began making noise and adding new paint to it for another hour. Minneapolis police returned in riot gear, this time with public works crews in tow, using the same bulldozers and garbage trucks they weaponize against unhoused neighbors to clear the barricade materials off the road.
Once more, protesters simply waited for them to leave, then resumed making noise. By the time I was no longer able to follow the events, the demonstration had gone on for six hours-the longest I've heard of by far.
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