U.S. Border Patrol Agent Knees Man In Face In Minneapolis As Other Agents Hold Him Down

By Max Nesterak, Minnesota Reformer

January 14, 2026

A U.S. Border Patrol agent kneed a man at least five times in the face while several other agents held him pinned facedown on the pavement in south Minneapolis on Friday, according to multiple witnesses who shared videos with the Reformer.

Yarrow Tkachuk-Kedziora, a Minneapolis resident, heard a horn blaring and looked out a second-floor window onto Chicago Avenue near 24th Street. They saw a black Chevrolet Suburban driven by a U.S. Border Patrol agent going the wrong way and then hit a gray Buick Encore head on.

An agent then jumped out of the Suburban, smashed in the driver’s window of the Encore and pulled the driver out of the car.

“It was almost faster than I could process,” Tkachuk-Kedziora said. “They took a baton out and smashed it in … and immediately, from what I could tell, started beating him.”

Monica Bicking was at work as a nurse at a nearby homeless shelter when she heard residents and staff yelling ICE was outside.

She ran out and started recording. Her video shows five Border Patrol agents on top of a man in the middle of Chicago Avenue.

One officer knees the man in the head at least five times as he cries out in pain. Bicking can be heard in the video yelling, “Stop kneeing him in the face! That’s his face! Stop it!”

“It was completely unnecessary and uncalled for,” Bicking said in an interview.

Then a masked agent with a vest reading “Border Patrol Federal Agent” approaches Bicking and tells her to back up or she’ll be arrested.

Three officers then pick up the man and carry him to the back of the Chevy — parked the wrong way, front-to-front with the man’s Buick.

On the video, bystanders who have come out to film the scene ask the injured man what his name is, and he replies over blaring whistles, “Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos,” as an agent tells him, “Get in the f*cking car.”

A GoFundMe set up for the man says he is a U.S. resident and was observing ICE activity when he was stopped. He was detained at the Whipple Federal Building before being transported to the hospital for medical treatment because he was having trouble breathing.

The Reformer has not verified the man’s identity, but received a copy of the car’s purchase contract for a man with the first and middle names Juan Carlos.

The Department of Homeland Security did not return emails seeking information about the incident.

The man stayed in the back of the Suburban as a Border Patrol agent moved the man’s car to the side of the road and another spoke with the driver of a black pick-up truck who had rear-ended the detained man, according to video shared by Charles Karter, another witness.

Karter’s video shows one agent holding what appears to be a can of chemical irritant, telling observers to back up.

The Trump administration has sent hundreds of immigration officers to Minnesota in the past week, following a few hundred back in December. They’ve been met with stiff resistance from anti-ICE activists, who are following federal officers and filming them while blowing whistles to warn their neighbors. The situation has intensified since last week, when federal officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in her vehicle.

Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit on Monday on behalf of the state of Minnesota with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seeking an end to the unprecedented surge of federal agents and officers.

The suit argues agents have acted unlawfully since their arrival in December by arresting and using force against innocent bystanders; pointing firearms against people who pose no threat; and carrying out enforcement actions at schools, churches and hospitals.

Tkachuk-Kedziora said they’re still stunned by what they saw.

“Since seeing that I do feel like I am in an occupied zone,” Tkachuk-Kedziora said.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell.